1 Corinthians 13
This chapter on love needs to be read as a contrast to what was happening in the church of Corinth. The church in Corinth was deeply divided in doctrine, practice, social class and spiritual gifts. There were divisions in following various leaders, conflicts in ministry and spiritual one-upmanship.
This chapter was written primarily for loveless people in the church who think themselves superior than their brethren. In that light, it is very relevant to local churches today where Godʼs people are entrenched in a similar mould; what is characteristic of churches today is not far different from what was happening in the church of Corinth.
As we read this chapter, we need to note the standard of love described and realize with soberness that none of us lives with this kind of love. The love described here is the love of Jesus Himself; it is the exact opposite of our sinful, self-centred human nature and it is precisely a corrective passage to the particular denials of love shown in the church at Corinth.
The chapter begins with a clear message: love is foundational, and without love there can be nothing of value in the eyes of God. The spiritual life of an individual, or of a congregation, is measured not by gifts or busy activity, not by size and impact, not by commitment to sound doctrine, or keenness to experience Godʼs power but by love.The existence and use of spiritual gifts are not in themselves the mark of genuine spirituality. It is only the presence and motivation of lovethat denotes the presence of Godʼs Spirit, because biblical spiritualityis all about the self-giving love of Christ in His atoning sacrifice for sinners on the cross. In a nutshell, this love is superior to all extraordinary spiritual gifts and talents.
The Apostle Paul went on to make a series of comparisons of such extraordinary gifts with love and show how essential love is. Without love, having a gift of utterance with words would result in our words producing only an “empty sound coming forth from an hollow lifeless vessel”. The gift of knowledge and understanding of mysteries is nothing without love; no one cares how much we know unless they also know how much we love. The gift of great faith that is able to accomplishthe ʻimpossiblesʼ is nothing too without love. Even the greatest goodworks like giving away everything and suffering martyrdom can be done without love. They may be done to boost our spiritual pride or toget something from God. Unless such deeds are motivated by genuine love for God, they will amount to nothing. No matter what gifts God has given us and no matter what we have done for God, without love,they mean nothing.
It is certainly possible to use our gifts for ministry without love for anyone except ourselves. The Apostle Paul was not denying the value of spiritual gifts and ministry in the church; instead, he was saying that every spiritual gift must be used in a loving way and what really matters is how loving we are and not how gifted we are. The love in this chapter is really the love of Jesus. We will only learn to love by having more of Jesus in our hearts and lives. The only way for us to become more loving is to have more of the love of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can start to love the way that Jesus loves. 1 Corinthians 13 is in fact a portrait of love personified in the person of the Lord JesusChrist, and this love is available to us more and more as we become more and more like our Lord Jesus.
Paul went on to comment on the characteristics of love, statingwhat love is like and what love is not like. The first feature: love is patient and kind. Anyone who can testify to Godʼs kindness in his lifeis called to show kindness to others. Love begins not with us loving but with us being loved. Only through faith in Christ can we begin to love the way Jesus loves. Knowing the love of Christ through faith enables us to love others; similarly, knowing the kindness of God enables us to start showing the kindness of God to others. The kindness we are calledto show also means showing it to people who do not even deserve it; itincludes showing selfless kindness to those who have been unkind to us.Do not wait for others to be nice to you before you are nice to them, buttreat others as kindly as God has treated you through the cross of Christ.
As believers, are we known as people of kindness, or do people associate Christians as those with attitudes that are judgemental, hypocritical and self-centred?
Paul went on to define love according to what it is not. The firstof this: love is not irritable. It is not grumpy or grouchy, going into a tirade, or verbal abuse or silent treatment. Whenever we start to get irritated, we should see this as a failure to love. So if we get angry about trivial things, rather than putting the blame on others, our exasperationis not just a failure to love other people but also a failure to love God. Irritability has a negative view of God; instead of seeking Godʼs help,irritability chooses to be angry. Anger does not just hurt other people,it also hinders our own relationship with God.
The second feature: love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. Envy is really a form of hostility; instead of rejoicing in the success of others, the envious person will be troubled by it. This is something that love never does. True love does not begrudge the honour of another, but delights in it for their sake. Why are we green with envy when someone gets what we want and why is it important for others to praise us for our achievements? When we are envious, boastful, rude and arrogant, we will not get down on our knees to serve like Jesus did in washing the feet of His disciples; instead we expect others to get down on their knees to serve us. It is only when we humble ourselves to go to the cross on our knees in repentance that we can ask the Lord Jesus to help us love the way He loves.
The third feature: love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, butrejoices with the truth. Love does not celebrate someone elseʼs sin; it does not feel a sense of satisfaction when someone else does something wrong, especially someone with whom we disagree. It is not the way of love to always track down and point out what is wrong in othersʼlives. It wants to rejoice in what is right.
The fourth feature: love doe not insist on its own way. Jesus taught us to be intentional about loving others and resisting the temptations toput ourselves first. One way of loving others is by not insisting on ourway. It is by not living for self-interest or self-advantage. It does not pursue self-gratification but practices self-denial instead.
Our love for ourselves is one long love affair that most of us never abandon. We see this in the way we pursue our careers, getting ahead of others by whatever means available; we see this in the way we spend our money for personal pleasure rather than for the good of others. We see it also in the way we neglect our families, our children, abandoning our spouses and putting our old folks away. Our highest calling for most of us is to take loving care of ourselves. There is a limited sense in which believers are to take care of themselves and be good stewards of their bodies, but it should not gravitate toward self-interest and self-centredness.
Then comes the profound statement: love bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, endures all things. What does this really mean?
Love bears all things and endures all things in the sense of suffering patiently all the troubles that come from dealing with other people, including people who try to harm us. We may be prepared to come alongside others to help carry their burdens, but to deal patiently with all the hurts that come our way when people attack us is a most difficult thing. Yet love is able to put up with anything and continue to love; it is willing to endure all sufferings for the sake of Christ and the gospel. Only the love of Jesus can empower us to love in such a manner; only the love of Jesus will carry us through.
Love believes all things does not mean that love will believe absolutely anything. Love is not gullible. Love believes all things and hopes all things means that love is able to continue believing through the most extreme situations of hardship and suffering without losing hope. Love enables us to persevere in the present because of ourconfident belief and hope in the eternal future and there is in fact no limit to loveʼs believing, for the object of this belief, confidence and hope is in Christ and His promises. Knowing our Fatherʼs love and the love of Jesus strengthens our faith. The more we experience Godʼs love,the more we will learn to trust Him, even in times of extreme need and desperate hopelessness; love, therefore, believes all things and hopes all things in Christ.
Verse 8 declares: love never fails or love never ends. Prophecies will pass away, tongues will cease and knowledge will also pass away but love endures. Paul used two contrasting images from everyday life to help us understand this profound reality. He compared childhood with adulthood and the reflection in a mirror with the reality it represents.He was saying that no matter how much we mature spiritually in this life, it will only be a childhood compared with the complete maturity we will realise in heaven. The second picture reinforces the same idea;with the second coming of Christ, the reflection in the mirror will bereplaced with the reality, and gifts will no longer be needed. Faith is no longer needed when the reality is fully apprehended; hope is no longer in existence when what was hoped for has been fully realised. But love never ends and love never fails. In the new heavens and new earth, we will learn to love God to perfection and to love all those who are His children. Love will never be superseded.