1 Corinthians 13
Big idea: The most excellent way. Placed deliberately between the gifts chapters, the poem makes three moves: without love, the most spectacular gifts and sacrifices amount to nothing (vv. 1–3); love is defined by fifteen verbs — behavior, not sentiment — several of which name exactly Corinth's sins (vv. 4–7); and love outlasts every gift, because gifts belong to the age of partial knowledge, while love belongs to the age of face-to-face (vv. 8–13).
Not an interlude but the argument's center: ch. 12 said gifts are distributed for the common profit; ch. 13 names the disposition that makes that possible; ch. 14 applies it ('follow after love') to tongues and prophecy.
13:1–3 — Without love, nothing
Three escalating hypotheticals in the first person: tongues of men and angels without love — noise (sounding brass, clanging cymbal); prophecy, all mysteries, all knowledge, mountain-moving faith without love — I am nothing; total philanthropy and even bodily martyrdom without love — it profits me nothing. The inventory is Corinth's trophy case, maximized and then zeroed.
1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
13:4–7 — What love does
Love defined by fifteen verbs, not adjectives: it is patient and kind; it doesn't envy, brag, or inflate; doesn't behave indecorously, seek its own, get provoked, or keep an account of evil; doesn't rejoice at unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth; bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all. Nearly every negative names a documented Corinthian behavior — envy (3:3), inflation (4:6; 8:1), indecorum (11:21), seeking one's own (10:24), litigation over wrongs (6:1–8).
4 Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, 5 doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6 doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
13:8–13 — Love never fails
The eschatological ranking: love never fails, but prophecies, tongues, and knowledge are scheduled for obsolescence — they belong to the 'in part,' which the 'complete' will retire. Two images carry it: the child's speech, feeling, and thought put away at manhood; and the mirror — now an indirect, dim seeing, then face to face; now partial knowing, then knowing fully even as fully known. What remains through the transition: faith, hope, love — these three; and the greatest is love.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).
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