Short study on 1 Corinth 13

Andrew N asked me a question in the comments on my previous post on this Bible chapter - I have decided to expand my answer into a short study on 1 Corinthians 13; as wouldn’t it be a better world if we would all become ‘love experts’?

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

This translation is from the Berean Study Bible.

Love - The word ‘love’ in this chapter is ἀγάπη agapé in Greek; there are other words for different types of love in the Greek language that are still used today by modern Greek speakers (στοργή storgé - family love, φιλέω phileo - affectionate friendship, ἔρως eros - romantic passion)

ἀγάπη in the Greek language of the First century AD meant originally the love of gods for human beings, however the New Testament repurposes the word to mean the love of God, which is seen most clearly in Jesus.

Tongues of men and of angels: in the previous chapter (1 Corinthians 12) Paul is talking about the gift of tongues, ‘tongues of angels’, which in the church was being used by some of the people as a yardstick to measure if another Christian had the Holy Spirit - in fact, Paul says the test of the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues, but confessing “Jesus is Lord.” And Paul makes it clear that different people have different gifts in the church, but that without love all the other gifts are worse than useless.

So when he says that tongues of men and angels can be gongs or clanging cymbals it is a warning, that without God’s love, displaying our knowledge and our spiritual gifts can descend into something that is both useless and irritating.

The gongs and clanging cymbals were well known to the Corinthians - they were an essential part of the worship of certain pagan cults.

Gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, faith to move mountains: Prophecy, knowledge, even faith, even giving everything away and even ‘exulting’ in self-sacrifice - without love, none of these things mean anything at all.

Faith can become a way of making people feel small or useless - for instance, when someone is blamed for not having enough faith to be healed. Self-sacrifice can simply be a matter of pride and self-centredness. The difference is, love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth.

I suppose this list of qualities doesn’t need much explanation -

The word translated patient in Greek means more literally long-suffering -

kind exactly what it says, kindness, loving, merciful -

does not envy ζηλοῖ zeloi is the root of both zealous and jealous in English, and means both - full of zeal and envious - so neither full of too much zeal nor envious of others

not self seeking can be translated, does not seek its own way

does not boast, περπερεύομαι not vainglorious, from the word πέρπερος perperos a braggart or ‘windbag’ -

is not proud, or rude How wonderful life would be if we all followed this! Other people’s pride and rudeness can be very upsetting and difficult to bear, and it is unfortunately a feature of modern life that people feel they ought to be proud, they have a right to be rude; but we all know how dreadful this can be to endure when we’re on the receiving end. Therefore we shouldn’t impose our pride or rudeness on others.

not easily angered something most of us could heed when we’re driving on the roads! Me too.

Keeps no account of wrongs I think this is the key - λογίζεται means calculate or count, and is actually the word used to describe counting something, accounting, an audit, a calculation, etcetera.

This means that love does not keep a list of other people’s wrongs.

We have all had someone list every single mistake we’ve made, every wrong we’ve done, and often there is no comeback to that; perhaps except for listing the other person’s wrongs!

This habit of keeping a list is really destructive to relationships.

When someone offends us or makes a mistake, it is a great thing to reinstate them in the relationship - as Jesus did with Peter - (John 21:15-17) with three affirmations to make up for the three times Peter denied knowing Jesus (John 18:15-27).

Elsewhere Peter himself says, “Above all, love one another deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 This is the same thing.

This is the kind of love God has for us - He forgets our sins and puts them as far away from us as East is from West (Psalm 103:12) in other words, infinitely far away. We all want to believe this - if we find it hard to believe, could it be because we are holding onto other people’s wrongs?

It is a wonderful thing, when forgiving someone, to never mention that wrong again - to treat them is as if it had never happened.

If we really knew Jesus’s love, we would understand that one of life’s greatest pleasures is to forgive a wrong in this way, and to never mention it again.

What Paul is telling us to do here, is to wipe the slate clean - if someone’s done something wrong, then apologised, (or even if they haven’t) - don’t hold onto it, don’t keep track, don’t sit there fuming over a mental list of wrongs, but rather, let the relationship resume as if the wrong never happened. And what is really loving - is to trust the person again in that area of life - to reinstate them as Jesus did for Peter.

Letting go like this is a daily necessity: Paul says in Ephesians 4:26, “Do not let the sun set upon your anger.” It is certainly something we all have to do, both for our own sake and our relationship with God, and for the sake of our relationships with others.

Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. If we saw things clearly, we would understand that our attitude in life leads us to one or other of these two extremes - and becoming a person who takes pleasure in evil is really the most dreadful thing that can happen to anyone. Learning to rejoice in the truth is both a grace, a gift from God that happens immediately, and a lifelong pursuit, and is both difficult and wonderful.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

In the course of our lives, we may love people with this agapé love - which is the love of God within us - we may do our best to win people over and be kind to them and bring them to know Jesus - and yet we may feel we have failed, because the relationship reaches an impasse, or they reject us, or they even reject Christ. In the end, Paul says here that this type of love, God’s love, never fails.

What this means in the light of eternity I don’t know - yet - but I trust it is true – for St Paul seems to be saying, even when we might think we’ve failed, that when we see God face to face, we will understand that the love of God never failed, even when we thought that it did.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will cease.

When Jesus returns, all prophecies will be done away with (Greek καταργηθήσονται), because they all will have been fulfilled, tongues will be silenced or stilled (with awe perhaps?), and knowledge will be done away with (same word καταργηθήσονται) - this is because Christ will bring a new heaven and new earth into existence in which God will dwell with His people (Revelation 21) and there will be no more tears, death, mourning, crying, because the old order of things will have passed away.

At the moment all our knowledge is only partial, prophecies only give us part of the story, language can never convey reality perfectly - but when we see God (and our God is love, agapé) face to face, that’s when “the perfect comes” - everything partial will pass away.

There are different views on this, but I suspect that when a Christian dies, he or she is in this state too - face to face with God - everything partial has passed away.

Seeing in a mirror dimly - the only mirrors they had in those days were polished brass or bronze - it was a dim, imperfect image - Paul is saying everything we know now is imperfect and partial like a child’s view of the world - naïve and imperfect - I think this means when we see God face to face we will know Him just as He now knows us. I think we will also know others, in the same way, as well.

The greatest of the three is love - I wonder if this is because faith and hope can both go wrong without love - faith can become a burden on others and hope can turn to violence to achieve its ends - but love (in this sense, the type of love God has for us) can never go wrong - ultimately.

Photo by Bent Hertema on Unsplash