Boyd's Commentary. R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
MAIN THOUGHT: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV)
LESSON SETTING
Time: A.D. 53–54
Place: Corinth
LESSON OUTLINE
I. Ministry without Love (1 Corinthians 13:1–3)
II. What Is Love? (1 Corinthians 13:4–7)
III. It’s All About Love (1 Corinthians 13:8–13)
UNIFYING PRINCIPLE
Special gifts such as knowledge and wisdom easily can make us lose sight of our obligations to others. How can we avoid being pleased with ourselves? Paul suggested love is the best way to relate to others and forget one’s own status.
INTRODUCTION
People in general understand the need for love, but rarely do you find many living their lives according to it. Before we recognize our call to preach, the gift to teach, the passion to serve, or even the desire to worship, God asks us, “Do you love Me?” The love we have for God is what connects us to God and enables us to be used by God. Sometimes this fundamental idea gets lost in the prestige of spiritual gifts.
God endows us with spiritual gifts not to inflate the ego but to empower us to create an environment where love can be nurtured, grown, and developed in the heart of every believer. God’s will for us is that we reflect the light of His glory and love in the world. The way we do this is through the use of our spiritual gifts. However, without love, our spiritual gifts are rendered of no effect. Which means, it’s not about what kind of gifts we get or who is more gifted. Instead, it’s a question of love and our commitment to live the more excellent way.
Paul used this phrase to encourage the Christians living in Corinth to choose love as the more excellent way. After receiving prior correspondence from them and learning about disagreements and divisions that had arisen over spiritual gifts among the people in the community, Paul wrote back. He encouraged believers to live and serve God based on the conviction of love rather than any other gift. Love is the only sure thing to last.
EXPOSITION
I. MINISTRY WITHOUT LOVE (1 CORINTHIANS 13:1–3)
According to Paul, only one thing matters when it comes to spiritual gifts—love. Without it, one’s gifts, no matter how elaborate and divine, are as useless as sounding brass or clanging cymbals. As an example, exercising the gift of speaking in tongues without love is like a band of expensive instruments playing out of sync with each other. It disrupts rather than creating harmony amid the community of believers. In hypothetical fashion, Paul continued with his insistence of love. He intentionally exaggerated his position. He wrote, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2, NRSV). This stressed his point that without love those spectacular feats of faith are meaningless. He further argued that even the most noble acts of personal sacrifice, such as giving away personal possessions or surrendering the body to be burned, count for nothing when love is not the reason for doing them.
First Corinthians 13 is couched between two chapters that explain Paul’s understanding of spiritual gifts. The reality of spiritual gifts has never been in question, but only their implementation. Paul wrote in 14:26 (NRSV), “What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” The notion of love is that whatever is done must be done in and for a spirit of collective blessing.
Tongues without love are of no help to any but the speaker. They produce cacophony. Love tempers its gifts so they are used in an appropriate manner for the moment and setting. Anything less is self-aggrandizement and given to produce division, strife, and power struggles. Nothing is gained from this. Paul wrote repeatedly in 13:1–3 that “I am nothing” or “I gain nothing.” An appropriate translation would be, “I am no one, and I accomplish nothing.” These latter phrases get at the heart of the matter. Because spiritual gifts can be a matter of pride, those who possessed them within the Corinthian church needed a reminder the gifts were not a matter of pride. The gifts’ expression and reason for use should take center stage.
II. WHAT IS LOVE? (1 CORINTHIANS 13:4–7)
Verse 1–3 are designed to teach the emptiness of gifts not controlled by love. Verses 4–7 show the characteristics of love. Paul’s ideas of love were especially relevant to the congregational and liturgical problems evident within the life of the believers in Corinth. Paul drew attention to those characteristics of love most important for harmonious relationships because of the Corinthians’ misunderstanding of spiritual matters, which lay primarily in their failure to live as a body.
First, Paul said love suffers long or is patient, a quality he had developed by default in his dealings with the people of Corinth and their slow surrender to the principles of Christ. Having to handle them with a firm tenderness made Paul realize love is also kind and gentle. The love he felt for them was so fulfilling, so satisfying, there was little room for anything else and, therefore, it did not envy. Because of his many humbling encounters throughout his journey, Paul had discovered love is not puffed up, meaning love isn’t fueled by pride but by conviction.
He continued in his commentary on love in verse 5 where he said love does not behave rudely, in reference to social decorum. Though the definitions of rude vary from culture to culture, at the heart of rudeness is a disregard for the social customs others have adopted. When one does not concern themselves with the likes and dislikes of others, they show a disrespect. A perfect example is taken from the Pauline corpus. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul said stronger believers should not eat meat if it offended their weaker brothers or sisters. This was an issue that was constrained by culture, but it’s lesson still rings true for modern believers. Rudeness is relegated to culture, and for that matter, love takes the time to learn the culture of another so as not to offend. Proper regard indicates love for another. Nevertheless, love does not always require a person to go along with the crowd. When the customs of a culture contradict the higher ideals of the Christian faith, it is not unloving to break these social mores. In fact, it actually may show Christlike love to break with such cultural norms. For instance, every loving Christian bears the responsibility to break the customs that perpetuate racial, gender, and other forms of discrimination.
According to Paul, love does not seek its own, meaning it’s not self-serving and therefore is not easily provoked. Those who love others are slow to anger. Anger is slow to develop in love because love seeks to understand rather than to be understood. Understanding the other gives over to patience because it gives another perspective that may not have been previously considered. Love considers that each person has something to contribute. In doing so, it takes the opinions and feelings of others seriously. To not seek one’s own is to consider others before self, such as is stated in Philippians 2:3. Selfishness is the product of a belief in entitlement or privilege. Acting in love essentially means to think of the other as one thinks of the self. As I am beautiful, smart, worthy, and made in the image of God, so is the other. This produces