1 Corinthians 13, often read at weddings, is not just a beautiful description of love. Paul wrote this passage to admonish the Corinthians for arguing over spiritual gifts, emphasizing that the most important thing is love for God and others.
What Is Really Important - Love
What gifts has God given you? Are you faithful to Him? Are you patient? Are you kind, merciful, or wise? Which gift do you value more? In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul tells us that if we have enough faith to move a mountain, we are nothing if our faith is without love. If I am gifted in speech with other languages or divinely eloquent, but don't have love it sounds like "sounding brass or a clanging symbol", in other words, it's just noise. Giving everything to the poor, even sacrificing our lives, gains us nothing if we don't do it in love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). If a gift is used without love it is of no value. To God, love is more precious than anything.
God Is Love
It is interesting that God is called love but He is never referred to as hope or faith. He is the God of hope. He is the source of our faith. Faith and hope are for us personally, but love is for our neighbors. Love is to be shared with others as God shared it with us. First John makes it clear that God is the embodiment of love (1 John 4:8).
Living Out Love
The next verses (4-7) describe how we live out God's love. The one who loves is long suffering, kind, not envious, not proud, not rude, not provoked, doesn't think about evil things, and rejoices in what is true. Does that describe you? This is the love God wants us to have.
Unconditional Love
Paul is speaking of 'agape' love, which in the Greek means unconditional love, love that is not determined by what someone does for us or says to us. It is a love that will lay down its life for another because Jesus taught us by example that that is what we should do. It is the kind of love we should have for God because this is His love for us.
Peter Has Unconditional Love
In John 21, Jesus asks Peter if He loves Him. He asks Peter twice if he loves him with 'agape' love. Does Peter love unconditionally? Jesus also asks Peter if he loves Him with 'phileo' love, brotherly and friendship love. Peter is about to embark on his life's work and Jesus wants to know if he is ready. Does Peter have the greatest of the three? Does he have love that is unconditional? Does he have the love of a brother? Peter answers yes!
Faith, Hope And Love Are Eternal
Whatever gifts we have in this present life they will cease. The things that remain, Paul tells us, in the next life will be faith, hope and love. These we will have throughout eternity (1 Corinthians 13:8-10). Our faith and hope in God will continue in the next life and His love, which is our love, will be perfected.
Love Is Greater Than Faith And Hope
Most famously, Paul says that of faith, hope and love, "The greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13). What? Love is greater than faith? Love is greater than hope? The foundation of Christianity sits on our faith and hope. In fact in Hebrews 11:1 we are told that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." They are intertwined. But what of love? Why does Paul say it is the greatest?
According to the Pulpit Commentary, "Love is the greatest, because it is the root of the other two; "we believe only in that which we love; we hope only for that which we love." Love is the expression of our faith to others. It is our love that brings Christ to others. We are a letter from Christ to the world (2 Corinthians 3:3).
Our Most Powerful Weapon
In today's world we are seeing Christians more frequently come under verbal and sometimes physical attack. How should we respond? Do we think that people who aren't Christians will act like Christians? That is very naive. This huge emphasis Paul places on love doesn't mean Christians have to accept evil. What it means is that we face evil with the most powerful weapon we have—love.
Bless Our Enemies
Jesus Himself tells us how to face evil. In Matthew 5:43-44, Jesus says to love our enemies, bless people who curse us, be good to people who hate us and pray for our persecutors. The Greek word bless means to praise or speak well of a person. It means to give thanks for them. Jesus on the cross is our role model; He didn't rain down curses on His murderers, He prayed for their forgiveness. He loved them.
Persecution Produces Character
The things that people do to us that mean us harm, whether through ridicule or violence, can be used for good for those of us who are called "according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). In 1 Peter 1: 6-7, Peter tells us our trials can be a source of rejoicing because they refine us and show us our faith is genuine. Paul, in Romans 5:3-5, says that persecution produces perseverance, character and hope. James 1:2-4 echoes Paul, when he says that trials develop maturity and character. These sound like character traits that I should actually want.
The Holy Spirit Teaches Us To Love
Romans 5:5 explains to us that our hope isn't disappointed, because the Holy Spirit has poured the love of God into our hearts. In our own strength it would be impossible to respond to evil with selfless love, but with the Holy Spirit living in us we can do it. We can move past the hurt feeling of being ridiculed, and step out in faith and hope to love the unlovable. And when evil touches us physically, even unto death, we can pray for the Holy Spirit to help us love as Jesus did.
Pursue Love
Paul finishes these thoughts in 1 Corinthians 14:1 by saying that we should "pursue love". Love is to be sought after earnestly, with diligence. It is to be sought after with commitment, practice and sacrifice. This implies effort, a lot of effort on our part, to become the loving people of God that He desires us to be. We don't just give up when we try to love people who persecute us. We pursue that love like a hunter after his prey.
Dear Father,
Help me to love as you loved. Help me to realize that without love anything else I do is useless and of no value. Thank you for loving me. Please give me the grace to be able to love unconditionally those who would harm me in any way.
In Jesus's name, Amen
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