March 11, 2014
CHRISTIAN LOVE: EXCELLENT WHEN ACTIVE, SELFLESS, AND FROM THE LORD
1 Corinthians 13
Matt Barnes
Central Truth
Love is the necessity in the Christian life apart from which nothing else matters and is supernatural in its power. Our source of love cannot come from ourselves, for we are weak, but must come from the love of the One who is love, Jesus.
Key Verse | 1 Corinthians 13:4–5
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. (1 Corinthians 13:4-5a)
1 Corinthians 13
The Way of Love
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, 1 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 2 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Dive Deeper | 1 Corinthians 13
I have indeed inherited one of the most quintessential Bible passages of all time: Scripture's take on the topic of Christian LOVE. It's been quoted in everything from President Obama's first inaugural address to Tony Blair's speech at Princess Diana's funeral. Chances are if you have attended a wedding in the last 50 years, you've heard it read. Simply put, it is everywhere.
If you are cognizant of the context of this chapter, you see that Paul is specifically rebuking the church in Corinth for a lack of love, possibly because of distractions tied to the spiritual gifts articulated in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. We have to remember that spiritual gifts are significant, but love is supreme.
From 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 we take our two main applications for this chapter, only after understanding their context. First, love in its essence is selfless. Love can neither be sparked by someone else showing us love or be based on an assumption that we will receive love in the future. Second, love is inevitably active in its role. This small stanza is packed with action verbs, not simply descriptive adjectives. Paul is out to apply love, not just define it!
As he wraps up this short chapter, Paul reminds us that spiritual gifts are temporal, but love is eternal, employing allusions to maturing out of childhood and seeing through a hazy mirror. He even ranks love above faith and hope -- two spiritual attributes he often muses on -- in an effort to emphasize the absolute necessity of Christian love.
Before you move onto the discussion questions, try inserting your name into verses four through seven in place of the word love. Does it describe you? Do not be discouraged, because only one name can stand this test: JESUS CHRIST. Our Lord is this love. His love is not passive endurance, but active pursuit of us, and He desires us to emulate it in our lives. Nothing can separate us from this love (Romans 8:38-39), and, out of our gratitude for this love, we overflow with it.
Discussion Questions
1. Do people typically comment on your physical appearance/accomplishments/status, or the way you love people? How do you change that?
2. Are you more focused on identifying your spiritual gifts or applying them in love?
3. Is Christ's love the driving factor of your love? Or does it come from a human desire to reciprocate love or show love expectantly?
4. Who can you love without getting anything in return?