1Co 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1Co 13:2 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. 1 Co 13:3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1Co 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 1Co 13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 1Co 13:6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 1Co 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1Co 13:8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 1Co 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 1Co 13:10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 1Co 13:11 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. 1Co 13:12 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. 1Co 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
As I usually do, I am going to give you a refresher of what we have covered the past ten weeks. We will have at least one more message on this text and possibly even two more depending on how it all comes together.
When we started we covered the first three verses and in it we saw the importance and the necessity of love in the Christian’s life. Paul stressed that there is nothing more important in the life of a Christian than love. So Paul goes on not just to tell us about the importance of it but what it should look like. That is what we have been covering for the past several messages starting with…
Love is patient or slow to react and it waits steadfastly.
Love is Kind, it looks for a place to act, it is active
Love does not envy, it is not jealous of others accomplishments
Love does not boast and is not arrogant; we are not smarter than God
Love is not rude or unseemly, don’t be an offense to others even if it seems silly to you.
Love does not insist on its own way, our love for others cause us to insist on God’s way.
Love is not irritable or easily provoked, it is slow to anger
Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth, we should not be too quick to accuse others and we should be encouraging them when they are down.
And last time we covered…
Love bears, believes, hopes and endures all things which calls us to encourage and protect others even if it hurts us.
We are going to cover verses 8,9 and 10 today.
Vs. 8… Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues they will cease; as for knowledge it will pass away.
Vs. 9… For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
Vs. 10… but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
There are several ways we can look at this and as far as I can tell they would all be accurate but let’s keep in mind the proper context of the book as we move on. Let’s begin by looking at the first phrase “Love never ends”. Some translations including the King James use the word fail. That is technically accurate for the day but by todays vernacular love never ends is a better translation. It means that true love is everlasting not that love always succeeds as one might interpret the word fail. The divorce rate of today speaks volumes to this. Of course some would claim that true love was never present to begin with if it ended in divorce and I do not totally disagree with that. Although no matter how much you love someone it does not guarantee that that love will be accepted. Of course that does not give us a license to stop loving though. Much like though we did not first love Him, He loved us enough to die for us and that love continues and will always continue.
If we go back to our context of this letter Paul is admonishing the Corinthians because they were prideful and boasting about their gifts. As I read commentary after commentary about this text it seemed to me that most just wanted to use these verses to support their beliefs of whether or not tongues and prophesy and words of knowledge still exist today or not. I think that many are missing the bigger picture. Not that it has not bearing but we can get so wrapped up in the minor things that we miss the major thing. Just like the Corinthians were and that is the same thing Paul is admonishing them for. They, just like us, were focusing on the temporal, less important issues. All those spiritual gifts that they had and were so proud of, all the talents, all the riches, they are not going to last and are not important in comparison to love. Most everything that we value will fail or cease to exist but in the end love will replace all those things that failed you, with perfection. Our perspective of what is important has become twisted and we as a people have been deceived, just as the Corinthians had.
Mat 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
Mat 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This is not only about material things. If your heart is full of pride than your treasure is in yourself. As we have seen in previous weeks love is about laying ourselves down for others. It is about esteeming others above ourselves. My question to you is this… Where is your heart today? Is it seeking to do good and to encourage others or is it just to better yourself. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that bettering yourself is bad, but if you place it above loving others than you are deceived about what is important. Just as the Corinthians were.
Loving God and others is our most important duty as Christians. All the other “things” even if they seem like good things. Tongues, prophesy and words of knowledge were not bad things that the Corinthian’s were doing. But they were not doing them out of a heart of love for others but they were doing them to raise themselves on a pedestal and arguing about which spiritual gift is better than the other.
I have been to churches with Sunday morning services that were a performance just like a secular concert. During praise and worship time you could sit at a small table and order and eat coffee and donuts…during the service!
The focus is no longer on love and on God. It is on gifts and talents that will expire.
I have referenced this text before and will continue probably for the rest of my life because it is so clear and it has affected my perspective in a tremendous way.
Mat 22:36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
Mat 22:37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Mat 22:38 This is the great and first commandment.
Mat 22:39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Mat 22:40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
Loving God is our greatest command and loving others is second. There are no greater commands than those two. There are others obviously but they all have the same root. Love is the root. If love is the root in your life than the fruits of the spirit will be what grows on you.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Gal 5:24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Gal 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Gal 5:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
These fruits sound very similar to the traits of love that we have been discussing all these weeks. Paul lays all of this out very plainly and in many places and ways in the books that he has written.
Eph 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
Eph 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
We are called to walk in love, which is a sacrificial love, as Christ did for us, and lay down our lives for others. Our own status, our own talents, our abilities, whatever it may be, if it becomes more important than love or interferes with love than it is sin. I believe that is the main point that Paul is trying to make in the text. We should strive after love and everything else having to do with gifts, talents etc. will be done in a honoring and pleasing way to God as a sweet smelling sacrifice to Him.
