ALL 'SPIRITUAL' ACTIVITY IS DEVOID OF VALUE IF LOVE IS LACKING (13:1-3) 'If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding bronze, or a clanging cymbal.' We note immediately Paul's movement to the first person. He is following his own suggestion. He is revea... [ Continue Reading ]
LOVE MUST LIE AT THE ROOT OF ALL WE DO ESPECIALLY OUR MINISTRY TO THE CHURCH (13:1-13). Paul now deals with what must lie behind the use of spiritual gifts, if they are to be truly spiritual. And in so doing he expands into a detailed description of what is involved in Christian love. It is a retur... [ Continue Reading ]
'And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.' And this is not only true of tongues, it is true of the other manifestations as well. It is not only tongues that are in his sights. He does not c... [ Continue Reading ]
'And if I bestow all my goods to feed others, and if I give my body that I may glory (or 'to be burned'), but have not love, it profits me nothing.' ''And if I bestow all my goods to feed others.' Even charitable giving to the extent of total self-sacrifice in which one is personally involved over... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW TRUE LOVE IS REVEALED (13:4-8A). This definition of love covers all angles. Because it portrays the essentials of love looking from our point of view, it gives us a totally rounded view of what true love is. It thus covers what God's love to us is like. It covers in depth precisely what Jesus'... [ Continue Reading ]
'Love never fails. But whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.'... [ Continue Reading ]
LOVE WILL INDEED OUTLIVE ALL SPIRITUAL GIFTS, AND IS EVEN GREATER THAN FAITH AND HOPE (13:8B-13). For then we are brought back to how such love compares with the subject in hand. Prophecies, tongues and 'spiritual knowledge' are all temporary, for they will fade away when the reality comes. Christi... [ Continue Reading ]
'When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.' So we must recognise the inadequacy of prophecy and of our knowledge. We will in that day recognise that we have seen things as though we were still childr... [ Continue Reading ]
'For now we see in (literally 'through') a mirror, obscurely; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.' For now we see things obscurely as in a mirror. Mirrors in those days were made of polished metal such as bronze, and what was seen in... [ Continue Reading ]
'But now abides faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.' There are in fact three things that, unlike spiritual gifts, are permanent and enduring, continually abiding now and which will abide through the resurrection and beyond, faith, hope and love. Unlike prophecy and kno... [ Continue Reading ]