1 Corinthians 13

CHAPTER 13THEME: Lovethe energy of the giftsThis chapter is properly called the love chapter of the Bible. Many men have attempted to give an exposition of it. Frankly, I have preached on it only once or twice in my ministry. Although I have taught it whenever I have come to it in a program of going through the Bible on radio or at any of the churches I have served, candidly, it is a passage that passes beyond my comprehension and capability. In 1884 Henry Drummond wrote a very brilliant essay entitled, The Greatest Thing in the World. It was put into my hands very early in my Christian life. It is a great little book on this thirteenth chapter. The word charity, which is used throughout this chapter, should be love. The Vulgate, which is the Latin translation, and Wycliffe’s English translation used the word charity, and this word was carried over into the King James Version. The Greek word is agape, which is properly translated love. You will not find a definition of love in this chapter. Sometimes definitions are destructive. To try to define love would actually be a very serious violation of this chapter. When you try to define a rose, you can read the description of a rose that botany gives you, but that definition doesn’t picture a rose like I know a rose to be. Or have you ever had anyone describe a sunset for you? I remember one evening at the Island of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands standing on the deck of a little boat and seeing the moon come up. It was such a thrill that it made the goose pimples come up all over me. I wish I could picture it for you, but I cannot. This chapter gives to us a display of love, not a definition. There are three words in the Greek which are all translated by our one word love. There is the word eros. That is the word for passion, the word used for lust. It is used of Aphrodite and Eros, or Venus and Cupid as we more commonly know them. Sex would be our word for it today. This word does not occur in the New Testament at all. Then there is the word phileo, which means “affection.” We find that root in our words Philadelphia and philanthropist. It means a love of man, a love of a brother. It means human love at its highest, a noble love. The word agapao is the highest word for love in the New Testament and means “divine love.” It is more than love in the emotion; it is love in the will. It is love that chooses its object. It is a definition of God, for God is love. Now I am going to give you an outline of the chapter. Again, this seems like a violation of the chapter, but the mechanics will help us understand it. The preeminence of loveits value (vv. 1Co_13:1-3) The prerogative of loveits virtue (vv. 1Co_13:4-7) The permanence of loveits victory (vv. 1Co_13:8-13) Remember how this chapter follows the thought in chapter 12, which was the endowment of gifts. Chapter 13 tells of the energy of the gifts. All gifts of the Spirit are to be exercised in love.

1 Corinthians 13:1

PREEMINENCE OF LOVEITS VALUEI am sure the tongues of angels means eloquence. I have never heard an angel speak, but I think Paul had heard them. The most marvelous eloquence without love is nothing in the world but a noisy bell. Dr. Scroggie says it like this: “Language without love is noise without melody.” McGee says it like this: “Chatter without charity is sound without soul.” You can sing like a seraph, but without love it is nothing but the hiss of hell. Love gives meaning and depth and reality, and it makes eloquence meaningful.

1 Corinthians 13:2

The first verse was speaking of love as it comes from the heart. This is from the mind, love as an act of the intellect. Knowledge alone is not sufficient. Love must be added to that knowledge. Understanding alone is not enough. Love must be added to that understanding. I feel this is the sad plight of Bible-believing churches in our day. There is a knowledge of the Bible and an understanding of the truths of the Bible but a lack of love. How terrible to find churches filled with gossip, bitterness, and hatred! Along with knowledge there must be love.

1 Corinthians 13:3

This love is an act of the will. Love involves the heart (v. 1Co_13:1), the mind (v. 1Co_13:2), and the will (v. 1Co_13:3). Love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Although we are to covet earnestly the best gifts, they are to be exercised in loveand only the Spirit of God can do that. Look at it this way: Write down a string of zeroseloquence alone is zero, prophecy alone is zero, knowledge alone is zero, faith alone is zero, sacrifice alone is zero, martyrdom alone is zero. Six zeros still add up to nothing. But you put the numeral 1 to the left of that string of zeros, and every zero amounts to something. And, friend, love is the thing that needs to be added to every gift of the Spirit. Without love your gift is worthless.

1 Corinthians 13:4

PREROGATIVE OF LOVEITS VIRTUE"Love suffers long," which means it is patient and kind. Love is impossible without kindness. Love without kindness is like springtime without flowers, like fire without heat. Remember how Paul admonished, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph_4:32). This is the positive side. Now notice the negative side. “Love envieth not.” Love does not envy, which means that love is content with its lot. We all know that life is filled with inequality. Some men are rich, and I hear Christians say, “Why did God bless that man with so much wealth and not give me some?” Love recognizes that there are inequalities, and love is satisfied with its lot. Remember that the very first murder, when Cain slew Abel, was prompted by envy. We do well to ponder the example of John the Baptist who showed no envy when the ministry of Jesus was growing in popularity with the people. John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Joh_3:30). When we consider that we each have a different lot in life and each have a different ministry for the Lord, we should consider the words of our Lord Himself when He talked to Peter: “…If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me” (Joh_21:22). Bacon said that envy “is a vile affection and it’s most depraved of any thing.” An example of a man who loved another man without envy is Jonathan. Although he was the crown prince, he did not envy David even though he knew that David would occupy the throne in his stead. “Love vaunteth not itself.” Moffitt translates this “makes no parade.” It is not boastful or ostentatious. You know, there is a vulgarity about boasting. A young preacher stood up in a conference in Tennessee and said, “I want you to know that I’m not a trained minister. I am an ignorant minister, and I’m proud of it.” The bishop answered him, “I can see you have a lot to be proud of, and, young man, it is dangerous to boast even about ignorance.” Love is “not puffed up.” That means it does not travel on airit is not inflated. You know what it is like to be traveling on a tire filled with air, then suddenly have a flat tire. There is many a flat tire even among Christians because there are so many who are puffed up. When the air is gone, there is nothing there!

1 Corinthians 13:5

Love does not behave itself unseemly; that is, it doesn’t act peculiar. It is true that in 1 Peter the believers are called a peculiar people, but they shouldn’t act peculiar. It literally means a people for His possession. We are to exercise courtesy. We are not to be rude. We are not to act like strange people. We ought to be polite. Unfortunately, there is so much today that can be called unlovely religion. But love does not behave itself unseemly. Love “seeketh not her own.” Love inquires into the motives for action; that is, it asks, “Why am I doing this?” Since I have been retired, I have examined my own heart as I never did before. I have searched out my own motives. Am I doing it out of love for Christ? That is so important. Love is the secret of service. Love “is not easily provoked.” It doesn’t have a bad temper. Being provoked is the vice of the virtuous. I’m afraid it is the vice of many of us. Love “thinketh no evil.” How sad it is to see people thrive on gossip. There are Christians who ladle up dirt. They are suggestive in what they have to say.

1 Corinthians 13:6

Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but love rejoices in the truth. What brings joy to your heart? Bad or good? Which is it? If you hear something bad about someone who is your enemy or whom you do not like, do you rejoice? Or does it make you sad to see your enemy suffer?

1 Corinthians 13:7

Love bears all things. “Bears” has the thought of protection. Love puts up an umbrella for others. Love “believeth all things.” That does not mean that love is foolishly credulous. It does mean that love does not regard people with suspicion. Love “hopeth all things.” Oh, the optimism of love! It “endureth all things.” Love remains strong through testing. We learn from all this that love is an abstract noun, but it is not to remain abstract. It is to be translated into life and action. It is to express itself in action through patience, through kindness, without envy, without boastfulness.

1 Corinthians 13:8

PERMANENCE OF LOVEITS VICTORYLove never fails. That is why at the end of the chapter it says, “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Love abides. It is permanent. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem entitled “I Loved Once,” in which she writes, “They never loved who dreamed that they loved once,” and “Love looks beyond the bounds of time and space, Love takes eternity in its embrace.” Love is deathless. It is never defeated, never disillusioned, never disappointed. Love that is a passion burns like a straw stack and is soon consumed. That is the reason there are so many divorces today. It was not the kind of love that holds two hearts together. Love is eternal.

It is permanent. God’s love is that kind of love. How wonderful that is! His love looks beyond the bounds of time and space and takes eternity in its embrace. Christ never ceased loving. You can’t do anything to keep Him from loving.

No sinner has committed an unpardonable sin. You may be in the state of unbelief, but He still loves you. You may have committed ever so great a sin, but He still loves you. You cannot keep Him from loving you. You can put up an umbrella to keep yourself out of the rain, but you cannot stop the rain from falling. Neither can you stop God from loving youregardless of the umbrella of sin or unbelief that you are under. It is so wrong to tell children that God won’t love them. I used to be in a Sunday school class of little fellows. They were a bunch of mean bratsI was the only good boy in the class! The teacher would say to us, “God won’t love you boys if you keep acting that way.” I used to think, God surely can’t love me very much. But He did in spite of my meanness. How wonderful it is to know that God loves us! Prophecies shall failthat is, they will be fulfilled. They will then be history, not prophecy. Tongues are going to stop. Knowledge will vanish away. For example, the science that I learned in college is already out of date. The science of today will be replaced by the science of tomorrow. Knowledge is progressive. It vanishes away.

1 Corinthians 13:9

Paul says this:

1 Corinthians 13:11

A great many people ask, “Will I know my loved ones in heaven?” You surely will. What is the scriptural proof? “Now we see through a glass, darkly.” You have never seen me. It is possible you may think you have seen me, but what you saw was a suit of clothes with a head and two hands sticking out of it. You didn’t really see me. And I have never really seen you because we just see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known. Someone asked G. Campbell Morgan, “Do you think we will know our loved ones in heaven?” Dr. Morgan in his truly British manner answered, “I do not expect to be a bigger fool in heaven than I am here, and I know my loved ones here.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

The object of our faith will be fulfilled. All our hopes will be realized. There will be nothing left to hope for; so hope will disappear. There will be no need for faith. However, love is going to abide. The greatest of these is love. Faith, hope, and love are the high words of the Christian vocabulary. In this chapter Paul is not describing an abstract termlove. He is writing a biography of Jesus Christ. Of Him it was written, “…having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (Joh_13:1). The love of Jesus is an eternal love. My friend, Jesus Christ will never cease loving you.