“May 8, 2024 - Love Never Ends”

Tuesday, May 07, 2024

Love Never Ends

Reading:  1 Corinthians 13:8-13
    
    Throughout this letter, Paul has been frustrated with the Corinthians’ tendency to focus on other things (their groups, their knowledge, their gifts) than loving their brothers.  Even when God blesses them with impressive spiritual gifts, love remains more important.  “Love never ends.  As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away”(1 Cor 13:8-10).  Love is better than spiritual gifts because it “never ends” while prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will all pass away.  These gifts are both temporary and partial; they will become obsolete by a superior knowledge “when the perfect comes.”

    There is a great deal of debate about what “the perfect” here means; some believe it refers to Jesus’ return, others to the completion of revelation of God’s word to man.  I believe there are valid cases for both of these interpretations, but I lean toward this describing the return of Jesus because of the promise of seeing “face to face” and “then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”(1 Cor 13:12).  Regardless of your interpretation, Paul’s point is that spiritual gifts reflect a childlike state (1 Cor 13:11) that will be replaced by something far greater.  Why would we fixate on the partial, temporary gifts and neglect the surpassing permanence of love?  “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”(1 Cor 13:13).

    We may not have the spiritual gifts the Corinthians enjoyed—prophecy and miracle-working and tongue-speaking and healing—yet we can easily share in their tendency to concentrate on our own gifts and neglect our need to love our brother.  As we grow in love, we latch onto something permanent.  Even when our gifts diminish because of age or lose importance because of our circumstances, love never fails.  Societal trends come and go, nations rise and fall, but “love never ends.”

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One Thing to Think About:  Do I ever focus so much on myself that I neglect my responsibility to my brothers?

One Thing to Pray For:  Growth in my love for others
 

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