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
 

The More Excellent Way

Reading:  1 Corinthians 13:1-7
    
    As the Corinthians clash and divide over the spiritual gifts they have received, Paul proposes to “show you a still more excellent way”(1 Cor 12:31).  Just as with knowledge (1 Cor 8:1), so spiritual gifts are not the most important part of following Jesus.  “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”(1 Cor 13:1).  Speaking with tongues is useless without love.  Prophecy and miraculous knowledge and tremendous faith and amazing acts of self-sacrifice are nothing without love (v. 2-3).  The Christian life is never simply an intellectual matter, nor is it a matter of huge, dramatic gestures of faith.  It is about showing love, consistently and quietly, in everyday interactions.

    So Paul spells out what love looks like not by describing a series of emotions, but by the way it acts toward others.  “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude”(1 Cor 13:4).  Love does not view others as threats or rivals.  It is not easily frustrated or unkind.  When we love people, we let go of selfishness and learn to forgive their slights (v. 5).  We do not give up on the people we love simply because they are sometimes difficult or hurtful.  “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”(1 Cor 13:7).  Love is tender and tough all at once.

     We have a similar problem to the Corinthians:  we get sidetracked from the key issues in our relationships with others.  We get a little too excited about whatever matters to us (knowledge, gifts, accomplishments, respect, attention).  Meanwhile, we think that since we don’t actively hate people that we know what love is.  Paul challenges us here that love is constantly proven in our interactions with others.  Our patience, kindness, compassion, and mercy must be continually demonstrated.  This is “a still more excellent way” to live.

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One Thing to Think About:  Are there some people I struggle to love?  Why?

One Thing to Pray For:  A sincere desire to do what is best for others
 

Division Through Condescension

Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:21-31
    
    Division in the Corinthian church runs two ways, as illustrated by Paul’s picture of body parts talking to one another.  Some may feel so unimportant that they don’t belong, but others can feel so important that they have no use for others.  “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’”(1 Cor 12:21).  When others are quieter—or their gifts appear less valuable—or they contribute less to the group, it is easy to disdain them.  Paul insists that all members are “indispensable”(v. 22) and deserving of “greater honor”(v. 23, 24), like the private parts of our body that are covered and treated with great care.

    Crucially, we must remember the vision of the designer of the body.  “But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another”(1 Cor 12:24-25).  In God’s kingdom, we value the weak and unglamorous.  No one is overlooked.  God wants us to be united not only in mind and judgment (1 Cor 1:10), but in the “same care for one another.”  Our prideful attitudes precipitate division.  “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”(1 Cor 12:26).  A properly functioning local church (like a human body) suffers and rejoices as one.  Despite the differences in our gifts (v. 28-30), we are united by love.

     Condescension leads to division.  We view others as less important, less valuable, and less worthy of our time and attention.  Our thinking inevitably comes across in how we deal with them.  We care more for others than for them and they can tell.  It is essential that we remember that we are not that great and that all people matter equally before God.  The unity and health of the body depends on it.

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One Thing to Think About:  How am I encouraging my brothers and sisters?

One Thing to Pray For:  All Christians to have the same care for one another
 

Division Through Insecurity

Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:12-20
    
    In a body, many separate members work together as one unit.  This is also Paul’s vision of the local church.  “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit”(1 Cor 12:13).  Thinking of the group as a singular unit helps us downplay the differences between us and focus our attention on the unique way we can contribute.  We learn to stay in our lane.  Just as the various parts of the body work together, contributing unique functions for the good of the whole body, so we each exercise our own gifts and blend them together as one.  The danger is that as we look at the gifts and work of others, we begin to question our own value.

    Paul illustrates this with the comical image of body parts talking to one another.  “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body”(1 Cor 12:15).  Some of the Corinthians observe other, seemingly more impressive Christians—the “hands” and “eyes”—and then feel insecure in their own gifts.  They begin to feel that they “do not belong to the body.”  Yet Paul protests, “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?  If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose”(1 Cor 12:17-18).  Each part matters and adds something vital.  My gifts are from God and he made me “as he chose.”

    Insecurity can lead to division.  Feelings of inadequacy can extend to the spiritual realm.  We feel unappreciated and grow jealous and bitter.  It is important that we hear God’s affirmation of our usefulness and uniqueness so that we remain unified and the body functions as he intends.

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One Thing to Think About:  Why do I feel the need to compare myself to others?

One Thing to Pray For:  A strong sense of my value to God and his work
 

God Loves Variety

Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:1-11
    
    In the next three chapters, Paul will address the problem in Corinth with “spiritual gifts”(1 Cor 12:1), special abilities granted to Christians in this time by the Spirit.  Some of the Corinthians disdained others who had “lesser” gifts, reinforcing the already present divisions there.  Knowing that many of the Corinthians have a Gentile background (1 Cor 12:2), Paul wants to teach them what following God’s true Spirit is like.  “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit”(1 Cor 12:3).  What is notable here is that we discern messages by evaluating the content of the message rather than the emotional power of the delivery; only messages that reflect submission to Jesus should be accepted.

    One striking feature of the spiritual gifts is their diversity.  “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone”(1 Cor 12:4-6).  The actions look different, but the source is the same; they all come from a variety-loving God.  Paul gives a list of the types of gifts he is describing (v. 8-10), stressing that each is a gift (rather than something innate in the person) given by the Spirit.  “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills”(1 Cor 12:11).  It all comes from God, so there is no room for boasting or condescension.

    God loves variety.  No two people have precisely the same personality or appearance.  God did not make just one kind of animal or plant.  There are multitudes of food flavors and musical varieties.  When we want everyone to be the same—especially because we are jealous of what others have—we are going against the grain of God’s love of variety.  A better path is to celebrate the multitude of expressions of God’s gift alive in such wildly different people.

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One Thing to Think About:  How does variety show God’s goodness and power?

One Thing to Pray For:  Eyes to see the beauty of God’s gifts to others—and myself