Have you ever tried to reason with someone who refused to be reasonable? Many people may have felt that way while trying to convince recalcitrant friends or family members to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Many excuses for refusing the vaccine have been based more on emotions or political views than on reason. 

 

As Paul dealt with conflict in the Corinthian church, he employed a carefully reasoned argument that all believers should accept each other as gifted by God and equally valuable members of the one body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). 

 

Knowing that appeals to reason alone don’t always work, he then shifted from the body metaphor to “a more excellent way” that might be harder to reject: he appealed to love (12:31).

 

The love he speaks of is agapē, an unselfish love that goes beyond warm affection or heated eroticism to a deep place of caring and kindness for others. 

 

 

 

Within the church family, even the most impressive gifts are useless if they are not accepted and shared with love, Paul said, and we can see why. One may speak with beauty and power, but do little good if not motivated by love. One may utter what they consider to be the tongues of angels (a probable reference to glossolalia), but without love their speech is like a crashing cymbal falling off its stand in the middle of Swan Lake. In Paul’s opinion, if we do not speak with love, then nothing we say will matter at all.

 

In v. 2, Paul mentions the gifts of knowledge and prophecy and faith, which he characterized as “higher gifts” in the preceding chapter. But even those gifts are worthless when not motivated by love, he wrote. We respect those who have accumulated wisdom, but misguided knowledge can be worse than worthless. We admire those who preach passionate sermons, but we have also seen pulpiteers brought to nothing when their performance was based on personal ambition rather than love for God. We are impressed by faith that leads to great deeds, but not if done for show. 

 

Paul expands his paeon to agapē by moving from spiritual gifts to personal sacrifice. Even acts that appear totally unselfish can be motivated by a desire for individual attention. He illustrates this with the extreme examples of giving away all of one’s possessions or even selling oneself into slavery for the benefit of the poor. If the purpose is “that I may boast,” we have accomplished nothing. [DD]

 

No matter what we say, what we do, or what we give, Paul says, if we don’t know and share the love of Jesus, we accomplish nothing in Christ’s behalf. 

 

 

 

Having argued that life without love is empty and fruitless, Paul attempts to describe the exceptional qualities and incomparable benefits of sharing agapē love. He begins with patience, for good reason.

 

We can find it easy to become impatient. Children or co-workers or rush-hour drivers may “get on our last nerve” and lead us to react in negative or harmful ways. Outbursts in the family setting, especially if violent, can scar children or spouses, sometimes setting them on the same path. 

 

Displays of frustration and pique rarely have positive outcomes, because they are often directed toward others who are innocent. When we cultivate the self-control needed to focus more on concern for others than on personal convenience or comfort, we make life better for everyone around us. 

 

Love, Paul asserts, is also kind. To show kindness is to demonstrate unqualified good toward others, not because they are always good and deserving, but because of the goodness within believers who are fully open to God’s indwelling love. 

 

No one has demonstrated kindness better than the late Fred Rogers, of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS. He not only encouraged both children and adults to care about others and show kindness to them, but he lived it every day. The only sticker on my laptop computer is in the form of a sweater over a shirt and tie, and the words “Be kind.” 

 

 

 

Patience and kindness describe love in positive terms, but the Corinthians were apparently more familiar with negative examples, so Paul continued with a few reminders of what agapē love is not. Love, he said, is not “envious or boastful.” Earlier parts of the letter indicate that some Corinthians were jealous of each other’s spiritual gifts or boastful about their own. Envy is never uglier than when it is spiritual envy. Genuine Christian love is the most wonderful thing a person can know—but it never brags about its greatness.

 

Love, likewise, is never “arrogant or rude.” The word “arrogant” carries the literal meaning of “puffed up.” People can get overly inflated by their own self-importance, but that is not the work of love. Rudeness is related to arrogance, because the arrogant don’t care if they hurt other people. Love cares, and cares deeply.

 

Because of this, love does not insist on its own way. Nor is it irritable or resentful. Self-seeking behavior and selfish resentment are flat contradictions of Christian love. When Paul discerned its presence among believers, he did not hesitate to call out the hypocrisy behind it. 

 

Sadly, many of us have encountered church members or denominational officials whose desire for control was exhibited in self-centered behavior and underhanded dealings. It is challenging, but possible, to hold different opinions and express them in love. [DD]

 

We are most familiar with the need for unselfish love in family and neighborly contexts. There, Paul reminds us that love is not self-focused or hard to live with. Loving people do not resent it when good things come to others, but rejoice with them in their success. 

 

A hallmark of true love is that it does not hold grudges. The term translated as “resentful” is logizetai. The word “log” for a written record comes from this Greek root: it literally means “to keep books on.” Love does not keep records on wrongs done or favors owed. Love helps us not only to be forgiving, but to be forgetful.

 

 

 

Paul now shifts from what love is and is not to what love does and does not. First, he says, love “does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” It takes no delight in the weakness or failure of others. It finds no joy (secret or otherwise) in sinful thoughts or behavior, but celebrates what is good and right. It does not harbor or spread lies, but holds to what is true.

 

Selfless love is not wimpy, but exceedingly strong. For this reason, Paul could say that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love is not only willing to bear its own burdens, but also caring enough to share the burdens of others. Nothing is so ugly or so heavy that love will not lend a hand. [DD]

 

To say that love “believes all things” does not suggest gullibility so much as trustfulness. Love gives others the benefit of the doubt, believing the best about them, not losing faith in them. Love is over-generous rather than over-suspicious.

 

Love hopes all things and endures all things because it is grounded in Jesus Christ, who is our present and eternal hope. Even when assailed by evil or engulfed by disappointment, the faithful believer knows that Christ’s Spirit is near. Love can be patient in trials because it has hope for better days. Love is not demonstrated through disillusionment and bitterness, but by hopeful patience and graceful courage.

 

 

 

Paul could say that love never ends or fails (v. 8) because love is grounded in God, and God is not only eternal, but eternally loving. The world we know now will pass. Prophesy, tongues-speaking, and the knowledge of this life will one day fade: they are only a faint shadow of what is to come (vv. 9-10).

 

Paul knew that even his own thoughts, sermons, and writings were like the words of a child when compared to the experience of what lies ahead. There will be no need for prophecy in God’s future age, nor for special speech, or even of miracles. Paul imagined a time when we will look back on even our greatest accomplishments as the work of children.

 

The polished metal mirrors of Paul’s day reflected dim images at best, but in eternity we will understand completely (v. 12). We all know what it is like to look into a foggy mirror. Many of us know how our vision can be impaired by dirty glasses. One day, Paul said, we will see clearly. [DD]

 

When that time comes, we will see that of all the many things we cherished on earth, what remains is our faith, hope, and love, the same characteristics that Paul mentioned together in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 as the marks of a mature church. Those who are wise will not devote their lives to the transient indulgence of selfish living, but to the life-long pursuit of that which lasts: faith, hope, and love—remembering that the greatest of these is love.