I CORINTHIANS Chapter 13
Commonly referred to as "the Love Chapter", this famous passage gives us a major insight into the nature of God, for God is Love. (Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - I JOHN 4:8) And since we are called to be like Christ, it is important to understand what "Love" is, that we may be it.
English fails us when it comes to love, giving us a single word to express many forms of enjoyment, fondness, passion, affection, and even lust; because of that, True Love - God's Love - often gets conflated and misunderstood. So making sure we understand how Bible defines love is helpful indeed.
I chose to post The Message version of the Love Chapter, because I like the way it lays out the definition of love; please reference other versions of this chapter, to get an even fuller understanding through different translations. For instance, the King James Version uses the word Charity instead of Love! That word gives us even more to consider - usually, we think of the word Charity in terms of giving. God loves us so much that he gave us the most charitable donation of all: his Son. And Christ DIED for us - that's some charity! That's Big Love. O that we may bring even a taste of that love to our brothers and sisters!
The Way of Love (1 Corinthians 13)
13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
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