1 Corinthians 13

We're back with our study in 1 Corinthians so open your Bibles please to chapter 13. I always want to announce this, kind of like they used to say, The Love Boat back in the 1970s for those of you that are old enough to remember, The Love Boat. Anyway, this is the love chapter, but it has a very specific reason for appearing right here in 1 Corinthians. And the reason started back in chapter 11, as we've said, where the apostle Paul began to address how the Corinthians were treating one another. How they ought to be treating one another and he was rebuking them for the way they were treating one another. It has culminated now into this chapter on love, but it is interesting how the apostle Paul uses one of the most important topics to the Corinthians, and that is spiritual gifts. We saw in the last chapter, chapter 12, how Paul discussed the issue of spiritual gifts. Telling the Corinthians, I don't want you to be ignorant about these things, but I want you to know and understand that God gives these gifts for the goodness of the body. I'm paraphrasing here. And now as we get into chapter 13 where he begins to discuss the definition of true, agape love and we'll talk about that. He's going to talk about it in relationship to spiritual gifts because you see spiritual gifts had taken on a place in the Corinthian church that had gotten so huge, that Paul wanted to use that to address what they were needful to be watching for. It's important to understand something going into this chapter, and frankly, as we talked through all of these chapters, 12, 13, and 14, the apostle Paul does not discourage the use of spiritual gifts. What he does is, he says these gifts need to be for the benefit of the body. They need to be operated in love and they need to be done decently and in order. Those are the things he emphasizes. Right now we're dealing with the love part of the equation. Let's read through this really very short chapter and then we'll pray and we'll unpack these verses. It goes like this. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (ESV) Let's pray. Lord, as we take time to ponder these verses in this study, give us wisdom, give us understanding, fill us with truth. We look to You in the authority given us by the name of Jesus, amen. You'll notice that right out of the shoot, Paul talks about the usage of spiritual gifts, but he talks about those gifts as if they're being exercised apart from love. Now, I have to believe that this is largely what was happening in the Corinthian church and I think the Corinthians had gotten to the point where they elevated spiritual gifts to the point that if someone operated in spiritual gifts, they were seen as a very spiritual person, and yet Paul debunks that right here. He says, actually that's not the case. He starts off by saying, if I speak in the languages, which of course you'll remember the word tongues means, but in this case it refers to a supernatural knowing of a language. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,…” And by the way, we don't even know if there are the languages of angels. We're not sure. I mean, the Bible doesn't say anything about it. Okay? It's something that Paul's just throwing in there. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, (he says) I am (essentially no better than) a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Okay. Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 He says, “…if I have prophetic powers…” And by the way, Paul is going to speak very highly in the next chapter of those who speak prophetically. Okay? So he's not speaking badly or putting these things down at all. You need to understand that. He says, but “…if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, (listen to this) I am nothing.” This is the kingdom of God. This is the kingdom that we are in, we live in. It's different from the kingdom of this world because love is what makes things matter. It's what makes things important. It's what makes them real. He says, if I have all of these incredible supernatural powers, but I lack love, I am nothing. And then he even says, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, (in other words, I become a martyr for the kingdom of God and for the name of Jesus Christ) but have not love, I gain nothing.” Wow! I mean, if you just think about the implications of these statements, they're pretty amazing. And then Paul begins to describe, or better word is, define love. And we need to understand that from a Greek perspective, there are several words actually that can be translated, love. It's interesting in English, I will talk about things that I love, and I will use the exact same word to describe the love that I have for my wife, and the love that I have for pizza. I could say I really love my wife and then I could say, I really love pizza. And it's the same word in the English. In the Greek, there were different kinds of love, and what is being used in this passage is that fairly well-known word within the Christian community, agape love, but that's—it's different from other kinds of love. We have erotic love. We have the love of friends which is, philia. There are different Greek words that are defined and translated as love, but again, this is agape. And you need to understand something about agape love, we know nothing of this love apart from God. This is God's love. This is a love that He deposits in our hearts. It's the way He loves us and it's the way He strengthens and equips us to love others. But please understand, try as you may, try as I may, we cannot dredge up this love out of our selves. This comes from God. Okay? And so if you've ever read through 1 Corinthians 13 and thought, good grief, that's just way over my head. Then you read it correctly. It is way over your head. But through the power of Jesus who now lives within you, it's within our grasp. Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 So let's define that love. He calls it patient. He calls it kind. He says that it doesn't envy. It doesn't boast. It's not arrogant, rude, doesn't insist on its own way. It's not irritable. Boy, though some of those really hit home, don't they? It's not resentful. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, which the world does, but it rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes and endures all things. In fact, he says, it never ends. It has no end. It goes up. And the reason it has no end is because God has no end. Honestly, when I think about my feelings, my love for others, for whatever I love, my love has an end. It has a finish point. But Paul says this love, this agape love of God, has no end. And then he is going to go on and make some statements about spiritual gifts alongside love. He's going to say, now, “As for prophecies, (and these were the things that the Corinthians were holding in very high regard. He says those sorts of things are going to) …pass away;…” Things like supernatural languages, speaking in tongues, he says they will cease. And knowledge, it will pass away. “For we know (today, he says) in part and we prophesy in part,…” And the phrase, in part helps us to remember that we don't have the whole story. Paul didn't have the whole story. Paul was a man who'd been taken up to what he called the third heaven. We don't even know for sure what that means. We think we might but we're not positive. And yet Paul even said, we know in part. I know in part. So do we still know in part? Yeah. We're still figuring out some of the things the apostle Paul said in some of his weightier books, like Romans and so forth. He says, we know in part. We prophesy today in part. We don't have every piece of the puzzle. He tells us this in verse 10, “but when the perfect comes,” all of that stuff that we know only in part will pass away, and the full picture will come into view. Obviously, I'm paraphrasing here, but there's a very important phrase that we need to remember. And I want you to take a moment to either underline or highlight in your Bible or write down in your notes, the words, at least as they're rendered here in the ESV, “the perfect” cause we're going to come back to that, because a lot hangs on how we understand those words, “the perfect.” Why? Because Paul says, when the perfect comes, we will no longer know in part, we will know fully. All right? And he tells us that, all of the things that we know now that are partial will pass away. Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 Verse 11, he then says, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, (and) I gave up (my) childish ways.” And he's using that as an example of when the perfect comes, we will set aside the things of the imperfect time period, and we will walk in perfect knowledge and understanding. And that's why he goes on in verse 12 to say, “…now we see in a mirror dimly, but then (we're going to see) face to face.” Can you imagine? That term, faceto-face? I mean, we're going to see face, we're going to see Jesus face-to-face. We're going to know as we are known. That's what Paul goes on to say. He says, “Now I know in part; (but) then (when is then? When the perfect comes) I shall know fully, (okay) even as I have been fully known.” In other words, in the same way that God has known me fully, I will then know fully. Okay. That's really what he's saying here. So this is a powerful and incredibly insightful statement or series of statements made by the apostle Paul. He's writing them to tell them, this thing that you're exalting in your church, in your gatherings, these spiritual gifts, there's nothing wrong with them. They're good, God gave them, but you're focusing on them and you've let go of love. And that's why he goes through to compare all these gifts and the exercise of them with someone who doesn't have love. And he says, that, that nullifies them in a very real sense. Obviously the message is, pursue love. It is nothing wrong with spiritual gifts. Pursue them by all means but whatever you do, don't leave out love. Don't leave out the kind of agape love that God calls us to in the body of Christ. It's hard though, isn't it? Cause people get on our nerves. They do things, they say things, they act in ways that we just really struggle to embrace in any way. And it's just easier to dislike people than to love them. But the message here is clear, love is paramount. And that's the message. It's a simple message. Love is paramount. Not your love, not my love, God's love that He now wants to express through you and me. Now we're going to come back to this statement that Paul makes in verse 10. And the reason we need to come back and talk about it is because this statement has been used, actually verses 8 and 9 as well, have been used by individuals, teachers of the Bible to show that spiritual gifts have present tense, passed away. They're no longer available because Paul makes this statement. He says that prophecies will pass away. Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 So will prophecies pass away? Yes. Will tongues and that spiritual gift of the usage of tongues pass away. Oh yeah. Paul says it right there. Tongues will cease. It doesn't mean languages will be no more. It just means the supernatural gift of tongues will pass away. Here's the question. When are they going to pass away? Well, I told you to highlight that one phrase, the perfect, because that's when they will pass away. Paul says it in verse 10, “but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” Some have defined the perfect as the completion of the biblical canon. In other words, our Bible. They say and claim that once the Bible was finalized there was no need for spiritual gifts anymore because this is the perfect, okay. Well, okay. Let's see if Paul's description of the perfect fits the completion of the biblical canon. Let's see, because he begins to talk about the kind of things that will characterize life when the perfect comes. He says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” In other words—now keep in mind, Paul lived in a day before the biblical canon was completed. He contributed to a fairly good portion of it, but it wasn't finished. It wasn't codified when he was living. So if we're going to say that the perfect is defined as the biblical canon, then I have to say that I see better than Paul did. Okay. That's what we have to say because Paul says right here, “now (and this is obviously when he was living) we see in a mirror dimly, (verse 12) but then (when the perfect comes, we shall see) face to face.” He actually says it another way. He goes on in that same verse to say, “Now I know in part; (but) then I shall know fully,…” When is then? When the perfect comes. So here's the question. Do we know fully today? He says that and he even characterizes the fullness of our knowledge. He says, I will know even as I am now known. So I will know all things even as God knows me. Now the Bible says, God knows all of us to the very hair number of hairs on our head. So here's the question I have to ask. Do we know today in the same way that we are known? Here's another question. Do we know fully? Do we know fully? I think the answer to that question is obvious. No, we don't. And that's why we still have debates going on within the body of Christ. Debates about the timing of things like the catching away of the church in relationship to the tribulation. Other issues about the role of Israel and the part they play in God's Life Bible Ministry • lifebibleministry.com • ©2026 redemptive program. Not all Christians are agreed on those things. We don't know fully. We still only know in part. So, the perfect has to mean something else. And I believe it refers to when Jesus returns and when the Bible tells us that knowledge will prevail on the earth as the waters cover the earth itself. So I believe that the perfect is not the completion of the biblical canon. It just doesn't measure up to how Paul characterizes the perfect. The perfect is something we have not yet seen, something we have not yet experienced, but it's coming when Jesus returns. The last verse of this chapter is so beautiful. “…now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” So we come back to the main message of the chapter. Love is paramount, it's preeminent, it must be there. And this is the question we need to ask ourselves today. Have I focused on love? Have I focused on just loving people? We see here clearly in the Word that it's something God wants us to focus on. Lord, help us all to love the way He loves. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank You. Thank You for our time. Thank You for Your Spirit. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your love. Thank You that You have empowered us to love in that same way. And I pray my Father that we would learn how to love in a way that truly pleases You, that reflects You, that honors You. Help us to love, especially those who seem unlovable. We thank You and praise You that the power to love comes from You. And we ask You to work it in us and through us in the name of Jesus our Savior, amen.