I Corinthians 13

I Corinthians 13:1-3:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

No matter what I am doing or how great the gift, if I am not motivated by love, I am just a noise…and sometimes an irritating noise. God is the source of love. (I John 4:8). So, to operate in love we must be in touch with the source. Anything outside of that is just noise. “Tongues of men and angels” might suggest the possibility of men speaking in the tongues of angels, the gift of glossolalia, which is the language used by angels, whereas some might have the gift of xenoglossia and are able to speak in other languages they had never been fluent in. This is, however, unclear based on just this verse. My faith means absolutely nothing if I do not have love. All the good deeds and even sacrifice of myself is nothing unless I have love. And without it I have nothing to even add to my nothing to make it even just a little bit of something.

Charles L Allen

"Jealousy is not bad. In fact, it is normal and right. The Bible tells us that God is jealous (Ex 20:5). Jealousy comes from love and when love is cheated, it has a right to be jealous. Any person is jealous for that which it loves, and if one has the right to love, he or she also has the right to be jealous. But envy is a result of selfishness. St Paul tells us, "Love envies not" (I Cor 13:4). The envious person is always unhappy over the good fortune of another. It was envy that caused the first murder on earth. It was envy which nailed our Christ to the cross. "For he knew that for envy they had delivered him" (Matt 27:18)."
--Charles L Allen; When The Heart is Angry; 1955

In this day and age in which arguments over loss of personal freedoms, and the intrusion of secular authorities into religious life, are splitting the church — and it is — we need to hear Paul’s admonition afresh. Whatever position you hold about anything and everything, if you are not acting in love, if you are not speaking, in love, you are nothing more than “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1).
The Greatest Commandment is not to be right! It is to love God and to love your brother and sister. Something to think about.
-Bill Mounce-Zondervan Academics

I Corinthians 13:4-7:
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love = the whole description in verses 4-7
Joy = “Love rejoices with the truth.” (v. 6)
Peace = “Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” (v. 4)
Patience = “Love is patient.” (v. 4)
Kindness = “Love is kind.” (v. 4)
Goodness = “Love does not delight in evil.” (v. 6)
Faithfulness = “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (v. 7)
Gentleness = “Love is not rude, … it keeps no record of wrongs.” (v. 5)
Self-control = “Love is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered.” (v. 5)

If jealousy pokes up its head at you–it is not love. Instead, love seeks the benefit of the other person…….even if you are not one of the “benefits." One who operates in love does not seek the interest of himself. One doesn’t do odd or rude things to draw attention to ones self. Drawing attention to ourselves is the opposite of what love is all about. We should focus on others. Love is rational and not easily provoked. True love is not easily shaken. Other kinds of love end quickly or they are based on feelings and emotions and changes positions as quick as the ocean waves. Bragging exalts ones self and looks down on others. An arrogant person sees themselves as better than others. Love does not become bitter or evil. No matter what kinds of hurts are inflicted…..forgiveness is the answer. Love doesn’t make plans for revenge.

Warren Wiersbe

“God is not in a hurry. He kept Abraham and Sarah waiting twenty-five years before Issac was born, and Issac and Rebekah waited twenty years for Esau and Jacob, Jacob had to wait fourteen years to get the bride he really wanted, and then he had to serve six more years to build up his flocks so he could be independent, a total of twenty years. Twenty-two years passed between Joseph's betrayal by his brothers and the brothers' reconciliation in Egypt. God is not in a hurry because all His works are done in love. "Love is patient, love is kind" (1 Cor.13:4). Let's be grateful that God takes His time.”
― Warren W. Wiersbe , Too Soon to Quit!

Love is about action, how a person lives for the Lord and obeys him and how a person lives for others and serves them.
Yet it is also about being. This is because its foundation is in God who is love, and in Christ who shows that love. The sense that this is about more than simply how people behave is seen in passages like Paul’s prayer of Ephesians 3:14–19, particularly as he prays that Christians will be “rooted and grounded in love.” To “know the love of Christ” is to experience his presence “through faith” in their “hearts.” God’s people are to look and become more and more like Christ, and it is this for which Paul prays here. [SOURCE: Zondervan Academic]

Note that love involves the opposite of suspicion. Rather than putting the worst possible construction on a person's words where there is an ambiguity, love puts the best possible construction. Love does not lightly make accusations, but shies away from such accusations unless it is forced to think otherwise. Love does not take any but the best arguments as evidence of a person's guilt. Malice should be one of those attitudes that the Christian "puts off", as Paul argues in Colossians 3.

Now, love does not mean being willfully blind to a real fault, for the sinner is to be reclaimed, and to overlook actual sin is not loving, for as long as sin is not confessed there can be no repentance, and to encourage a sinner to remain impenitent is to encourage sin. But no doubtful accusation, no mere argument of words, should be accepted by a Christian against a brother in Christ - or against a complete pagan and a persecutor, for that matter.

Let us be slow to speak in condemnation of another, and swift to examine the accusation carefully. Much harm has been done by those who, however well-meaning, have been too swift to share accusations that are either untrue or undetermined. Brethren, these things ought not to be so.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God."
--Strict and Particular

Paul sums it up: Love never fails. Christians may fail to love, as the Corinthians have clearly demonstrated, but God's kind of love will always be effective. And unlike spiritual gifts, which will no longer be needed when Christ comes, love will last forever (1 Corinthians 13:4–8).

On that day, Christians will know even as God knows us now. Until then, spiritual gifts provide a partial knowledge of what is to come. Both now and then, love will remain the greatest of all the virtues (1 Corinthians 13:9–13). [SOURCE: BibleRef]

I Corinthians 13:8:
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

All the other gifts will fail because they will end. Love does not end and endures forever. It’s vision is farther than this life. I read a skeptics comments once that suggested that since Paul is prophesying that “prophesy will fail” that this prophesy, hence, fails. That’s not being a “skeptic,” that is just being a critic. Paul realizes that even his own prophesies will fail eventually…...and they all fail if not motivated by love. The world has had successful prophesy since the beginning of time……but in the end….they are limited to a time-space creation. Love will go beyond that.

Paul ends his description of God's kind of love, using the Greek term agape. This is an unselfish, sacrificial, active love, different from romantic or brotherly love, which use the terms eros and phileo, respectively. Wrapping up this section, Paul introduces a statement that may make believers feel it is truly impossible to love as God does, after all: Love never fails.

However, the truth of this statement does not mean no human can ever love as Christ does. It is true that believers will sometimes fail to love. When we do choose to love in this selfless, sacrificing way, love will not fail to be effective. One person's choice to love, selflessly, never fails to build up the church in a powerful way.

The other way in which love never fails is that love is eternal. Selfless love will continue in the Lord and in His people forever. It is absolutely the way we will live in relationship with each other in eternity. Examples of selfless love in the present are glimpses of the normal state of things in eternity.

This is not true of the spiritual gifts, Paul says. The gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will all pass away. By this, Paul means that eventually these gifts will not be needed. -Bible Reference

I Corinthians 13:11:
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

There’s nothing wrong with being childish—providing you are a child. But when you are an adult who is childish there’s a serious problem. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 13:11, writing, “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.” It’s cute when a mom tucks a 2.5-year-old toddler into bed and cuts the crust off their sandwiches. Not so much when the kid is 25.

1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

We will not have the total picture on many things til we meet in eternity. If you are like me on and have this desire to understand everything then this can be a bit frustrating. But it is an important part of maturity to accept that there are some things we just will not be able to understand until that time comes...or, for that matter, til time passes away.