Theme for the week: The Love Chapter – 1 Corinthians 13
February 7, 2022 (Monday)
God gave spiritual gifts to the church so that the church could carry out the will of the Father.
The gifts named in 1 Corinthians 13 are: Speaking in Other Languages, Prophecy, Knowledge, Miraculous Faith, Benevolence and Suffering for Christ. He does not list the gifts, but says this about certain gifts: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3 NIV).
If we do what the gift requires, but do not do it in love, we’re just making noise, proving that we gain nothing and are nothing.
God wants the church to spread the good news that He loves all the people in the world, and He has gifted the church with the means to spread the message, but if those gifts are not motivated by love, they do not help the church spread the good news. Instead, they hurt the church.
Apart from the gifts mentioned by Paul, the church without love is denying the very gospel it tries to proclaim. People without love are not qualified to spread the message of God’s love for the world.
As we read this entire chapter, we learn that love is greater than anything else; it is the greatest force in the world.
The following prayer is attributed by many to Francis of Assisi.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
The blogs this week are based on 1 Corinthians 13: Love is greater than:Spiritual Gifts, Expectations, Faith, Hope, Anything.
New International Version
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Footnotes
1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames