Theme for the week: The Love Chapter – 1 Corinthians 13
February 11, 2022 (Friday)
Some say that 1 Corinthians 13 was a poem treasured by the early church. I believe Paul wrote it as he counseled the Corinthians about proper worship. It is perfectly relevant to the entire discussion of 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14 about gifts of the Spirit and orderly worship. If this chapter became a separate poem, it did so at a later date. It is a writing fit for framing and display for all to see.
Displayed in the next paragraph here is the final verse and chorus of the words of a song, “The Love of God,” one of the first songs I learned to sing as a soloist in worship services. I learned it by listening to recordings by George Beverly Shea, surely one of the greatest musicians in God’s work of spreading the gospel of Christ. The song illustrates the magnificence of God’s wondrous love for us.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And everyone a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
O love of God, how rich and pure,
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure,
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Long ago God gave us The Ten Commandments. These are common sense rules for individuals or groups. Then God sent His Son into the world to remind us that the first four Commandments can be summarized by “Love God!” and the rest of the Commandments can be summarized by “Love one another!”
God wants us all to live by love as our guide in everything we do. He proved His love by giving us His only Son, Jesus, who died in our place on a cruel Roman cross. His death is the ransom paid for the forgiveness of our sins and He invites all people to be forgiven. He arose from the dead and His Spirit came to live within us, producing His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The Bible contrasts this “fruit of the Spirit” with “works of the flesh.” Salvation through Jesus Christ frees us from the captivity of “sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.”
In these troubled times, hatred manifests itself in a variety of ways, but so does love. The Bible says, “faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
We can discover that love by believing in Jesus Christ as Savior, committing ourselves to Him as Lord of our lives.
As a song from a few years back says, “What the world needs now is love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.”
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW
Written by: Burt F. Bacharach, Hal David, Burt Bacharach
Jackie DeShannon
1965
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone
Lord, we don’t need another mountain
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross
Enough to last till the end of time
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone
Lord, we don’t need another meadow
There are cornfields and wheat fields enough to grow
There are sunbeams and moonbeams enough to shine
Oh listen, Lord, if you want to know
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone
No, not just for some, oh, but just for everyone
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