1 Corinthians 13:1

These verses open the chapter often called the love chapter, and they follow directly from Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. There he describes the church as one body with many members, each given gifts by the Spirit for the common good, and he closes with the words “But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). Chapter 13 is that way. Verses 1 to 3 show that love is necessary, and verses 4 to 7 go on to describe it.

Corinth was a busy and wealthy port, a meeting place of trade, Greek philosophy, Roman government and many religions, the mystery cults among them. The church there was richly gifted, and it was also troubled by divisions, pride and moral laxity. Some of its members prized the more outwardly impressive gifts, above all speaking in tongues, for the status they brought, and they measured themselves and one another by spiritual power and knowledge. From the start of the letter Paul had pleaded with them “that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you” (1 Corinthians 1:10). Here he sets love over every gift as the bond that holds the church together.

Paul speaks of himself in each case, as a supposition: “Though I speak,” “though I have,” “though I bestow.” He chooses the greatest gifts and deeds he can imagine and piles them up, one “though” after another, so that the fall at the end of each verse is all the sharper. If love is needed for these, it is needed for every lesser gift as well.

The word the KJV translates “charity” is agápē, the word for love that runs through this whole chapter and that most modern versions render “love.” Its plain meaning is affection or benevolence, and in the plural it could name a love feast. In the English of the seventeenth century “charity” meant far more than giving to the poor. It named a generous love that seeks the good of others, and above all the love God has for people and the love he calls his people to show. Greek had other words for love as well, such as phileo for the affection of friends, storge for the love within a family and eros for passionate desire.

The depth of agápē in Scripture comes from the One who shows it. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and “love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1 John 4:7). His love “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). This love gives itself away. It seeks the highest good of another person, deserving or undeserving, and it is a settled choice of the will to act for their welfare as well as a warm feeling. Paul’s own description of it begins, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4).

Paul starts with the gift the Corinthians valued most. The word for tongue, glōssa, means the tongue itself and, by extension, a language, especially one that comes to the speaker unlearned. “The tongues of men” are human languages spoken by the gift of the Spirit, as on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles spoke and a crowd from many nations heard them in their own languages (Acts 2:4–11). “And of angels” lifts the picture higher still, to the speech of heaven. Believers differ on how to take this phrase. Many read it as a deliberate overstatement, Paul imagining the most exalted speech there could ever be, and others take it to mean that the gift can include a heavenly or angelic language. Either way his point stands: the highest speech in heaven or on earth is empty without love.

The small Greek word dé in “and have not charity” is a simple connective, used for “and”, “now” or “but”, and the KJV gives it as “and.” It carries the turn of the whole verse, because everything before it is gift and everything after it is loss.

Prophecy, prophēteía, is inspired speech that declares God’s message. It can foretell what is to come, and in the New Testament it more often proclaims God’s truth to build up, exhort and comfort the church. It was a powerful and authoritative gift, since the prophet spoke on God’s behalf. With it Paul joins “all mysteries,” the truths of God once hidden and now revealed, and “all knowledge.” The word for knowledge, gnōsis, means knowing, and here it is insight into the truths of God. In a city that prized philosophy and learning, spiritual knowledge could easily become a source of pride, and Paul had already warned the Corinthians, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth” (1 Corinthians 8:1).

Then comes “all faith, so that I could remove mountains.” These words echo Jesus, who said that faith as a grain of mustard seed could say to a mountain, “Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Matthew 17:20). Moving mountains is a picture of faith that accomplishes what looks impossible, the height of miraculous power.

After all of this the verdict is three words: “I am nothing.” Behind “nothing” stands oudeís, the Greek for none or nought. Jesus gives the same warning. Only those who do the will of his Father will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21), and many who prophesied in his name and did many wonderful works will hear him say, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22–23). Even works done in God’s name and by his power are hollow when love is missing.

The last picture is of costly giving. The verb behind “bestow ... to feed” is psōmízō, which means to feed with morsels or to nourish. Paul imagines handing out everything he owns, piece by piece, as food for those in need, until he has made himself poor. The words “the poor” are supplied by the KJV translators to complete the sense. Then he goes to the end of what a person can give: “though I give my body to be burned.” The verb kaíō means to set on fire, to kindle or to consume, and Paul is speaking of death by fire, a known form of execution and the greatest physical sacrifice a person could make for what he believes.

And still, without love, “it profiteth me nothing.” The verb ōpheléō means to be useful or to benefit, and the loss Paul names is his own. Such giving, however great it looks to others, leaves the giver without spiritual gain or reward before God. Jesus taught the same about almsgiving, warning his disciples against giving to be seen by others and telling them to give in secret, where their Father who sees in secret will reward them (Matthew 6:1–4). God looks at why we act as well as at what we do.

Love stands over every gift because it is the heart of what God asks. Jesus called the love of God with all the heart, soul and mind the first and great commandment, and the love of neighbour as oneself the second, and he said that on these two hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37–40). Paul writes that the one debt we always owe is to love one another (Romans 13:8–10), for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). He calls love “the bond of perfectness” (Colossians 3:14), and he says that what counts in Christ is “faith which worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6).

So the measure of a spiritual life is a heart that God has changed and filled with his love, and power and eloquence come after it. The gifts are tools for the work of the church in this life, and love belongs to the lasting character God is forming in his people. Gifts used for self-display divide a church, and gifts used in love build it up.

Jesus had wisdom and knowledge beyond any other and did many miracles, and all of it came from love. His whole life, from his humble birth to his death on the cross, was given for others. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The cross is the greatest act of love there has ever been, given to reconcile us to God.

He made that love the mark of his people: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34), and “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). Paul tells us to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). So Christ is the standard by which these verses measure our love, and he is also its source: “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

These verses ask each of us what moves our speaking, our serving and our giving. The description of love that follows in this chapter gives a way to tell: patience, kindness, humility and a desire for the other person’s good, even when the work is hard or goes unseen. Another sign is how we respond when what we do goes unthanked, because love keeps going.

When we find our motives mixed with a wish for recognition, the answer is the one Paul gives in Romans. This love is God’s own, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, and so we grow in it the way we grow in every grace, by prayer, by time in God’s word, and by following Christ, who loved us first. A church that lives this way still prizes its gifts, and it uses them as Paul asks, to build one another up in love.