13:1ffIn chapter 12 Paul gave evidence of the Corinthians’ lack of love in the utilization of spiritual gifts; chapter 13 defines real Jove; and chapter 14 shows how love works. Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church body. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle-working power have little effect without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful. Although people have different gifts, love is available to everyone.
Life Application Study Bible1 CorinthiansChapter 13
1 Corinthians 13
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original pages: 1949, 1950
A few verse numbers on this page were hard to read in the scan and are marked with a dotted underline — compare with the original page image if in doubt.
131 Corinthians 13
Love Is the Greatest
1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. 4Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud Sor rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 8Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages* and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless. 11When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.* All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 13Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
The Gifts of Tongues and Prophecy
1414
Textual footnotes
- 13:3 Some manuscripts read sacrificed my body to be burned, 13:8 Or in tongues.
- 13:12 Greek see face to face.
Life Application Notes 3 notes
13:4-7Our society confuses love and lust. Unlike lust, God's kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves, It is utterly unselfish, This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations. It is impossible to have this love unless God helps us set aside our own natural desires so that we can love and not expect anything in return. Thus, the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.
13:5Paul says that love “is nat irritable.” Sometimes we're irtitated or angered by others, and we don’t know why. Not all irritability stems from sinful or selfish motives, although the irritable treatment of others surely is wrong. Much irritability comes from a love of perfection, a deep desire that programs, meetings, and structures be run perfectly. A desire to run things perfectly can erupt into anger at events or people who get in the way or ruin that desire. Those who are easily irritated need to remember that perfection exists only in God. We need to fove him and our fellow Christians, not the visions we have for perfection here on earth.