E100 Bible Reading Challenge: The Apostles Teaching: The Most Excellent Way (91)

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,^* but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly,^* but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

The Active Ingredient

KEY THOUGHT

God’s love is the greatest thing in life.

OVERVIEW

Paul had just finished an extended discussion of spiritual gifts but he called love “the most excellent way” (12.31b). At the heart of this chapter (13.4-7), Paul answered the question, “What is love?” This passage reminds us that the things in life that have the greatest value are faith, hope and love. But love is the greatest. And yet, as wonderful as this passage is, it’s still only the second best expression of love ever. The best was Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross for

the sins of the world.

CHALLENGE

GOD’S LOVE IS THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.