So welcome as we continue in Serie 4. This is the fifth episode out of seven episodes in this series.  

Recap and Background 

Paul is dealing with the question of what happens in the public meetings of the church. This is a matter of great importance for all of us. He found out that there were many problems in the church in Corinth. Paul must have been so frustrated because he was a long way away in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and Corinth was in Greece, and he couldn't get there quickly. So, he had to write a letter to help them sort out the problems in the church.  

Particularly, in this section, he is talking about things that happen in public worship. We have looked at the conduct of men and women in worship - particularly those who are married - and at the conduct of the Lord's Supper or the Communion, which was a big problem in Corinth. In Episode 3, he began to talk about the gifts of the Spirit and how they might be used in the church. but he didn't continue and give real answers to that question. He is going to do that in Episodes 6 and 7, in 1 Corinthians 14. In the last episode, which is closely connected, Paul began to explain to the Corinthians that they should understand the church as if the church community is like a human body. This is a very powerful image to explain how interconnected we all are in the church community and how interdependent we are. We depend on each other, just like in the body. Every system, every organ, every part of the body depends on other parts.  

It concluded with him talking again about the gifts of the Spirit and explaining that not everybody has the same gifts. This is a very important principle, and in order tounderstand this more clearly, we are going to go back to the Gospels and remind ourselves of the difference between Jesus and us as individual believers. John 3: 34 and 35 tell us something very important about the gifts of the Spirit, and the power of the Spirit operating through Jesus as the Son of God. In the second part of 3: 34 ‘For God gives the Spirit without limit.’ Notice that expression ‘without limit’. ‘The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands’.God the Father gives Jesus the Holy Spirit without limit. That means that Jesus could use, and operate, every gift of the Spirit that is described in the New Testament. He could be a healer; be a teacher; he could prophesy; perform miracles in nature, like calming the storm or the feeding of the 5000; and he could heal the sick. He could do anything that is within the range of the gifts of the Spirit. Jesus had the Spirit without limit. We, as the church, are the body of Christ. Paul pointed out earlier on, that the Spirit distributes the gifts according to his will. Jesus had access to all the gifts of the Spirit, but for Christians, we only have access individually to a few, or one or two gifts of the Spirit - maybe three or four. 

The Spirit distributes them according to his will. But if we all function effectively in the power of the Spirit, Paul's vision of the church was that we would operate with all the gifts of the Spirit as a body - not as an individual person, not as a gifted charismatic leader who stands on the platform and is incredibly gifted - no, as a whole community. Some people may be gifted in miracles or healing, some in teaching and pastoring, some in managing and guiding, some in helping and caring, and some people in healing, doing miracles, and so on. That is Paul's vision of the local church.  

Seek the Gifts of the Spirit 

Keep this idea in mind as we go through this episode. He ends in 1 Corinthians 12, in the last passage, with a very important verse, verse 31. This is the introduction to our episode today. This is the context. This is what Paul is focusing on: ‘Now eagerly desire the greater gifts,’ that is, the more influential gifts. ‘And yet I will show you the most excellent way.’Paul puts together two things that we often don'tthink of together. First of all, he says, ‘desire spiritual gifts’, especially ones that really influence other people. It is good to ask the Lord, to give you more spiritual gifts so that you can serve the church and reach the world. It is a good thing to desire the gifts of the Spirit; it is not proud to do so. That is the basic point Paul is making here. Sometimes you may think, you can't ask God for this or that gift because it is only the pastor who can exercise those gifts. Many people in churches think in terms of the pastor, or the leaders, or the elders, or the deacons, or the evangelists being the gifted ones and everyone else takes a step back into being quite passive, receiving ministry. Paul had a different vision. He said to the whole church community there in Corinth, which probably numbered between 100 and 200 people at the time, seek the spiritual gifts, especially the greater ones, the ones that are more influential. He gave a list here in the previous verses 28 and 29, and he said that there are  apostles, prophets, and teachers. Those are the more important ones - teachers being pastors because Paul uses the word teacher and pastor very closely connected together. It is good to seek those gifts. So that is a starting point. But before seeking them, there is something even more important than the gifts. 

Love is the Motive 

Why are we seeking the gifts? Is it to make us more  important? To make other people respect us more, or to be more influential? Or is it the motive that Paul is about to talk about here, which is to love other people? This is the key to the spiritual gifts. The most effective way to use the spiritual gifts is to have such a desire to help other people, that you want more power to help them. 

Paul comes to chapter 13, which is a very famous passage in the church - the chapter on love. We need to think about the context. Many people know this chapter because it is quoted when Christians get married. That is a good thing to do. It is quoted when we talk about Christian character. That is a good thing to do. But Paul is using this in the context of the spiritual gifts and functioning as the body of Christ. Remember what he said in the last episode - Don't feel too inferior, play your part; you are just as important as anybody else. Don't be too superior. Don't separate yourself from the church. Love the church - even if you feel very strongly and have lots of money, are very influential and have got a big job. Our attitude to the church is very important. We should understand ourselves being part of a body. We are connected so closely that we need each other. Paul now goes on to say that there is something more important than spiritual gifts themselves - our attitude towards one another. Although these words are famous, let us look at them again with fresh thinking, because we have looked at the context in which Paul writes.   

Love 

“If I speak in the tongues of men and 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, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  1 Corinthians 13: 1 - 7 NIV

Such an amazing passage! 

When Paul uses the word ‘love’, it has a particular meaning. There are several words for love in the Greek language. He is not talking about romantic or sexual love nor about the love between friends - the way that we love to be with people who we like, and we get on with easily. No, he is talking about love here in a different way - about love as a self-giving love, that is not looking for any return: we give because we care about the other person. Paul is focusing on love between believers in a local church.  

It is greater to love other people, says Paul, than merely to speak in tongues. Some people in the Corinthian church loved speaking in tongues in public. Nobody asked them to; they just started speaking in tongues. It was a situation of chaos, described in the next two episodes, 6 and 7. Paul is trying to sort all that chaos out. They loved doing it because it made them look important. Some people loved to give a prophecy because people would think, wow, that man, that woman, must be very close to God - must be very holy and powerful and I need to get close to them, and I need to respect them because they can deliver prophecies. Paul says that is the wrong motive. Love is more important. It is almost better that you don'tspeak, but you learn how to love first.  

Some people have amazing faith for miracles and sacrifice themselves for the poor to gain a reputation for Christian self-sacrifice. Paul says, we shouldn't be doing any of these things for that motive. Everything should be done because we give ourselves freely for the welfare of our fellow Christians. What is wrong with these good activities? The motive.  

Sometimes, I have seen preachers coming into churches, calling on them to give money for their ministry, and they are just building up their financial base. The motive is money. Some people's motive is to gain honour in the church community by certain activities. This is not how we should be living as Christians. Christ loved us, and we love our fellow Christians because we are part of the same body of Christ. We are part of the same family. The Holy Spirit is in them, just as he is within us.  

The nature of Christian love in verses 4 - 7 is described in a number of remarkable ways. ‘Love is patient and kind - not envious.’  It is so easy to be envious of other people's youth, wealth, skills, gender, age, home, family or influence.  ‘Not boastful, not proud, not dishonouring, not self-seeking. ‘Not easily angered,’ I had a friend many years ago who was a very fine Christian, but he had one weakness - he got angry very easily and very often. He ended up becoming very unpopular in church, and he really couldn't survive in the local church because he would always be angry with people quite suddenly.  

We keep ‘no record of wrongs.’ That is speaking about forgiveness. This issue is dealt with very extensively in other parts of Word Online teaching, especially in Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, and Matthew 18, where Jesus specifically teaches about the importance of forgiving other people and other believers. 

We ‘don't delight in evil. We rejoice with the truth. We protect, trust, hope, and persevere with people.’ That is a hard thing to do, isn't it? To be patient and to persevere.  Often I have had to walk alongside people who are in difficult situations, or maybe not responding very well to the situations, for year after year after year. Just kept walking along with them. It takes patience and we must have hope that God is going to work within them.  

Comparison to Galatians 5 

This love Paul also describes in another way. In the collection in Word Online on Galatians, we find that Paul says something very similar in a different way, which I find really helpful as a contrast. In Galatians 5: 22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 

It is a similar list - not identical, but similar. Notice what Paul says here. It is the fruit of the Spirit. So, it is no good saying to one another we should be more loving. That in itself will not change the character of individual Christians. The Holy Spirit not only gives these supernatural gifts that Paul has been talking about, but the Holy Spirit is at work in you and me all the way through our Christian life to bring about this amazing love with its many facets and many different aspects. As you are going along in your Christian life, discern the work of the Holy Spirit who is literally wanting to change you as your Christian life continues, step by step - through difficult or complex circumstance, or difficult or complex people. You may think that someone is a difficult person or that is a problem but the Holy Spirit might be changing you and teaching you how to love. You are in the same human body, as it were - the body of Christ. You are part of the same community. Paul reveals in Galatians 5 that the Holy Spirit is working to make us more loving. The Holy Spirit also gives us all these amazing gifts of the Spirit. 

Jesus’ Love 

This is incredibly challenging. Another way of looking at it is to think about the life of Jesus. How did love work out in reality? He, and only he, perfectly showed us what love for people is. No one else has perfectly done it. He obviously did that in terms of dying on the cross for us – that is the greatest way that he showed his love, overwhelmingly and wonderfully; he gave up his life for us, was raised again from the dead and ascended into heaven. But Jesus’ day to day life and how he dealt with people shows us how to love. He showed patience and kindness. He trusted people. He gave of himself so much - surrounded by incredibly large crowds for months at a time, with almost no privacy, and no time for himself. People were demanding help, support, prayer and miracles on an almost daily basis wherever he went. But Jesus showed the love of 1 Corinthians 13. He showed love towards his disciples in a remarkable way. He was incredibly patient with Peter, who said, ‘Jesus, you can't go to the cross. We can't let you die on the cross,‘  and tried to prevent him from going to his mission of dying on the cross. He was patient with his disciples James and John, who wanted high places of honour at the left and the right hand of Jesus in the eternal Kingdom. He was patient with Peter, when Peter denied that he even knew Jesus during the time when Jesus was being tried. He was patient with Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. He was patient with Thomas the Apostle, who doubted him after he had been raised from the dead. Jesus is our example of the Christian love that we see in 1 Corinthians 13. 

The Future of Love 

“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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 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. 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. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  1 Corinthians 13:8 - 13 NIV

Paul introduces another element into our understanding. He points towards the future. Not only is he talking about the church in this life, but he is also putting it in the context of the eternal life of the Christian community. In verse 10 he describes when completeness comes and a little later he describes, in verse 12, ‘then we shall see face to face’.These two expressions tell us that Paul is talking about the time when Jesus returns, takes the Church to be with him, and forms the eternal Kingdom - the perfect Kingdom where sin is banished, and everything is perfect. He points out that prophecy, tongues and knowledge - all these incredible gifts of the Spirit - will no longer be needed. They are a temporary requirement of the Church to strengthen the Church before Jesus comes again. They will pass away, but love will never pass away. So again, he is making the point; love is the most important thing. We need churches built on self-giving love.  

Reflections 

First, let us just say it is a wonderful chapter, isn't it? We love reading this chapter at weddings. We love thinking about it. We love thinking that Christian love is the goal of the Christian life. It is a beautiful chapter, but it is also a challenging chapter. Paul is making it clear again that local church relationships really do matter, and good relationships make the church strong. He is very worried about the Corinthian church. He thinks it will collapse, be destroyed and die mainly because the relationships are so bad in the church. He calls this ‘this present crisis’ in chapter 7. This present crisis is the risk of the church being destroyed by its own quarrels, disagreements, factions and divisions. The church in every age can only be strong and effective if the relationships in that church community are good.  

Let me leave you with a personal challenge: I don't know your circumstances, I don’t know which country you live in, what kind of church you are part of but having heard this teaching and the teaching from the previous episode, which relates very closely - the body of Christ – rededicate yourself to your commitment to your local church community. It is more important than you might have realized.  

Secondly, ask God to help you show the fruit of the Spirit of Christian love, kindness and gentleness towards your fellow believers. This Christian love is self-giving love. What is God calling you to give to your fellow believers? It might be prayer, finance, friendship, hospitality, or forgiveness for the things that they have done that have been painful and hurtful to you. This is a journey that God calls us to go on so that the church may be strong. My prayer for you and your church, wherever you are, is that your church may be stronger because of this passage and because of this teaching of Paul as it is applied in your life.