I Corinthians 13:1-13

 I Corinthians 13:1-13

This is perhaps the most frequently “out of context” misused chapter in the Bible. Many people want to take this chapter and turn it into an ode to love as if it were nothing more than a sentimental free verse poem to be read at a wedding. Beautiful as it is, chapter 13 must be taken in context. The chapter break here is most unfortunate. Chapter 12 ends with Paul’s discussion of conflict over the issue of spiritual gifts. In chapter 14 Paul will take up misuse of spiritual gifts. In between these, Paul will show a “still more excellent way.” Beyond the textual context there is the greater context of this church deeply divided by all kinds of sinful selfishness. In every paragraph, almost every sentence we have seen a church fractured and broken. Now Paul points to the cure for the church’s problems, that cure is love. 

Rather than seeing this as eloquent prose, this chapter needs to be seen as a person's direct and stinging rebuke to individuals that Paul could have, had he wanted to, called by name. This chapter expresses love from three perspectives. First is the priority of love. Second is the character of love. And third is the endurance of love. In the first verse, Paul responds to those who want to make their reputation or “make their bones” on the things they did. There is a strong probability that as this letter was read, the people of the Corinthian church said something to the effect of “He is talking about…” or “He is talking about me.” In verses 4-7, the positive and especially the negative descriptions would have had faces attached to them. The church members knew who was impatient, unkind, and jealous, who bragged, and who was arrogant. Everyone could have remembered the ‘unbecoming’ display between two or more of the disciples in that church. The original reading did not produce a sentimental swelling of the heart. Rather, it likely produced embarrassment or even, at first, hot anger. 

The last section on the endurance of love begins with “love never fails.” For the entire letter up to this point, Paul has focused almost entirely on their failures; he points out here the root of the rotten record. You cannot find a failure in chapters 1-12 in the Corinthians individually or the church collectively that doesn’t trace its roots back to a lack or a perversion of love. Rather than looking at chapter 13 with romantic idealism, let's look at it as the cure for our sinful disposition. 

“Lord, help me see where I am unloving and bring about repentance. AMEN”