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If 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 (1 Corinthians 13:1, NLT).
When I first started reading verse one, comparing love to a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal, I thought, “How odd.”
Of all Shakespeare’s sonnets, romance novels, and country music songs about love — all their words combined don’t come close to the insightful description of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Yet the chapter begins with noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. And this seemingly strange but also very poetic description of love continues. . .
If 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. If 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 (vv. 2-3).
To gongs and cymbals, the Apostle Paul adds prophecy, mysteries, knowledge, moving mountains, and being burned alive. Some of these later additions make sense as we know that love is a mystery and it moves mountains, but being burned alive?
Everyone who reads the first four verses of 1 Corinthians 13 (not getting tangled in the verbiage of the trees but seeing the actual forest of what Paul means) gets the immediate impression that true love isn’t ultimately emotional words, knowing the exact definition, or even sacrifice.
It’s something more, much more.
Paul even uses a word seldom found in literature outside the New Testament for this love. It’s the Greek word “agape.” After reading the first four verses, first-century readers would think, “This word, this love. . . how do we define it? How do we live it? How do we find it?”
Centuries later, when reading 1 Corinthians 13, we have the same questions. Fortunately, Paul gives us the answers. . .
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (vv. 4-6).
Paul doesn’t dissect love or try to explain it. Instead, we find examples of this love and quickly conclude it’s radical.
The Greeks had a God named Eros; the Roman God for love was Cupid — and yes, eroticism and Cupid’s arrows speak more to our desires fulfilled than an agape love lacking pride, not keeping a record of wrongs, and never losing faith.
We now know the supernatural nature of love, as agape is both radical and impossible, with the strength to love found only in Jesus. . .
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a 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 (vv. 11-12).
When we seek Jesus, we find love. He alone is perfect, and our love grows by seeing Him!
Let’s remember. . .
For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love (v. 13, CEV).
Living for eternity with Jesus, we won’t need faith, and our hope will be complete as well, but love — agape — is the greatest, as it lasts for eternity!
Author’s Note: Today is my birthday!