THE GREATEST GIFT IS LOVE

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1 May 31, 2015 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON THE GREATEST GIFT IS LOVE MINISTRY INVOCATION O God: We give thanks to You for the manifold blessings to us. You did not have to bless us but You did. We shall remain eternally grateful. Amen. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND Love is needed to achieve the benefit of all spiritual gifts. THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ. TEXT: Background Scripture I Corinthians 13 Key Verse I Corinthians 13:13 Lesson Scripture I Corinthians 13 (NKJV) The Greatest Gift 13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1

2 COMMENTARY Verses The supremely excellent way of Christian love. This chapter has been in all ages the object of the special admiration of the Church. In verses 1 3, he shows the absolute necessity for love; in verses. 4 7 its characteristics; in verses. 8 12, its eternal permanence; in verse 13 its absolute supremacy. Verse 1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. The case is merely supposed. The tongues of men are human languages, including, perhaps, the peculiar utterance of ecstatic inspiration with which he is now dealing. It is, perhaps, with reference to this latter result of spiritual exultation, at any rate in its purest and loftiest developments, that he adds the words, and of angels. The words are meant to express the greatest possible climax. The most supreme powers of utterance, even of angelic utterance if any of the Corinthians had or imagined that they had attained to such utterance are nothing in comparison with the universally possible attainment of Christian love. It is remarkable that he places tongues, even in their grandest conceivable development, on the lowest step in his climax. And have not charity. The apostles were compelled to describe the ideal of the gospel life by another word, which expressed the love of esteem and reverence and sacred tenderness the word agape. This word was not indeed classical. If charity had been exclusively used for agape, no objection need have arisen, although love is English while charity is Latin. To argue that the word love in English is not unmingled with unhallowed uses is absurd, because those uses of the word have never been supposed for a single moment to intrude into multitudes of other passages where love is used to render agape. It is, therefore, a great gain that the Revised Version restored to this passage the word love. For in modern English usage the word charity is almost confined to almsgiving, and that of a kind which is often made an excuse for shirking all real self-denial, and for not acting up to the true spirit of love. Christian love is always and infinitely blessed, but the almsgiving which has usurped the name of charity often does more harm than good. I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal; more literally, I have become booming brass, or clanging cymbal. My tongues without love become a mere discordant, obtrusive, unintelligible dissonance. Verse 2. Prophecy. The power of lofty utterance belonged to Balaam and Caiaphas yet it availed them nothing without love Lord, Lord, exclaim the troubled souls at the left hand, have we not prophesied in thy Name? Yet he answers them, I never knew you. All mysteries. Though I can speak of the secrets of God once hidden but now revealed And all knowledge. Insight into the deeper meanings of Scripture, etc. All faith. Not here meaning justifying 2

3 faith, or saving faith, which can no more exist without showing itself in works than light can exist without heat; but reliance on the power to work wonders. Judas, for instance, must have possessed this kind of faith, and it was exercised by many who will yet be rejected because they also work iniquity (Matt. 7:21 23). So that I could remove mountains. No expression could involve a more forcible rebuke to intellectual and spiritual pride. Verse 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor. The five words, bestow to feed the poor, is derived from a mouthful, and so means give away by mouthfuls, i.e. dole away. Attention to this verse might have served as a warning against the often useless and sometimes even pernicious doles of mediæval monasteries. Much of the charity of these days is even more uncharitable than this, and shows the most complete absence of true charity; as for instance the dropping of pennies to professional beggars, and so putting a premium on vice and imposture To be burned. St. Paul was probably referring, not, as some have supposed, to branding, which would have been expressed differently, but to the case of the three children, in Dan. 3:23, where the LXX. has, They gave their bodies into the fire. Its applicability is on a par with millions of other instances in which Scripture has been grossly abused by employing its letter to murder its spirit, and by taking it from the God of love to give it to the devil of religious hatred. The burning of a saint was a singular specimen of the Church s love. It profiteth me nothing; literally, I am nothing benefited. A consideration of this verse might have shown the Christians of the early centuries that there was nothing intrinsically redemptive in the martyrdom into which they often thrust themselves. Verse 4. Suffereth long, and is kind. Passively it endures; actively it does good. It endures evils; it confers blessings. Envieth not. Its negative characteristics are part of its positive perfection. Envy one shape of many names includes malice, grudge, jealousy, pique, an evil eye, etc., with all their base and numerous manifestations. Vaunteth not itself. The meaning would probably be most nearly expressed by the colloquialism, does not show off. Is not puffed up. Has no purse-proud or inflated arrogance. Love, therefore, is free from the characteristic vices of the Corinthian Church. Verse 5. Doth not behave itself unseemly Vulgar indecorum is alien from love, as having its root in selfishness and want of sympathy. Seeketh not her own. Self-seeking is the root of all evil. Is not easily provoked. Love, when it is perfected, rises superior to all temptations to growing exasperated, although it may often be justly indignant. Thinketh no evil; literally, doth not reckon (or, impute) the evil. The phrase seems to be a very comprehensive one, implying that love is neither suspicious, nor implacable, nor retentive in her memory of evil done. Love writes our personal wrongs in ashes or in water. 3

4 Verse 6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity; rather, at unrighteousness. The rejoicing at sin, the taking pleasure in them that commit sin, the exultation over the fall of others into sin, are among the worst forms of malignity. The Greeks had a word, to describe rejoicing at the evil (whether sin or misfortune) of others - malignant joy Rejoiceth in the truth; rather, with the truth. There are many who resist the truth or who hold the truth in unrighteousness; but love accepts it, keeps it pure, exults in all its triumphs. Ver. 7. Beareth all things Endures wrongs and evils, and covers them with a beautiful reticence. Thus love covereth all sins. Believeth all things. Takes the best and kindest views of all men and all circumstances, as long as it is possible to do so. It is the opposite to the common spirit, which drags everything, paints it in the darkest colors, and makes the worst of it. Love is entirely alien from the spirit of the cynic, the pessimist, the ecclesiastical rival, the anonymous slanderer, the secret detractor. Hopeth all things. Christians seem to have lost sight altogether of the truth that hope is something more than the result of a sanguine temperament, that it is a gift and a grace. Hope is averse to sourness and gloom. It takes sunny and cheerful views of man, of the world, and of God because it is a sister of love. Endureth all things. Whether the seventy times seven offences of a brother (Luke 17:4), or the wrongs of patient merit (2 Tim. 2:24), or the sufferings and self denials and persecutions of the life spent in doing good (2 Tim. 2:10). Verse 8. Never faileth. The word faileth has two technical meanings between which it is not easy to decide. 1. It means, technically, is never hissed off the stage like a bad actor, i.e. it has its part to play even on the stage of eternity. 2. It means falls away like the petals of a withered flower. They shall fail. This is not the same word as the one on which we have been commenting; it means shall be annulled or done away; and is the same verb as that rendered in the next clauses by vanish away, be done away (ver. 10), and put away (ver. 11). Thus in two verses we have the same word rendered by four different phrases. Tongues. Special charisms are enumerated to show the transcendence of love. Knowledge. This shall be only annulled in the sense of earthly knowledge, which shall be a star disappearing in the light of that heavenly knowledge which shall gradually broaden into the perfect day. Verse 9. We know in part. The expression applies directly to religious knowledge, and should be a rebuke to the pretence to infallibility and completeness which is sometimes usurped by religious men. Verse 10. That which is in part shall be done away. It will be lost in perfectness when we have at last attained to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. 4

5 Verse 11. I understood as a child, I thought as a child; I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things; now that I am become a man, I have done away with childish things. No specific time at which he put away childish things is alluded to, but he means that manhood is a state in which childishness should have become impossible. Verse 12. Through a glass; rather, through (or, by means of) a mirror. Our glasses were unknown in that age. The mirrors were of silver or some polished metal, giving, of course, a far dimmer image than glasses do. St. Paul says that no human eye can see God at all except as an image seen as it were behind the mirror. Darkly; rather, in a riddle. Human language, dealing with Divine facts, can only represent them indirectly, metaphorically, enigmatically, under human images, and as illustrated by visible phenomena. God can only be represented under the phrases of anthropomorphism and anthropopathy; and such phrases can only have a relative, not an absolute, truth. Then; Face to face. Like the mouth to mouth. This is the beatific vision. We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. Then shall I know even as also I am known; rather, then shall I fully know even as also I was fully known, viz. when Christ took knowledge of me at my conversion. Now, we do not so much know God, but rather are known of God. Verse 13. And now. The now is not temporal (as opposed to the then of the previous verse), but logical. It sums up the paragraph. Abideth. These three graces are fundamental and permanent; not transient. Faith, hope, charity. It might be difficult to see how hope should be permanent, but if the future state be progressive throughout eternity and infinitude, hope will never quite be lost in fruition. Even within the veil, it will still remain as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead-fast (Heb. 6:19). The greatest of these is charity; more literally, greater than these is love. St. Paul does not explain why love is the greatest and best of the three. 1. Love is the greatest, because it is the root of the other two; we believe only in that which we love; we hope only for that which we love. 2. And love is the greatest because love is for our neighbors; faith and hope mainly for ourselves. 3. Love is the greatest because faith and hope are human, but God is love. 4. Love is the greatest because faith and hope can only work by love, and only show themselves by love. Thus, love is as the undivided perfection of sevenfold light. Faith and hope are precious stones of one color, as a ruby and a sapphire; but love, is a diamond of many facets. RELATED DISCUSSION TOPICS CLOSING PRAYER 5

6 My God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. They represent bountiful blessings for all of us. Amen. 6