Before we go deep into I Corinthians 13, we need to look at a few basic notions that need to be clarified or we might have some misleading ideas lingering around causing confusion.

One: I Corinthians 13 is not just for married couples. Think about it. When was the last time you heard a sermon on this chapter not connected to a wedding ceremony? You’d think married couples were the only ones capable of “true love.” Not that it should not be applied to marriage, but the context of the chapter is smack dab in the middle of Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts. This instruction is not just for a select few who are married, those who have special gifts as they are all uniquely given by God, or for those who have reached the elusive pinnacle of agapē love. I Corinthians 13 is for all one anothers!

Two: The word “love” in I Corinthians 13 is the Greek word agapē, a feminine noun that includes in its definition brotherly love. We covered this in depth previously so I will not belabor the point save only to remind us that all love is from God and when known, felt, and exhibited within His framework it is good, holy, and pure. 

The more important point regarding love’s definition is that biblical love is both a noun and a verb. As James makes clear in his epistle, if you look for love only as a noun (in word only) you really have no love at all. Love is not just theory. It is not just something we have. It is something we do and practice.

Three: Jesus said, “If you love (agapaō) me keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Multiple times throughout Scripture, God equates love with His commandments. Strip God’s commandments from I Corinthians 13 and we have only a partial lesson plan and we will without a doubt fail. 

Now that we have these clarifications in place, let’s dig into this amazing passage.

Love: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,
I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

1 Corinthians 13:1

Jesus: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. 

Matthew 23:29

I don’t know of any better example of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals than the religious leaders of Jesus’s day. Jesus pronounced seven “woes” on them in Matthew 23. I think one should have been enough, but obviously seven didn’t even get through to them. They were so busy making religious noise they didn’t even recognize Love when He walked in their midst. 

But, we must also be careful when we share God’s truth with others. Can they see His love in our words, our tone, and our non-verbal communication…especially in our eyes? Or is our noise so loud and our clanging so annoying all they see is pious hypocrisy?

Journal’s Malice

Many years ago, I sat in a living room with a girlfriend and our husband while all the kids bounced on beds upstairs. This scene was not new. We fellowshipped with this couple for years and stood by them in a time of great difficulty within our church. We’d just finished a wonderful meal together. I assumed we were going to share some laughs. But that night the joke was on me…only I wasn’t laughing when this grueling evening was over.

I should’ve known something was amiss when my friend pulled out one of her many journals and opened up the conversation with, “Elaine, we need to talk…” Only she didn’t talk. She read. Years of journal entries about me was the topic and it wasn’t sunshine and roses. Every wrong I had ever committed within our circle of friends was meticulously written down. 

“For the record,” she said. 

“I’m sharing this with you for your own good,” she said.

Every once in a while she looked up from her reading and asked, “Do you remember three years ago…?” 

I was a mother of three kids under six years old. I could barely remember that morning’s breakfast let alone something I may or may not have said three years ago! I sat in stunned silence and if you know me at all, that does not happen often. I grabbed my husband’s hand and tried to make eye contact, but his eyes were as glazed over as mine. 

I glanced over at her husband. He had a pasted smile on his face, his hands were folded in his lap, and his legs were crossed. He tried to look relaxed, but his jaw twitched as he stared at nothing. Now I know he was torn between empathy for me and relief that she was reading about someone else instead of him for a change.

She kept reading, but all I heard were clanging cymbals and noisy gongs smashing inside my head and ripping at my heart.    

To be continued…

At the turn of this century, there were multiple buzz phrases tossed about in the business world. If you wanted to appear intelligent and in the know, you made sure these phrases were part of your daily vocabulary. Clichés like, “think outside the box,” “maximize resources,” and “bottom line results” have been overused to the point that if spoken today, you will appear as a has-been rather than an up-and-comer. Please excuse the use of more overused clichés.

Eventually these phrases found their way into Christian-speak and were embraced by congregations desperate to prove themselves to their communities, their denominations, and the world at large. The words may seem innocent enough, but the philosophies behind them are anything but harmless. No longer is the church’s measuring stick God’s standards, Jesus’ life example, and the New Testament church. Rather, a church is measured by quantifiable numbers and outcomes. 

Program A is heralded as successful and given an increased budget because hundreds or even thousands of people attend each week. Program B is on the chopping block because only three little old ladies attend. And Program C has been cancelled because the budget far exceeded the minimal quantifiable impact it produced. In the human business world, these conclusions would be reasonable. However, in God’s business of going and making disciples in a lost world, they are far from reasonable; they are disastrous.

 As a body of believers, we better be sure the measuring stick we are basing our decisions on is God’s and not the latest fad embraced by a fallen world. Would today’s evangelical church mimic Jeremiah’s or Daniel’s method of ministry? How about Paul? Or Peter? Sometimes I wonder if we would even “come and follow” Jesus if He walked through our streets today. Probably not! For one thing, we would assume He wasn’t very successful since He would walk everywhere instead of riding in the latest and greatest SUV. 

The propensity for the people of God to imitate the world’s methods is nothing new. Israel just had to have a king. They were tired of the minimal results from the judges and prophets system. Then, of course, these kings just had to have more than one wife. After all, that’s how all the other kings secured heirs. And everybody else worshipped many gods, why not the Israelites? 

So as not to be too hard on Old Testament Israel, how about James and John wanting the most prestigious seats in Jesus’ new kingdom? Even the earliest believers stayed huddled up in Jerusalem until the stoning of Stephen forced them to go into all the world. And we dare not forget Jesus’ charge to the seven churches in Revelation. In their quest to do things like the world, the majority of these churches did not receive very good commendations from the King of Kings. Will we never learn?

In this chapter, I want us to learn well God’s measuring stick for loving one another. We will do that by investigating a passage of Scripture often called “the love chapter”: I Corinthians 13. We will compare the instructions in this chapter to Jesus’ life while here on earth.

 One of the most intriguing things to me about Jesus’ time here on earth was that He was always teaching or giving a lesson. He was always leading even though the whole time, He was on His way to the cross. He wanted these early followers to learn and to follow. Let’s do that, too!