“8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”
The doctrine of love is the point of 1 Corinthians 13! Not tongues, prophesy, or knowledge. Each of those are limited. Initially, they are shown to be empty and vain without love (1 Cor. 13:1–3), and now they are shown to be limited (1 Cor.13:8–12). That is the point. While those spiritual gifts are useful and have their place (whether you hold to their enduring through our present day or not), they are just not enough!
Love, as “the greater gift,” is the “more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). Love in its many expressions “never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4–8a). Even though this chapter refers to three of the spiritual gifts, these were the gifts the Corinthians exalted above all the others. And indeed, the church today seems to exalt these as well. Many today glory in their prophecy conferences; others rely on excitable and emotional so-called “manifestations” of the Spirit. And we put on a pedestal those celebrity preachers and writers who seem to convey an unusual teaching ability. Yet how often does love make the headlines in our Christian sub-culture? The antidote is love, according to the Word of God.
This is not to diminish the importance of end-times prophesy or powerful preaching of the Word. We need great teachers, and we certainly need the Holy Spirit working in our personal lives and in our local churches. But if this chapter is to have any weight in our lives, it is not to settle doctrinal debates about the spiritual gifts, but to transform us by focusing on something far greater. This is not a fluffy idea to be relegated to wedding ceremonies—nothing could be farther from Paul’s mind as he wrote about love. For Christians, love will accomplish far more for the body of Christ than absolutely anything else. It is unequivocally indispensable to living our Christian life as God intends it.
While the canon of NT Scriptures is perfect and complete now, we are certainly not perfect, nor is God’s dispensation of grace complete. There is coming a time when the love of God will have completed its work in our lives, and we will enter into the fulness of knowing Him, “for God is love” (1 John 4:8). Until then we love by faith and trust Him when He says, “Love never fails.”
Lord, I trust You on this, and therefore I will seek to love others as You love me.
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