Without Love . . . Nothing

Throughout Romans 12, Paul has been giving us illustrations of Christian love in action, showing us how love guides our behavior toward both believers and unbelievers. He takes this same approach in another, better-known passage of Scripture—1 Corinthians 13. There, as here, he provides no precise definition of love, but instead offers examples of the things love does, of how it works itself out in the behavior of a loving person. But the language of 1 Corinthians 13 has long been recognized as being of special poetic power. In few places in his letters does Paul write so lyrically. For the remainder of this month, we will revisit this familiar passage, that the Holy Spirit might work once more through the power of Paul’s pen to teach us how we ought to live. Dr. R.C. Sproul’s audio teaching series on 1 Corinthians 13, simply titled “Love,” will be our guide.

The first lesson Paul drives home in 1 Corinthians 13 is the priority of love in the Christian life. For Paul, love is an essential—it is of the essence of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

The Corinthian church, of course, was a very troubled congregation. It was wracked by divisions, by scandals, and by other problems. One of the church’s prime difficulties grew out of its infatuation with spiritual gifts. Some (perhaps many) in the congregation refused to use their gifts in an orderly way, that is, under the oversight of the church’s elders and according to guiding principles of the Christian life. It is this shortcoming that Paul addresses in stirring language in verses 1–3, powerfully reminding the Corinthians that even though spiritual gifts come from God, they are governed by the commands of God, the foremost of which is love. Thus, Paul is able to say that any Corinthian who has the divine gift of speaking in human or even heavenly languages is merely a “clanging cymbal” if he exercises that gift in a haughty manner. Any Corinthian with the gift of prophecy, divinely granted understandings of God’s ways, or even faith enough to move a mountain is simply “nothing” if he doesn’t care for his brothers and sisters. And any Corinthian who might give all his goods and even his life for another would be wasting his time if love were not his motive. Love, Paul says, must drive the exercise of all gifts. It is to be supreme in the body of Christ, both then and now.