The church in Corinth had great faith and powerful spiritual gifts, but they struggled with unity. We've been reading Paul's writing to them about the importance of spiritual gifts and how each gift is important to the whole. He also focused on the importance of unity in a diverse community and talks about how the church is Christ's body and each member has a place. In today's reading he takes it a step further by describing how love is much more important than any other spiritual gift. Love is the calling of all Christians, because it is God's way. When we put love first, everything else falls into place.
God bless,
Sam
1
Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of
angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And
if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and
if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love
is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist
on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not
rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. But as for
prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for
knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we
prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial
will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an
end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then
we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even
as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide,
these three; and the greatest of these is love.
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