The Necessity of Love
12:31b to 13:3
The necessity of love DIG: Based on Paul’s opening words in this passage, why is love so important? Why are even the best gifts worthless if they aren’t given in love? The love that Paul describes in this passage is selfless and always faithful. Why is it so difficult to demonstrate that kind of love? What does Paul say about the need for spiritual maturity?
REFLECT: What does exhibiting true love require on your part? What are some things that keep believers from showing their love for others? What can you learn from Messiah’s example about loving without limits? How would you describe unconditional love? When have you seen that in your life? In what ways can the love of ADONAI free you to love others?
The loveless person produces nothing, is nothing, and gains nothing.
Gregory Nazianzen, one of the three celebrated Capadocians of the fourth century, a defender of the Nicean faith, and one of the most celebrated orators of the early Church, writes in regard to this chapter on love that here we may read what Paul said about Paul. It is true: only a man in whose heart the Spirit of God has kindled a faith like Paul’s could evidence a love like Paul’s and on the basis of his own experience of that love, record its glories in what may be called the Psalm of Love. Paul’s heart lies open in this chapter. Here is the power, faith working through love, that sent him over land and sea to preach to others the unsearchable riches of Yeshua Messiah. Here is the inner strength that sustained him amid all his labors, burdens, trials, sufferings, and persecutions. Here is what enabled him to overcome hunger and hardship, false friends and bitter foes, bodily injury and dangers of death. We cannot understand this man unless we understand his faith and its fruit of love. All of his great joys and abilities, his high and holy apostleship in the Church, his amazing task and his astounding success – all of it came to be as a result of his love. This we must realize when he tells the Corinthians that besides the instruction of the spiritual gifts themselves, he now shows them the inner, spiritual power that must energize all of these gifts if they are to be of any real benefit to the Church.393
But now I will show you the best way of all (12:31b). Chapter 13 is the great “love chapter,” just as Hebrews 11 is the great “faith chapter.” Paul’s shift to the first person, I, is significant. It keeps his words from the appearance that he is scolding the Corinthians for their deplorable failure to love one another (although that was certainly true enough). He will show (Greek: deiknumi) them the best way of all, he intends to illustrate love from his own apostolic life rather than offer snappy little sound bites about it. Each verse here begins with a conditional clause (Greek: ean, a conditional particle meaning if) stressing the use of hyperbole. Each verse concludes with a negative consequence. The last two use the word nothing, I am nothing, and I gain nothing. This does more than invalidate the gift; it touches a person’s very being.394
1. Tongues without love are nothing. As stated above, Paul used hyperbole to emphasize his point. He made several extreme statements to underscore the absolute priority of loving others. If (ean) I speak in the tongues of men, even angels (13:1a). Paul is saying, “If I could do this.” He wasn’t saying that he did, he was merely using exaggerated language to make a point. However, many believe otherwise, suggesting the gift of tongues involves some angelic or heavenly language. Indeed, most charismatics believe that the gift of tongues is a private prayer language, a heavenly language, known only to God. But there is no basis in the text for such a view. Paul was making a hypothetical case, just as in the subsequent verses, where he speaks about knowing all mysteries and knowledge (even Paul could not make that claim), giving all his possessions to the poor, and giving his body to be burned. Paul was speaking theoretically, suggesting that even if those things were true (which they were not), without love they would be meaningless. To make his point about the necessity of love, Paul was trying to stretch his examples to the extreme. Besides, there is no evidence in Scripture that angels use a heavenly language. When angels appear in the Bible, they communicate in normal language (Luke 1:11-20, 26-27 and 2:8-14).
Nowhere does the Bible teach that the gift of tongues is anything other than human languages. Nor is there any suggestion that the true gift of tongues described in Corinth (to see link click Do – Tongues are a Sign) was any different from the miraculous signs described in the book of Acts (see the commentary on Acts Al – The Ruach Ha’Kodesh Comes at Shavu’ot). The Greek word in both places is glossa. At Shavu’ot it is clear that the disciples were speaking in known languages. Unbelieving Jews who were in Jerusalem for Shavu’ot were confused, because each one heard the believers speaking in their own language (Acts 2:6). Luke went on to name some fifteen different countries and areas whose language was being spoken. In order to be a meaningful sign, these must have been Gentile foreign languages, not some kind of heavenly language.395
Paul’s strategy was to place in center stage the gift that the Corinthians prized the most and that was causing the greatest disruption in their public worship, and bring it down several notches by showing its emptiness without love. But if I lack love, I have become merely a blaring brass or a cymbal clanging (13:1b). It becomes a hollow performance that falls flat. Those who speak in tongues without love become something other than what they intended.396 In other words, tongues apart from love are just a bunch of noise.
2. Prophecy, knowledge, and faith without love are nothing. Continuing his hyperbole, Paul tells us that even the great gift of prophecy must be ministered to in love. If (ean) I have the gift of prophecy. The most gifted believer is not exempt from the mitzvah of love. If anything, he is even more obligated to do so. From someone to whom people entrust much, they still ask more (Luke 12:48). Of all people, the prophet should speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
Balaam was a prophet of God. He knew the true God and he knew God’s truth, but he had no love for God’s people. With little hesitation he agreed to curse the Israelites in return for a generous payment by Balak, king of Mo’ab. Because God could not convince His prophet not to do such a terrible thing, He sent an angel to stop the prophet’s donkey (Numbers 22:16-34). Several other times Balaam would have cursed Isra’el had he not been prevented from doing so by God. But what the prophet failed to do through cursing Isra’el he accomplished by misleading them. Because he led Isra’el into idolatry and immorality, Balaam was put to death (Numbers 31:8 and 16). Balaam knew God’s Word, spoke God’s Word, and feared God in a self-protecting way, but he had no love for God and no love for His people.
Jeremiah’s ministry was in stark contrast to Balaam’s. He was the weeping prophet, not because of his own problems, which were great, but because of the wickedness of his people, because of their refusal to turn to ADONAI, and because of the punishment he had to prophesy against them. He wept over them much as Yeshua would later weep over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). Early in his ministry Jeremiah was so moved by the spiritual plight of his people that he cried out: My grief has no cure, I am sick at heart . . . the daughter of my people (Jerusalem) is broken, and it’s tearing me to pieces; everything looks dark to me, horror seizes me . . . I wish my head were made of water and my eyes were a fountain of tears, so that I could cry day and night over the slain of the daughter of my people (Jeremiah 8:18 and 21, 9:1). Jeremiah was a prophet with a broken heart, a spiritual heart, a loving heart.397
Paul employs hyperbole in referring to knowing all mysteries. He understands some mysteries (Romans 11:25; First Corinthians 15:51), particularly the mystery of God revealed in the cross (2:1 and 7, 4:1), but he does not know all things (Romans 11:33-35), or have all knowledge, since he concedes that we know only in part and prophesy only in part (13:9). But even if Paul were to have this prized knowledge revealed to him by ADONAI, it becomes meaningless information without love. Only love can understand the wisdom of the cross. I may know all mysteries, know all things, have all faith – enough to move mountains; but if I lack love, I am nothing (13:2).398 That sums it up very well.
3. Benevolence and martyrdom without love are nothing. Agape love is always self-sacrificing, but self-sacrifice does not necessarily come from love. Throughout the history of the Church certain groups and movements have believed that self-denial, self-humiliation, and even self-affliction, in themselves, bring spiritual merit. Many cults and pagan religions place great emphasis on the giving up of possessions, on sacrifice of various sorts, and on religious acts of supposed humility, self-deprivation, suffering, or isolation. Even for believers, however, such things are more than worthless without love. In fact, without love they are anything but selfless. The real focus of such practices is not God, nor others, but self – either in the form of legalistic fear of not doing those things or for the praise and imagined blessing for doing them. The motive is self, and is neither spiritual nor loving.
If (ean) I give away everything that I own to feed the poor would not be a spiritual deed if not done out of genuine love, no matter how great the sacrifice or how many people were fed. In the Torah there are three main tithes which equaled about twenty-five percent (see the commentary on Deuteronomy Cx – Do Not Neglect the Levite), so Paul’s illustration suggested unheard of generosity. Even so, the people who received such generosity would have full stomachs, but the giver would gain nothing if not done in love. Both his bank account and his spiritual account would be empty. Yeshua’s command to give secretly (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Do – When You Give to the Needy, Do Not Do It to be Honored by Others) helps to protect us from being tempted by some of those false, unscriptural and unloving motives. Benevolence with love is of great worth; benevolence without love is nothing.399 The supposed self-sacrifice of giving away all of one’s possessions is intensified by the extreme illustration of giving away one’s own body. Finally, Paul says: If I even hand over my body to be burned; but if I lack love, I gain nothing (13:3).
When reading 13:4-7, replace the word “love” with your name. What actions do you need to take to make what you just read to be true?
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