The Greatest of These Is Love

Clang. Clang. Clang. A bronze gong, beaten over and over, filling a room with noise. It is loud. It is impressive. And it means absolutely nothing. That, Paul says, is what you sound like without love.

Corinth was a city that liked to show off. The church there was gifted, Paul says they lacked no gift at all, but they had turned their gifts into a competition. When they met for worship, some spoke loudly in tongues, others claimed special knowledge, and people pushed to be noticed. Some looked down on others. They argued about whose gift was best. So in the middle of a letter all about gifts and worship, Paul stops. I will show you a more excellent way, he says. And then he writes about love.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Charity is the old word for love, the kind of love that gives itself away. Paul goes on. If I can speak God's messages and understand every mystery and have all knowledge, if I have faith that can move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own to feed the poor, and even give up my own body, but have no love, it gets me nothing. All the gifts in the world, Paul says, add up to zero without love.

Then he describes what love is like. And it sounds a lot like a list of everything the Corinthians were not doing. “Love is patient and is kind; love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud, doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” Love waits. Love is kind. It doesn't sulk when someone else is chosen. It doesn't show off. It isn't rude. It doesn't insist on getting its own way. It doesn't keep a list of wrongs. And it never gives up.

“Love never fails,” Paul says. The gifts the Corinthians were so proud of will one day stop. Prophecy will end. Tongues will fall silent. Knowledge will pass away. Because they are only partial, and when the complete thing comes, the partial things are no longer needed. When I was a child, Paul says, I talked like a child and thought like a child. When I grew up, I put childish ways behind me. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.” Now we see things dimly, like a blurry reflection. One day we will see clearly, and know fully, just as God knows us fully. And then the last line. “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Corinth was famous for its bronze. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder describes Corinthian bronze as one of the most prized metals of the ancient world, so valuable that collectors paid huge sums for it. Mirrors in Paul's day were usually made of polished metal like bronze, and gave only a dim, imperfect reflection. So when Paul spoke of sounding brass and of seeing as in a mirror, dimly, the Corinthians knew exactly what he meant.

The greatest of these is love. You'll find it in First Corinthians chapter thirteen. Words written to a gifted, noisy, quarrelling church, and read at weddings and funerals ever since. Gifts will pass. Love never fails. So here is a question to carry with you. Which part of Paul's description of love would you most like God to grow in you?