1 Corinthians 13: the more excellent way, love that outlasts every gift

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus, probably in AD 53 to 55, as 16:8 indicates, to the church he had founded in Corinth a few years earlier (Acts 18:1-18). Corinth was a Roman colony, refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and a commercial city on the isthmus between two harbours, famous for its wealth, its mixed population and its pursuit of status. The Isthmian Games were held nearby. Paul writes in response to a report from members of Chloe's household (1:11) and a letter from the church itself (7:1).

The letter deals with a church in trouble: factions around favourite teachers (chapters 1 to 4), tolerated immorality (5), lawsuits among believers (6), questions about marriage (7), food offered to idols (8 to 10), disorder at worship and at the Lord's Supper (11), spiritual gifts (12 to 14) and the resurrection (15). The Corinthians prized dramatic gifts, above all speaking in tongues, and used them to rank one another. Paul has just said that the church is one body with many members (chapter 12) and that the gifts are given for the common good. In chapter 14 he will say how the gifts, especially prophecy and tongues, should be used in the assembly.

Chapter 13 stands between them. A few scholars have thought it was a separate piece, perhaps even composed earlier and inserted. Most regard it as written for this place: it fits the argument exactly, since 12:31 promises 'a still more excellent way' and 14:1 resumes with 'pursue love'. Whether Paul shaped existing material is a question that cannot be settled; the chapter's literary form is so well made that some have called it a hymn, but its content answers the Corinthian situation.

The chapter is part of a letter, and the first rule is to read it in the setting of chapters 12 to 14. It is not a freestanding poem on romantic love, though it is often read at weddings. It answers a church that valued gifts above love. The rhetorical form is a carefully arranged piece of prose with a clear shape: three verses of contrast (love lacking), four verses of description, and a closing contrast between the temporary and the lasting. Paul writes in the first person in verses 1-3 and 11-12, using himself as an example, and it would be a mistake to read these as an autobiography.

The description of love in verses 4-7 is a series of short statements, mostly verbs. Each one touches a Corinthian fault. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant (the Corinthians were 'puffed up', 4:6, 18-19; 5:2; 8:1), does not insist on its own way (they sued one another and caused others to stumble), and is not rude (the disorder of 11:17-22 and 14:26-33). The reader should hear the list as a description of God-given character and a mirror held up to a church. It does not say that love is a feeling.

The last section is eschatological. 'Now' and 'then' contrast the present age with the age to come. The passage says that partial gifts are provisional, and that is the main point. The question of what 'the perfect' means in verse 10 is disputed (see below), and a careful reader will note that the wider argument holds on any of the main readings: the chapter's purpose is to show that love outranks gifts, because love alone lasts.

Verses 1–3

Paul sets out three cases in which something great is done without love. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (chalkos echon, kymbalon alalazon). The images are of noise without meaning. If I have prophecy, know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith so as to remove mountains (an image of faith for extraordinary deeds, as in Mark 11:23), but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have to feed the poor, and give my body, but have not love, it profits me nothing. There is a textual question in the last clause: manuscripts differ between 'that I may boast' and 'that I may be burned'. The BSB follows the sense of boasting. Either way, even the greatest sacrifice, if it is done for self, is empty.

Verses 4–7

Love is patient (makrothymei) and kind (chrestuetai). It does not envy or boast or act arrogantly; it does not behave indecently, seek its own advantage or become irritated; it does not keep a record of wrongs (logizetai to kakon, a bookkeeping term). It takes no pleasure in injustice but rejoices with the truth. It bears (stegei, covers or endures) all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love is described by its actions, and each one is aimed at the other person.

Verses 8–10

Love never fails (piptei, falls). By contrast prophecies will be done away with (katargethesontai), tongues will cease (pausontai) and knowledge will be done away with. We know in part and prophesy in part, but when the perfect (to teleion) comes, the partial will be done away with. Interpreters differ on 'the perfect'. The majority view in church history is that it means the completion of all things at the return of Christ, the age when partial knowledge gives way to face-to-face knowing, as verse 12 suggests. Some interpreters hold that it refers to the completed New Testament canon, so that prophecy and tongues ceased when Scripture was complete. Others take it as the maturity of the church. The next verses favour the first.

Verse 11

A child speaks, thinks and reasons like a child; when he became a man, he put away childish things. The image does not condemn the present gifts as worthless; it says that they belong to an early stage that will be outgrown in the age to come.

Verse 12

Now we see in a mirror dimly (di' esoptrou en ainigmati), but then face to face. Ancient mirrors were of polished metal and gave an imperfect image. 'Dimly' is literally 'in a riddle' (ainigma). In Numbers 12:8 God says he spoke to Moses mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles; Paul's point is that believers now have a limited view, and then they will see directly. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. God's knowledge of us is already complete.

Verse 13

Now these three remain: faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love. Paul often groups the three (Romans 5:1-5; Colossians 1:4-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 5:8). Faith and hope belong to the present life; in the age to come faith will be sight and hope realised (Romans 8:24; 2 Corinthians 5:7). Love continues because it is the very life of God (1 John 4:8).

The chapter teaches that love is the mark of the Christian life and the measure of every gift and act of devotion. The summary of the law in the Old Testament is love for God and neighbour (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18), which Jesus repeated (Matthew 22:37-40). Paul says that love fulfils the law (Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14), and lists love first among the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). John says God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). In this chapter love is not merely a rule but the character of God worked out in the church.

The chapter also teaches the provisional nature of the present age. Prophecy, tongues and knowledge belong to a time when the church sees dimly. They are real gifts of God, but they are not final. This is the 'already and not yet' of the New Testament: believers have the Spirit now as a pledge, but the full vision of God awaits. The promise that the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8) and that we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2) is the background of 'face to face'. The vision of God's face is the hope of the Psalms (Psalm 17:15) and the final scene of Revelation (22:4).

The chapter is also pastoral theology. It shows that spiritual maturity is measured by love and not by display. The Corinthians' love of status is a contradiction of the gospel, since the Messiah gave himself for others. Paul will go on in chapter 14 to say that the gifts are to build up the church, and that is what love does.

The name of Christ does not appear in this chapter, and the point should be stated plainly. Paul does not make a Christological claim here. What he does is define love, and the rest of the New Testament says where love is defined: in Christ. Paul says that God proves his love in that Christ died for us while we were sinners (Romans 5:8). John writes that we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16). Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends (John 15:13) and gave a new commandment to love as he loved (John 13:34). Ephesians 5:2 calls Christ's self-offering the model of love. So readers have heard in the portrait of love a description of Christ's own character, patient with the disciples, bearing all things on the cross, and not seeking his own. This is an echo and an inference, not something the text says.

The passage also looks forward to Christ's return. The 'then' of verse 12, the face-to-face knowing, is the day when believers will see Christ and know fully as they are known (compare 1:7-8; 1 John 3:2). In the meantime the Spirit given by the risen Lord pours out love (Romans 5:5), and the standard of love is not a vague ideal but the concrete pattern of the Lord who laid down his life.