What is love? Some consider it an emotion: The heart beats strong, hands freeze - that's love! Others say that love is a romantic, platonic, poetic feeling. For others, love is an attraction or a passionate impulse. An inflamed, indomitable passion. Example: "I killed for love."
Today, with the erosion of the word love, she went on to signify a sexual activity before marriage, during marriage and out of wedlock. This love has brought hatred, misfortunes, divisions, ruined homes and diseases.
Agape love is much more than emotion. It's attitude, it's action. It is to love the unworthy. It is to love until the last consequences. Christ loved us and he gave himself for us.
When Paul wrote to the churches of Ephesus, Philippi, Colossus and Thessalonica, he thanked God for the love existing among those brothers. But when he wrote to Corinth, he did not. On the contrary, he was grateful for the gifts. Corinth was a church full of gifts. But it was an immature and carnal church. Paul does not thank for love, because this was the great deficiency of the Corinthian church. When we read the whole letter we discovered that they did not have love. Their love was flat and expressionless.
And that took us to 1 Corinthians 13, the great chapter of love. Unfortunately, we usually read this chapter without considering the full context of the letter. When understood within the context, we see that 1 Corinthians 13 is before a condemnation of the carnality of the believers of Corinth. Paul says that community life without love is nothing. He then describes what love is, what is not love and what love does. Finally, Paul vividly describes the enduring and eternal nature of love.
All the most dramatic and wondrous gifts we can imagine are useless, if there is no love. The most generous exercise of spiritual gifts can not compensate for the lack of love. Paul mentions five spiritual gifts: tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, sacrificial contribution (money and life). But he says that the exercise of those gifts without love has no value.
The Corinthian church was full of cracks, of splits, of divisions by the gifts: "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body". "The eyes can not say at hand: We do not need it"; others said: "I am from Paul, and I from Apollo, and I from Cephas, and I from Christ." Paul said that the gifts were not for the division of the body. There was the church most full of gifts of the New Testament, but also the most immobile and carnal church, because it lacked love. The church sought the gifts of the Spirit, but not the fruit of the Spirit.
Paul makes three harsh statements about the Christian who does not have love.
1.1. Without love, I offend others
In 1 Co 8.1 Paul had already taught that love edifies. When the gifts are exercised in love they build the church. But when gifts are not used with love, we hurt people. Paul exposes this matter by means of an indirect reference to the devotees of the Greek mystery cults in Corinth, who worshiped Dionysus (god of nature) and Cibele (goddess of wild animals). On the streets of Corinth the sound of the loud gongos and strident cymbals echoed, instruments that characterized those worshipers. That monotonous and heavy sound made people uncomfortable like the constant barking of a dog.
Equally unpleasant are those who use the gift of speaking in tongues without motivation controlled by love. It does not matter if languages are human or angelic, without love we become unpleasant and rude.
The man who lets himself be carried away by speech, rather than by doing, becomes nothing more than mere sound. The best language of heaven or earth, without love, is just noise.
1.2. Without love, I am nothing
The Corinthians thought that the possessors of certain gifts were extremely important people. But without love those people were totally insignificant. The absence of love causes the Christian to lose his meaning before God. It becomes a nullity, a zero. God can not use, for his glory, a Christian without love.
1.3. Without love, I do not gain anything
From knowledge and powerful facts, Paul turns to acts of mercy and dedication. Paul now mentions two acts of personal sacrifice.
Could it be that such acts are not inherently valuable in the eyes of God? They are not worthy. Such acts may be motivated by a wrong theology and for a wrong purpose. Without love, all sacrifice is lost and nothing is gained.
13.4 "Love is patient and kind". Love has an infinite capacity to endure. The word indicates patience with people instead of patience with the circumstances. Benigno: reacts with kindness to those who mistreat him.
. 13.4 "Love is not jealous, it is not puffed up, it is not puffed up" Love does not bother. with the success of others they were jealous and proud They got up .. they had envy among themselves. (3.3; 12.15.21)
13.5 "love does not behave inconveniently, it does not seek its own interests. Love is the antithesis of selfishness." The believers in Corinth were doing little of each other and used the gifts for their own glorification. they drank, others went hungry (11.17-22).
13.5 "Love is not exasperated and does not suffer from evil". Love is not finicky. He is not predisposed to offend. Love is always ready to think the best of people, and does not impute evil. The believers in Corinth took each other to court before non-Christian judges (6.5-7). They were selfish and carnal.
13.6 "Love does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices with the truth." It is tremendously characteristic of human nature to feel pleasure with the misfortunes of others. Much of the news columns of our newspapers are given to relate injustices. Love does not rejoice with evil of any kind. There was immorality in the church, something that did not happen even among the Gentiles (5.1). Worse: They took pride in their own sin instead of regretting it (5.2).
13.7 "Love suffers, everything believes, expects everything, endures everything". In addition to sexual immorality many of these Christians were insensitive to the weakest members of the group. They used freedom to provoke scandals (8.9). In fact some came to practice idolatry (10.14). They believed the lie, even against their spiritual father, the apostle Paul (4.3-5, 9.1-3).
Pablo concludes the exhibition by talking about THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. He mentions the three gifts that occupy the top of his priority list: tongues, prophecy and knowledge. Each one of them will become irrelevant or will be absorbed to the perfection of eternity.
Paul illustrates this general truth in two different ways: 1) He mentions growth from childhood to maturity - the difference between childhood and maturity; 2) he contrasts the reflection of a person in the mirror with the vision of herself, face to face - the difference between seeing a dark image and the true image.
While we do not come to Jesus as He is, we will have little maturity. While we do not come to Jesus, we will not see the things of God with total clarity. While we live our lives on this earth, our vision of things is, in the best of cases, indistinct.
All the gifts we have are for this life. But love will reign in heaven. Among the greatest virtues: faith, hope and love, love is the greatest of all!
