Passages · 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
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1 Corinthians 13 sits in the middle of a fight about spiritual gifts. The church at Corinth was competing over tongues, prophecy, and knowledge. At 12:31 Paul breaks off — "I show you a most excellent way" — and at 14:1 he picks the gifts argument back up. The love chapter is what falls between: a rebuke delivered in the form of a hymn. Agapē here is not wedding sentiment. It is the standard every prized gift gets measured against, described in fifteen verbs to people whose conduct did not match.
13:1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don't have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing. 13:3 If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don't have love, it profits me nothing. 13:4 Love is patient. Love is kind. Love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag. Love is not arrogant. 13:5 Love doesn't behave itself inappropriately. Love doesn't seek its own. Love is not provoked. Love doesn't take account of evil. 13:6 Love doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. 13:8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 13:10 but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13:13 But now faith, hope, and love remain — these three. The greatest of these is love.
13:1 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. 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 13:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 13:5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 13:6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 13:9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
The Corinthian church was divided on nearly every front the letter touches — which leader was best, whose knowledge was right, whose conduct at the shared meal was acceptable, and, in the chapters around this one, whose gifts were more impressive. Chapter 13 interrupts that last dispute on purpose. The interruption is the point: love is not one more gift in the list, it is the measure of all of them, and everything Paul says about worship in chapter 14 assumes it.
"Love" (seven times in thirteen verses) — agapē. In verses 4–7 it is the subject of fifteen verbs: is patient, is kind, does not envy, does not brag, bears, believes, hopes, endures. Love in this passage is not a feeling to be worked up. It acts. One of those verbs — "doesn't seek its own" — repeats the exact rule Paul used earlier to settle a different Corinthian fight (10:24), so the chapter is stitched into the letter's arguments, not floating above them.
"They will be done away with... they will cease" (13:8) — two different verbs, and the difference is worth seeing. Prophecy and knowledge "will be done away with" (katargeō, put out of use); tongues take their own verb, "will cease" (pausontai). Whatever weight a reader gives that shift, the sentence sets all three under the same horizon: they belong to the partial, and the partial gives way when the complete arrives (13:9–10). Love is what remains.
"Is patient" (13:4) — makrothymei, the first verb in the whole portrait. When God describes his own character to Moses (Exodus 34:6), "slow to anger" stands near the front. What Paul puts first in the description of love is what God puts first in the description of himself.
"In a mirror, dimly" (13:12) — literally "in a riddle" (en ainigmati). Mirrors of the period were polished metal, so the seeing is indirect — a reflection, not the thing itself. And the riddle points back to Numbers 12:8, where God speaks to other prophets in riddles but to Moses "mouth to mouth, clearly." Paul places the whole community, its gifted prophets included, in the riddle-reading position for now — with the face-to-face clarity promised to everyone in the age to come. A chapter correcting status competition quietly levels the statuses.
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