If you have been doing inductive bible study in your Christian Fellowship groups, you will know that you begin with the text. After asking questions (who, what, why and how) and examining structural elements of the text you may consult reference works (dictionaries, concordances, software resources), but commentaries have become something like a "last resort." Commentaries are useful because we are part of interpretative community of believers past and present who desire to hear from God through scripture.
DIG DEEPER.
Ask who, what, why and how? This text is often used at weddings. But the transitional sentence..“And I will show you a still more excellent way” (12:31b) links the first stage of Paul’s argument regarding our oneness in Christian community to this second stage that now comes in the form of a poetic vision of love in community. It is the context of the surrounding chapters that shows that weddings is not the primary/full application, but rather love in community.
Mediate on all the qualities mentioned in this verse.
Click on the words for examples of interpretations from Martin Luther and Kenneth Bailey (click the verbs) or click here for a full document.
The Unfailing Love: (1 Corinthians 13: 1-13)
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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