1 Corinthians 13:1-13 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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the One Essential for All

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

With what wonder his amanuensis must have looked up, as the Apostle broke into this exquisite sonnet on love! His radiant spirit had caught a glimpse of the living Savior. Jesus sits for His portrait in these glowing sentences, and of Him every clause is true. Substitute His name for love throughout the chapter, and say whether it is not an exact likeness. With Paul love stands for that strong, sustained, and holy subordination of self for others, which begins in will and act and is afterward suffused by emotion, as a cloud lying in the pathway of the rising sun. But if you want the divine love, you must get it after the manner of the bay which opens its bosom to the incoming tide. God is love, and if you would love, you must abide in Him and He in you. Love is better than miracles, gifts, or philanthropy, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. Love is the parent of all that is most delightful in the moral sphere, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Love is the best of all, because it is eternal. All else will perish. Our highest attainments will be as the babblings and playthings of childhood. But when we are in touch with the reality of things, love will be all in all.

Related Commentaries of 1 Corinthians 13:1

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

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.

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.

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.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vauntetha not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;b

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;c whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.d

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thoughte as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly;f but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.