5-Day Commentary Challenge - 1 Corinthians 13-14 Sample

Externality and Present Partiality of Love, 13:8–13

This section ushers in another change of tone. Verses 1–7 showed love from the perspective of wisdom in daily life. In 13:8–13, daily life was replaced with the radical change brought by eternity. Paul set love and gifts in relation to one aspect: permanence. Gifts were not eternal. They were provisional manifestations of the Spirit and would pass away. “Love never fails” (13:8) was Paul’s thesis. The following context shows that “fails” meant eternally (the “abide” of v. 13). In contrast with love’s permanence, prophecy, tongues, and knowledge would end. The change from “done away” to “cease” and back again is difficult to explain. It may simply be stylistic and carry no special interpretive weight. The time of the end of those gifts, however, was clearly delineated in 13:9–12.

Verse 9 explains (“for”) when all the gifts will be done away with and why. They will pass away because they are not “the perfect” (13:10); they are “in part” (13:9) and “partial” (13:10) ministries. That was a perspective the already full and reigning (4:8) Corinthians were overlooking. They were not in the kingdom yet, and their gifts, while wonderful, were not perfect. Verse 10 introduces the time when gifts will pass away. It will be “when the perfect comes.” The tenses of 13:9–10 show that Paul was still in the “in part” time. In verse 12, he said “now we see in a mirror dimly.” Paul did not immediately explain what he had in mind for the perfect. His interest was to illustrate how its coming affected the Corinthians’ view of their gifts. His illustration was of a child and a man.

The straightforward point of 13:11 was that maturity has a radical effect on immaturity. In this case it resulted in doing “away with childish things.” “Did away” is from the same Greek word as “done away” (13:8). Clearly the doing away with childish things was to be equated with the time of the doing away of the gifts. That was illustrated by Paul as the time of maturity brought on by the coming of the perfect. Thus, Paul placed the exercise of all the gifts in the time of the imperfect and for the immature children, in which he included himself, as the next verses show.

Again Paul resorted to a figure of speech to convey his point (13:12). The mirror gazing was for “now”; the “face to face” was for “then.” Paul used seeing and knowing to sum up Christian (“we”) religious experience both now and then. The now and then times must match up with the child and man states of 13:11. Paul placed himself and all Christians in the partial, child, and dim mirror period. That was the period of the gifts. Another period awaited. That was the period of the perfect, of becoming a man, of face-to-face sight and knowledge. That would spell the end of the gifts.

When is that period of the perfect? Paul was not in it and was quite content to exercise his “in part” gifts and knowledge (see, e.g., 14:18). I believe that absence of gifts coupled with full knowledge (13:12) could only describe the church’s face-to-face experience with her Lord at His coming.

To conclude his argument, Paul returned to the present (“but now” [13:13]) to note that faith, hope, and love were abiding. Love was the greatest, however. Paul had already shown the relationship of faith and hope to love in 13:7. Love believed (faith) and hoped (hope) the best from God’s perspective. The triad of faith, hope, and love is seen in Romans 5:3–5 and 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 5:8. Love was “greatest,” referring back to 12:31, where Paul encouraged his readers to seek the “greater gifts.” Chapter 14 will be a specific application of the greater quality of love to the seeking of the greater gifts. But love alone was qualified to be a better way.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 12–14

Chapter 12 taught that all spiritual gifts were worthy of equal honor. Therefore, the Corinthians should not exalt one gift over another. Chapter 13 showed the necessity of love’s operating behind each gift. Therefore, the Corinthians were not to exercise their gifts without love. Chapter 14 taught that the application of love in the specific gift of tongues would always equal edification. Therefore, that gift should not be exercised without edification.