True Love

1 Corinthians 13

by Rev Jackie Stoneman

How many weddings have you been to that have had this passage as the theme for the message? It is certainly very relevant to marriages. However, we need to be careful we don’t delegate it as the marriage chapter and don’t think about it in its context.

Paul has been addressing the Corinthian Church about what it means to be the Church. In chapter 12 Paul has been painting a wonderful picture about how God has put the Body of Christ together. Different people, with different gifts serving Christ and one another. He finished the chapter by pointing to a more excellent way and then proceeds to talk about love.

The reality for the Church, which is made up of relationships, is that because we are still living in a broken world and struggle with sin, these relationships need special care. They need love that is expressed in real and tangible ways. Love will mean that we will need to look at our attitudes and actions and seriously deal with them. We will also need to recognise that the impact of other people’s bad behaviour can be very hard to bear.

I think Paul gives us some strong hints in this passage what some of the struggles the Corinthian Church was having. It certainly was not without major problems. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. (NIV)

Can you see what some of the issues possibly were? How about impatience, unkindness, envy, pride, dishonouring others, self-seeking, easily angered, holding grudges, thinking evil was OK, etc? Not a pretty sight. As we read the letter, we can see Paul had to address many of these bad behaviours in this Church.

It is certainly important that we use our gifts but how we do that is also extremely important. We are to be building one another up. Our relationships matter to God. How we treat one another is a witness to the world.

Paul is very firm on this. His conclusion is that without love it doesn’t matter what gifts or spectacular experiences we have had, the reality is that lack of love means those things don’t contribute to the health of the Church. They are not honouring to Christ.

Imagine the difference it would make if each one of us asked the Lord to show us one way that we could be more loving towards the members of our Church and how to put that into action. For those who are hurting because of the unloving actions of others may you find comfort from the one who is love itself. May Jesus empower you to work through these hurts over time and discover hope and true loving relationships within the body of Christ.