1 Corinthians 13:1

XIII.

(1) Though I speak... — The more excellent way is “Love.” Without it all moral and intellectual gifts are valueless. If there be love — the love of God, and the love of our brethren — in our hearts, all will be well. This hymn of praise in honour of love is remarkable. (1) as coming from St. Paul, and not from St. John, from whose pen we might naturally have looked for it; and (2), occurring here in an atmosphere of controversy, preceded and succeeded as it is by close logical argument.

On the first point we may observe what a striking illustration it is of the completeness of St. Paul’s character. The clear, vigorous intellect and the masculine energy of the great Apostle are united to a heart full of tenderness. We can almost feel its pulsations, we can almost hear its mighty throbbings, in every line of this poem.
That this passage should be found in the middle of a protracted argument suggests the idea that we have here the result of a sudden and direct inspiration. The Apostle had always been conscious of a mighty power working in him, mastering him, bringing him into captivity to Christ. There suddenly flashes upon him the realisation of what that power is, and he cannot but at once give utterance, in language of surpassing loftiness and glowing with emotion, to the new and profound conviction which has set his whole soul aflame. This chapter is the Baptismal Service of Love. Here it receives its new Christian name. The word (agapè) which is used here for love is peculiar to the New Testament (and a few passages in the LXX.). It is not to be found in any heathen writer. The word “charity,” which signifies either tolerance or almsgiving, is an insufficient rendering of the original, and destroys the force of the passage, especially in 1 Corinthians 13:3, where “almsgiving” without love is pronounced worthless. The Latin caritas was used as the rendering of agape, probably because the ordinary Latin word amor (love) was considered too significant of a mere earthly or fleshly affection; and hence the word “charity” in the English version. Perhaps it was hoped that the word “charity,” when planted in such a soil. and with such surroundings, would have grown to have that larger significance to which the original gives expression. If so, the experiment has not succeeded, the word has not become acclimatised to this chapter. The word “love” had better be restored here. The rare purity of its surrounding atmosphere will completely deprive it of any earthly or sensual taint.

This chapter, occupied with the one main thought, divides itself into three parts —

1 Corinthians 13:1. The greatest gifts are valueless without LOVE.

1 Corinthians 13:4. The pre-eminent characteristics of LOVE.

1 Corinthians 13:8. Gifts are transient; virtues are eternal, and chief of them is LOVE.

Tongues of men and of angels. — The gift of tongues (see Notes on 1 Corinthians 14) is placed first as that most over-estimated at Corinth. It is useless without love. It would be impossible to define love, as it is impossible to define life; but the best conception of what St. Paul means by love can be found from the description which he subsequently gave of it. Stanley, contrasting the meaning of the word employed by St. Paul with the various words for love in other literature, remarks: “While the ‘love’ of the New Testament retains all the fervour of the Hebrew ‘aspiration’ and ‘desire,’ and of the ‘personal affection’ of the Greek, it ranges through as wide a sphere as the comprehensive ‘benevolence’ of Alexandria. Whilst it retains the religious element that raised the affections of the Hebrew Psalmist to the presence of God, it agrees with the classical and Alexandrian feelings in making its chief object the welfare of man. It is not religion evaporated into benevolence, but benevolence taken up into religion. It is the practical exemplification of the two great characteristics of Christianity, the union of God with man, the union of religion with morality; love to man for the sake of love to God, love to God showing itself in love to man.”

As sounding brass. — Not a brass trumpet, or instrument of any kind, but simply a piece of metal, which when struck will merely produce noise.

A tinkling cymbal. — Better, a clanging cymbal. This instrument can produce by itself no intelligible tune. (See Psalms 40:5.)