You Can Do it All
without love
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
The context of 1 Corinthians 13 is not a wedding ceremony. Not that it is wrong to read this in that setting, but that is not what Paul was writing this for. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul is dealing with the abuse of spiritual gifts. That is the immediate context. What he is pointing out is that you can do lots of churchy stuff, and miss the underlying reason for doing it. Which makes doing it pointless and unprofitable for you.
In the first three verses of the chapter, Paul uses some hyperbole. He goes to the extreme end of things on the scale of the “What is your spiritual gift” assessment. He imagines himself with every spiritual gift in the fullest measure possible. Then, to make it even more interesting, he imagines himself as the most sacrificial and self-giving person ever, outside of Jesus Christ Himself. Then, he says if all that was true about him and he had all that and did all that without love, it would be nothing and he would be a big nothing burger. Well, I added the burger part.
His point, and the one we ought not to miss, is that you can do a lot of otherwise praiseworthy things and have a lot of outstanding gifts without being a loving person.
Better to be a common ordinary saint who loves, than a world-famous evangelist who doesn’t. Better to do a few small ordinary acts of kindness in love, than put on a big show of good deeds without it.
