I have conquered the world.
All but one thing did I have–
Without love I’ve had nothing at all.

I CAN STILL hear the tune in my head. It’s a song from my youth — the pop crooner Tom Jones singing a ballad called, “Without Love.” Jones, of course, was singing about romantic love, about how meaningless life is without it, regardless of what one may have accomplished otherwise. That kind of love isn’t Paul’s subject in First Corinthians 13. And yet, if that song had been around and highly popular in Paul’s day, I suspect he would have used it to make his point about the importance of love.

CHAPTER 13 OF First Corinthians both begins and ends with the theme of the supremacy of love over spiritual gifts. The Corinthians may have asked Paul to settle an argument in the congregation: which of the spiritual gifts was the greatest? Paul knew that if he simply answered the question, it might settle the argument but do nothing to change their selfish and combative attitudes toward each other. Before answering the question, therefore, he took it upon himself to show them a better way, a higher road.

Listen to how the chapter begins:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3, NIV)

The point, overall, is that no matter how impressive they may seem, spiritual gifts are nothing without love. Notice how he begins the list of gifts with speaking in tongues, which seems to have been the Corinthians’ favorite. Imagine how the people in Corinth who were bragging about having the gift of tongues would have taken what he says: You can speak in tongues, but people, if you don’t have love, it’s all just noise.

And then, to balance it out, he follows that with a reference to the gift of prophecy, which was his favorite. I could have the gift of prophecy. Great. I could have the kind of knowledge and insight that penetrates spiritual mysteries. Terrific. I could have the kind of faith that moves mountains. Wonderful. What does that make me? Without love, it makes me nothing at all. He even goes as far as to say that if he gave all his possessions away to the poor and suffered bodily for the gospel, it would count for nothing without love.

That should catch the Corinthians’ attention, as it should catch ours. Whatever we do that we might consider to be “spiritual” and therefore praiseworthy, it means nothing if it’s not done in love.

Similarly, Paul ends the chapter this way:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:8-13)

Paul again begins with the gift of tongues and of prophecy, but this time in reverse order, and mentions knowledge again as well. He doesn’t mention any other gifts, and he doesn’t need to. Prophecy is his number one, and tongues and knowledge were probably at the top of the Corinthians’ list (see 1 Cor 1:5), so if he can make his point with these, everything else follows.

Paul has nothing negative to say about any of the gifts. They are all from God and they all have their place. But for all that, they’re still only temporary. A new day is coming in which all the imperfection and immaturity of the world we live in now will give way to perfection and maturity. In that day, there will no longer be prophecy. No one will speak in tongues. There will be no need for special spiritual knowledge. All of these will come to an end as irrelevant in the world to come. Not even faith and hope will be needed anymore.

But love, which is of the very character of God, will continue forever.

WHEN PAUL SPEAKS of putting the ways of childhood behind him, it’s possible that he’s implicitly accusing the Corinthians of being childish and telling them to grow up: Look at the way you people are fighting with each other. What are you, twelve? And surely, they have a lot of growing up to do, as do we all.

But given the context, we don’t have to read it that way. Paul may be suggesting that childhood and adulthood are different stages of life, and different things are appropriate to each. Similarly, while spiritual gifts have their place in the present age, they will become obsolete in the age to come. He’s not shaming them; he’s encouraging them to see the big picture. He’s stimulating their imaginations to see how the high road fits God’s eternal purposes, motivating them to move past the low road way in which they’ve used spiritual gifts to suit their own purposes.

All of this forms the backdrop to what Paul will say centrally about the nature of love. Let’s begin our exploration of that next.