Context Matters: The Love Chapter

Perhaps you’ve heard that love is patient and kind (1 Cor 13:4). That it does not envy or boast. I’m willing to wager you’ve either seen these words on a plaque or heard them at a wedding, or both. And what mood do these words create when you hear them read? Comfort? Security? Compassion? Warmth? Mood really matters as something we ought to observe in a text. And if we take a passage like 1 Cor 13 out of context, we’re in danger of missing the mood. Which may cause us to miss the point.

Context matters. If we learn to read the Bible for what it is—and not as a collection of independently assembled proverbial sayings—we’ll discover that some of our most familiar passages don’t actually mean what we’ve always assumed.

Scripture as Art (2014), Creative Commons

Paul’s Mood

While 1 Corinthians is not Paul’s harshest letter—that honor would fall to Galatians—it comes pretty close. He has nice things to say about the Corinthians at the start (1 Cor 1:4-9), but he quickly moves into one criticism after another.

They have a reputation for quarreling and divisions (1 Cor 1:10-11).
They boast about themselves and their teachers (1 Cor 1:12).
They forget where they came from, that they were nothing special (1 Cor 1:26-29).
They have acted like unspiritual, fleshly people (1 Cor 3:1).
They are but infants in Christ (1 Cor 3:1).
They have deceived themselves (1 Cor 3:18).
They boast about their gifts (1 Cor 4:7).
They need to be admonished like children (1 Cor 4:14).
They don’t have much spiritual guidance (1 Cor 4:15).
They tolerate extreme immorality that even pagans wouldn’t tolerate (1 Cor 5:1).
They boast about their perceived maturity (1 Cor 5:6).
They are suing one another over trivial matters (1 Cor 6:7).
Their knowledge puffs them up, causing them to sin against others’ consciences (1 Cor 8:11-12).
They engage in idolatry (1 Cor 10:7).
They engage in sexual immorality (1 Cor 10:8).
They put Christ to the test (1 Cor 10:9).
They grumble (1 Cor 10:10).
They think they stand secure, but they really don’t (1 Cor 10:12).
They are contentious (1 Cor 11:16).
Their worship gatherings are not for the better but for the worse (1 Cor 11:17).
Selfish, factious people are being struck dead under the judgment of God (1 Cor 11:30).
They are impatient and don’t wait for one another (1 Cor 11:33).
They claim to be self-sufficient, not needing one another (1 Cor 12:21).

When we read the letter as a letter, and not as one independent chapter after another, we see that Paul is building a case, scaling a mountain. And chapter 13 is the peak. We rightly laud this chapter, but often in the wrong way.

Paul’s Climax

In the immediate context, Paul is addressing their questions “concerning spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 12:1). He just told them to “earnestly desire the higher gifts” (1 Cor 12:31). But there is a still more excellent way.

They can have the flashiest, most popular, and most coveted spiritual gifts. But if they don’t have love, they’re only making a cacophony (1 Cor 13:1-3).

Then Paul describes this more excellent way, the way of love. And what he says about love directly and explicitly corresponds to what these people are not.

Love is patient and kind. They are not (1 Cor 11:33).
Love doesn’t envy or boast. They do (1 Cor 1:12, 4:7, 5:6).
Love is not arrogant or rude. They are (1 Cor 10:10, 12).
Love does not insist on its own way. They do (1 Cor 6:7-8).
Love isn’t irritable or resentful. They are (1 Cor 1:10-11; 10:9, 10).
Love doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. They tolerate much wrongdoing, ignoring the truth (1 Cor 5:1).
Love bears all things. They don’t (1 Cor 11:16).
Love believes all things. They don’t (1 Cor 12:21).
Love hopes all things. They don’t (1 Cor 11:17).
Love endures all things. They don’t (1 Cor 10:12, 11:30, 12:21).

In other words, it’s as though Paul is saying, “Love is everything you are not.”

Paul’s Assessment

Love will get them farther than the “best” spiritual gifts ever will (1 Cor 13:8-10). Then comes the kicker: Paul, too, was once a child. But he eventually had to grow up (1 Cor 13:11). That’s what it means to love; it requires us to grow up and become mature, which is something these infants (1 Cor 3:1), these children (1 Cor 4:14), have yet to do.

The next chapter tells them that spiritual gifts are not bad (especially prophecy). But they must desire them only in proportion to how much they are willing to “pursue love” (1 Cor 14:1). Chapter 14 is filled with instructions about how to exercise gifts in a way that is kind and loving to others.

Then Paul caps off the letter with a call to endure in faith (cf. “love believes all things…endures all things”) in light of the greatest expression of God’s love in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a foretaste of our own resurrection (1 Cor 15). The thinly veiled insults of chapter 13 are not meant to crush them but drive them to draw grace from the deep well of salvation, revealed in the resurrection of Christ. Then they can become like their Lord, expressing their love and unity with the suffering brethren in Judea by contributing to their needs (1 Cor 16:1-4). Love never ends; it never fails—when it is derived from the right place.

Conclusion

1 Corinthians 13 may be one of Paul’s most eloquent chapters. Perhaps only Romans 8 or Philippians 2 can rival it. But the mood is absolutely not a warm and fuzzy one. Its character is one of sustained rebuke, not one of pleasant encouragement. To miss this mood may be to miss the point.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t put it on plaques or read it at weddings (in fact, I’m preaching it at a wedding in a few months). But to get the message right, we must be sure to capture the tone of warning, rebuke, and satire. May it resound, as Paul intended, as our mandate to grow up and act no more like selfish little children.

I drew inspiration for this post from a talk on “Context” given by David Helm. Click to see more examples of why context matters.