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1 Corinthians 13
1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all , so as to remove , but don’t have love, I am nothing.
3If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
4Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,
5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;
6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
10but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.
11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.
13But now , hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
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Read 1 Corinthians 13 three times
Guided passes through short verse groups: read it whole, watch the words, then pray it back. Phrases to stop on along the way, with deeper explanation held back until you have read the verses yourself.
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What this chapter is saying
What is 1 Corinthians 13 about?
Read the description first and notice that almost every line is a verb or a refusal, not a feeling.
4Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,
5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;
6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
- Written by
- Paul, writing to a divided church
- Written to
- Christians in Corinth arguing over gifts and standing, 1 Corinthians 1:11-12 and 12:14-25
- Why
- the middle of a long correction about spiritual gifts, chapters 12 to 14
The chapter is not a wedding reading in its own setting. It sits between two chapters about gifts, and it was written to people who were using their gifts to rank themselves above one another.
Verses 1 to 3 remove the value from the gifts they prized most: tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith that moves , even giving the body. Without love each is called nothing. That is a strong word and Paul repeats the structure three times.
Verses 4 to 7 then describe love as conduct. Patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not seeking its own way. Read that list against the complaints in chapters 1 to 11 and each line answers something the Corinthians were doing.
Verses 8 to 12 set love beside things that will pass, and verse 12 admits that our present knowing is partial. The chapter ends by naming what remains, and love is the greatest of the three.
What the chapter does not tell us
The chapter does not define exactly when the partial passes away in verse 10, and Christians have long read that verse differently. It does not tell us that loving will feel natural.
Questions this passage answers
Can the Bible be trusted?
Scripture claims to be true and invites examination rather than avoiding it. It says God's word is truth and that it stands when everything else fades, and the New Testament writers appeal to eyewitnesses, named places and public events rather than to private experience. Trust in Scripture is finally trust in the God who speaks in it, and the clearest reason a Christian gives for that trust is that Jesus treated these writings as God's own word.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit as a person rather than a force. Jesus calls him another Counselor whom the Father sends, and says he teaches, reminds, guides, convicts and speaks. Peter calls lying to the Holy Spirit lying to God. He is the one who gives new birth, dwells in believers, produces Christlike character, and always points to Christ rather than to himself.
How do I resist temptation?
Scripture says God always provides a way of escape, that temptation begins with desire inside us rather than with God, and that the ordinary means of resisting are watching, praying, walking by the Spirit, hiding God's word in the heart, and fleeing rather than negotiating. It does not promise that temptation stops, and it sends the tempted person to a High Priest who was tempted himself and can be approached for help.
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
The New Testament says yes and puts the claim in a form that can be tested rather than admired. Paul lists named witnesses and a group of over five hundred still living when he wrote. The accounts describe a body that could be touched and that ate, not a vision. They also record the first alternative explanation, that the disciples stole him, and record who paid for it. Scripture treats the resurrection as the point on which everything stands or falls, and says so in those words.