Day 336: Missing the Point of 1 Corinthians 13

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (ESV)

Through the Bible: 1 Corinthians 12-14

I’ve lost track of how many weddings I’ve officiated and/or attended, but I can tell you this: 1 Corinthians 13 shows up at nearly every single one. And why not? It’s beautiful. It’s poetic. It sounds like everything you want to promise the person standing across from you on the most important day of your life. At a wedding, those words are meant to express how you feel about the person you love most in the world. They’re stitched on pillows and engraved on rings and printed on programs with watercolors of roses in the margins.

But here’s the thing: Paul didn’t write 1 Corinthians 13 for a couple in love. He wrote it for a church whose members acted like they couldn’t stand each other.

The Love Chapter Was Written to a Church Falling Apart

Corinth was a mess. It had more problems than a math book. Here’s a quick rundown:

• The church was splintered into factions over their favorite leaders (1 Corinthians 1:10–12).
• Sexual immorality was being tolerated—so much so that Paul said even the pagans wouldn’t put up with it (1 Corinthians 5:1–2).
• Believers were dragging one another into secular courts instead of resolving conflict within the church (1 Corinthians 6:1–8).
• They were marked by classism and social snobbery, especially at the Lord’s Supper, where wealthier members feasted while poorer members went hungry (1 Corinthians 11:17–22).
• Spiritual gifts were being used to rank which members of the body were more important (1 Corinthians 12)
• Worship gatherings were chaotic, full of people competing for the microphone and trying to out-gift each other with tongues and prophecies (1 Corinthians 14:1–33).
• Even baptism was a point of pride, as though being baptized by Paul or Apollos made you spiritually superior (1 Corinthians 1:13–17).

Understand, then, that Paul wasn’t writing a wedding poem. He was writing a prescription. He wasn’t telling two newlyweds to cherish one another; he was telling a congregation to stop devouring one another.

Love as the Cure for Division

Chapters 12 and 14 are all about spiritual gifts—how they’re given by God, how they should be used, and how worship is meant to build up the body. But right between those two chapters, Paul places 1 Corinthians 13 as the hinge. Love is the only force strong enough to hold a gifted, diverse, often immature church together. You can have tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, generosity—all the spiritual fireworks you can imagine—but without love, it’s nothing (13:1–3). Corinth wasn’t lacking in giftedness. They were lacking in love.

Read It Again Like It Was Meant to Be Heard

When you imagine Paul reading the Love Chapter to a room full of Christians who don’t get along, it hits differently.

“Love is patient” means being patient with the brother who wronged you.

“Love is kind” means showing kindness to the sister you avoid at worship.

“Love does not envy or boast” lands squarely on our competition over which spiritual gifts are most desirable, as well as who leads, who sings, who teaches, who cleans up after the potluck.

“Love is not arrogant or rude” confronts their pride in who baptized them or whose clique they belonged to. For us today—when comparison between churches is practically a local sport—it’s a reminder that we’re all on the same team.

“Love does not insist on its own way” is a direct rebuke to the chaos in their services.

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” challenged the Corinthians toleration of open sin.

Seen in context, these aren’t sentimental wedding vows. They’re correctives from a spiritual chiropractor—realigning a crooked church.

What It Means for Us

I’m not at all suggesting 1 Corinthians 13 shouldn’t be read at weddings. It is rightfully regarded as one of the most beautiful chapters in the entire Bible. But if we only ever read it at weddings, we miss the fierce beauty of what Paul intended. The Love Chapter isn’t primarily about romance. It’s about church life. It’s about unity. It’s about choosing the good of your brother or sister over the expression of your own gifts. In a world obsessed with being impressive, being right, being seen, and being superior, Paul says the most spiritual thing you can be is loving. Because love is the only gift that will still matter when every other gift fades away (13:8).

Think of it this way: at a wedding, love is a promise. But after the wedding comes the marriage. And marriage is hard. Two people that have committed to live with one another “till death do us part” need to remember that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” A couple promises that kind of love on the day of their wedding. But they prove it on the most challenging days of their marriage.

And for a church family, especially in our modern context in which people can change their church membership as frequently as they change their preferred grocery store, love must be more than a promise. It must be a practice.

Jesus told His disciples that the world would know they belonged to Him if they loved one another (John 13:35). When the world looks at our churches today, does it see that kind of love? Does it recognize Jesus in the way we treat each other?

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