Bethel Baptist Church of Tillamook, OR
January 25, 2026
  • Love Divine All Loves Excelling
  • How Deep The Father's Love For Us
  • O The Deep Deep Love Of Jesus
  • Context of this chapter:
    Paul is correcting the Corinthians self-seeking exercise of spiritual gifts. They were strutting their own giftedness out of selfish ambition rather than using their gifts for the benefit of the whole body. Paul’s “more excellent way” is that only those things done from a heart of love are virtuous, having eternal value.
    Three common Greek words for love, only two of which occur in the NT.
    eros - self-pleasing, passionate love. This is the level of love implied and glorified by today’s pop song, trashy romance novels, risqué prime-time dramas, and feel-good movies. The word does not occur in the NT.
    philia - affection and closeness one feels in friendships, partnerships, or other intimate kinships. “Brotherly love,” with a strong emotional, psychological, and social bond of camaraderie between two people.
    agape - seeks the highest good of the other person, even at the price of one’s own comfort, safety, and benefit. I implies permanence, unconditional charity, a decision more than a feeling, a commitment more than a relationship. It means loving not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others.

    1. Love, Not Gifts, Authenticates Spiritual People, verses 1-3.

    Paul argues from the greater to the lesser in these three verses. what Paul does is point out that even if we works that are by all appearances miraculous, astonishing, and extreme, they ultimately amount to nothing without the key ingredient of agape love.
    Without the presence of this kind of love our most eloquent, impressive speech would be just a annoying noise of no value. The Greek construction here suggests that Paul added the reference to angelic languages to push his example to the highest extreme.
    Context demonstrates Paul’s use of the hypothetical used the most extreme and excessive acts possible. Note the repeated use of the word “all.”
    Paul knows that these are extreme; nobody could speak the languages of humanity and heaven, know everything, reveal everything, nor give everything. His point is that without love, our most eloquent speech, our most insightful knowledge, and our most sacrificial acts are useless.
    Or to put it another way:
    EVERYTHING — LOVE = NOTHING

    2. Love Controls the Thoughts and Actions of Spiritual People, verses 4-7.

    Love is an essential ingredient in a fruitful Christian life. But what does it look like?
    Paul describes both positive aspects of what agape love is and several negative contrasts of what it is not.
    POSITIVE ASPECTS NEGATIVE CONTRASTS
    is patient is not jealous
    is kind does not brag
    rejoices with the truth is not arrogant
    bears all things does not act unbecomingly
    believes all things does not seek its own
    hopes all things is not provoked
    endures all things does not take into account a wrong
    does not rejoice in unrighteousness
    Note that the negative elements precisely describe the problems the church in Corinth had been facing:
    Love is not jealous, but jealousy marred the Corinthian church.
    1 Corinthians 3:3 NASB95
    for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
    Love does not brag, but the Corinthians boasted in the wrong things.
    1 Corinthians 4:7 NASB95
    For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
    1 Corinthians 5:6 NASB95
    Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
    Love is not arrogant, but the Corinthians had allowed arrogance to thrive
    1 Corinthians 4:18–19 NASB95
    Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power.
    1 Corinthians 5:2 NASB95
    You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
    Love does not act unbecomingly (that is, in defiance of moral and societal norms), but the Corinthian church tolerated shameful, disgraceful actions among themselves.
    1 Corinthians 6:5 NASB95
    I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren,
    1 Corinthians 11:4 NASB95
    Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.
    1 Corinthians 11:22 NASB95
    What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
    Love does not seek its own, but the Corinthians had spiraled into selfish egotism.
    1 Corinthians 10:24 NASB95
    Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.
    We could go on and on with these contrasts; however it warns us today that no matter what God has blessed us with, when we become infatuated with those things, it is so easy to use them in love within and outside the church.
    How many strive to love as Jesus our Lord loves. Remember that this is a powerful fruit of the Spirit that would move us from focusing on what we have to transforming us, becoming tools to build up the body of Christ, His church.

    3. Love Is Eternal and Complete, While Grace-Gifts Are Temporal, verses 8-13

    The last characteristic of love on Paul’s list, found in verse 8: “Love never fails.” Paul contrasts agape love (ever-abiding, never-ending permanence) with the temporary nature of some of the gifts and experiences that so enamored the church in Corinth. This love is itself an essential part of God’s own nature and will continue forever.
    1 John 4:8 NASB95
    The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
    So what will fade away with time?
    1 Corinthians 13:8 NASB95
    Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
    Prophecy, the ability to pronounce the revelations of God with divine authority “will be done away” (katargeo). This suggests that the gift of prophecy will be done away by some external force or condition rendering it obsolete.
    Tongues “will cease” (pauo), in the middle voice in Greek, indicating that its function will come to a stop in and of itself. One day the very experience some of the Corinthians used to set themselves above the others in the church will simply cease.
    Knowledge “will be done away.” this is the same verb that Paul used of prophecy. What Paul means here is the acquisition of knowledge, either by diligent study or more likely through God’s special revelation of the “word of knowledge”
    1 Corinthians 12:8 NASB95
    For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
    Today the content of our prophetic utterances and supernatural knowledge is “in part”
    1 Corinthians 13:9 NASB95
    For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
    Even prophets, who were given special authoritative messages from God, never had the whole picture, 1 Peter 1:10-11
    1 Peter 1:10–11 NASB95
    As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.
    Those who diligently search the Scriptures will forever have unanswered questions. Until Christ returns, our present world will always be characterized by partial knowledge and partial prophecies, which are sufficient to live a life characterized by faith, hope, and love but far from perfect and complete. The apostle John reminds us that though we have partial knowledge presently, there is a day coming in the future which will bring clarity: 1 John 3:2
    1 John 3:2 NASB95
    Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
    1 Corinthians 13:10 NASB95
    but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
    Paul likely has in mind that condition of perfect knowledge, when Christ returns and establishes His rule. The Scriptures declare that at that time...
    Isaiah 11:9 NASB95
    They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.
    God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah,
    Jeremiah 31:34 NASB95
    “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
    Paul had previously mentioned that tongues “will cease,” but does not refer to them in verses 9 and 10. This text also does not explicitly answer the question re: when tongues will cease in and of themselves.
    “when the perfect comes” perhaps the condition of the world at the return of Christ, or the completion of the New Testament. It is then that those things that are “in part” (referring to prophecy and knowledge) “will be done away” (katargeo).
    In verses 11 and 12 Paul illustrates the truth of the spiritually mature with two examples. First, as little children, our speaking, thinking, and reasoning were immature. As children, we were not even aware of our immature condition. As we grew and became mature men and women, we could reflect on the ignorant, naive ways we thought and talked about the world. We outgrew our temporary, childish ways. So when Christ presents His bride perfect, complete, resurrected and glorified, without spot or blemish, Eph 5:27
    Ephesians 5:27 NASB95
    that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
    then we will look back on our days in our mortal flesh and see it as a temporary period of ignorance and immaturity. All that we thought we knew will be replaced with a full knowledge and understanding that can only come when Christ returns, 1 Cor 13:11
    1 Corinthians 13:11 NASB95
    When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.
    Second, Paul likens our present understanding of spiritual things to a person looking “in a mirror dimly.” 1 Cor 13:12
    1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB95
    For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
    Up until most of the way through the Medieval times, mirrors were made of burnished bronze, which were poor reflectors of any image. “dimly” is the translation of the Greek term ainigma, from which we derive our English word enigma.
    The New testament brings to us a much fuller revelation of Christ and God’s work of redemption than the OT, but our understanding is still partial compared to the glory that will be revealed to us, Rom 8:18-19
    Romans 8:18–19 NASB95
    For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
    1 Corinthians 2:9 NASB95
    but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
    The distorted images of reality, the mysteries of life, the doctrinal enigmas, the riddles of suffering will all be gone when Christ returns.
    Paul declares that love is not the only thing that will endure beyond this world: 1 Cor 13:13
    1 Corinthians 13:13 NASB95
    But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
    These virtues of the Christian life will not only “abide” but are “now” present. Here is where believers should invest their time and energy—in nurturing faith, hope, and love; not in obsessing over the current gifts of the Spirit that will vanish in the future. These benefit us both now and for all time throughout eternity.
    Paul’s distinction: “The greatest of these is love” Faith and hope will diminish and fade with the blessed face-to-face vision of God, but our love for Him will only grow with each passing moment forever and ever.

      • 1 Corinthians 3:3NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 4:7NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 5:6NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 4:18–19NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 5:2NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 6:5NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 11:4NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 11:22NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 10:24NASB95

      • 1 John 4:8NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:8NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 12:8NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:9NASB95

      • 1 Peter 1:10–11NASB95

      • 1 John 3:2NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:10NASB95

      • Isaiah 11:9NASB95

      • Jeremiah 31:34NASB95

      • Ephesians 5:27NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:11NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:12NASB95

      • Romans 8:18–19NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 2:9NASB95

      • 1 Corinthians 13:13NASB95

  • All My Boast Is In Jesus
Bethel Baptist Church of Tillamook, OR
revrlcasper@gmail.com
(503) 842-5598
https://bbc-tillamook.faithlifesites.com
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