13
About agape love
And now I show you a most excellent way.*
1 If I speak the languages of men, even of angels,† but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,‡ but have not love, I am nothing. 3 Even if I give away all my possessions and hand over my body to be burned,§
but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love described
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy; love does not brag, is not proud, 5 is not indecent, is not self-seeking, is not ‘short-fused’, is not malicious;* 6 it does not take pleasure in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all;† 8 love never fails.
Love contrasted
Now as for prophecies, they will be set aside; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will be superseded; 9 since we know in part and prophesy in part. 10 But whenever the complete should come, then the ‘in part’ will be done away with. 11 (When I was a small child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things of the child.) 12 Because now we see blurred images as in a metal mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also am fully known.‡
13 For now these three obtain: faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love.§
* 13: Most versions oppose love to the gifts, either by calling it ‘more excellent’ or by adding the definite article (that is not in the Text) ‘the most excellent’. I seriously doubt that the author had that in mind. The term hyperbole refers to an extraordinarily high level of quality, but is not inherently exclusive. Had Paul put the definite article it would be exclusive, but he did not. Since God is not the author of confusion, and since He gives both gifts and love, I would say that they are supposed to work together. See 14:1 below. † 13:1 I would say that this is an argument a fortiori, which being freely translated would be, “If I speak the languages of men, or even of angels (if there were such a thing).” Since angels are spirit beings (Hebrews 1:13-14) and do not normally have physical bodies (although they can materialize in our world), they do not have literal tongues and ears, and consequently do not use sound to communicate among themselves—I suppose they use some sort of thought transference (something we cannot do, at least not yet). The claim of any group that calls the gibberish they speak an angelic language I consider to be a plain falsehood, besides being a pitiful insult to the angels. ‡ 13:2 Evidently it takes a special level or quality of faith to actually move a mountain, a level to which I myself have yet to attain. § 13:3 We have here a rather bothersome set of textual variants. For those who can handle Greek I reproduce the statement of evidence from my Greek Text: καυθησομαι f35 (50.6%) OC ‖ καυθησωμαι C (44.7%) HF,RP,TR,CP ‖ καυθησεται (1%) ‖ καυθη (0.8%) ‖ καυχησωμαι 𝕻46(A,B (1.5%) NU ‖ καυχησομαι 048 (0.5%) ‖ four further variants (0.8%). Until 1991, when the collations for select variant sets done by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, Germany appeared, statements of evidence presented the Future Subjunctive form (that of the Textus Receptus) as being attested by the heavy Byzantine majority. Since Greek grammar does not have a Future Subjunctive, there were those who made sport of the Textus Receptus for reproducing a nonexistent form—usually they were partisans of the Aorist Subjunctive form, that changes the verb and is attested by only 1.5% of the manuscripts (of objectively inferior quality). We now know that the real majority form is the Future Indicative, but since it immediately follows ινα, that usually takes the Subjunctive, many scribes may have made the change virtually without thinking. The verb ‘to boast’, as in the eclectic Greek text, is totally out of place here—how can you boast with love? * 13:5 All the negative qualities mentioned derive from self. † 13:7 Wow! But presumably agape love is not blind; it starts out by bearing, believing, hoping and enduring, until confronted with objective contrary evidence. God is love, but He is not blind, and neither is He deceived. ‡ 13:12 Verses 8b-10 have received more than their fair share of mistreatment, partly because commentators have not linked verse 12 to them (seeing verse 11 as parenthetical). Consider verse 10: “But whenever the complete should come, then the ‘in part’ will be done away with.” If we can pinpoint the ‘then’, we will have also pinpointed the ‘when’; and verse 12 pinpoints the ‘then’. When will we see ‘face to face’, when will we know as we are known? 1 John 3:2 has the answer: “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” It is at the return of Christ that we will see ‘face to face’, so “whenever the complete should come” refers to Christ at His second coming. The problem with ‘prophecy’, ‘tongues’ and our present ‘knowledge’ is that they are ‘in part’, but after the return of Christ we will have no further need for them. Since Christ has not returned yet, these ‘in part’ things are still certainly with us. The claim that ‘the complete’ refers to the completed New Testament canon and that the miraculous gifts ceased when the last shovel of dirt fell on the Apostle John's grave is an historical falsehood, besides doing violence to the Text. Christians who lived during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, whose writings have come down to us, affirm that the gifts were still in use in their day. No 20th or 21st century Christian, who was not there, is competent to contradict them. If it had really been the Holy Spirit's purpose to tell us that the charismata would disappear in a few decades, He presumably could have done a much better job of it. § 13:13 We will not need faith and hope in Heaven, but love will continue.