1 Corinthians; The fellowship and its love

Among the writings of Paul, 1 Corinthians is the letter which teaches the church what it means to be a Christian community.
The opening verses (ch1 vv1-9) have the effect of defining where the church comes from and what it’s based on, and I will want to show how the rest of the teaching follows on from that.
I was drawing out a definition of the church in the attached thread;
Defining the church
One of the key points was that the church is a “gathered assembly”, an EKKLESIA.
So the next concern is the place of love (AGAPE) in this community (ch13).

vv1-3 First, the importance of love.

This paragraph builds on the contrast between “everything” and “nothing”.
We might have everything in terms of some kind of excellence, but the value of this, without love, will be nothing.

So in the case of speaking in tongues.
We might be able to speak “in the tongues of men and angels”.
He’s not suggesting, I think, that the speakers in tongues do speak the language of angels.
He’s using the phrase, rather, to mean “every possible kind of language”.
Yet all these languages, without love, would leave us with nothing
They would be meaningless, empty sounds, like so many gongs and cymbals.

He probably begins with “tongues” because the Corinthians were attaching so much importance to them.
Then he talks about some of the other gifts mentioned in the previous chapter;
We might have prophecy, and the understanding of all mysteries (“word of wisdom”?), and all knowledge, and we might have all faith, the kind that can move mountains.
Yet with all these gifts, and without love, we would still be nothing.

It even applies to the act of giving.
We might be giving away everything we possessed.
That “everything” might include our very lives.
Yet all this giving, without love, would gain us nothing in return.

vv4-7 The nature of love.

The items in the well-known description can be arranged in pairs, and there are two central themes running through them;
Love will not act badly ,towards others and
Love will not react badly, towards what others are doing.

Love is a) patient, and b)kind.
The first means to be “long-suffering”, under injuries from others.
The second means to be considerate, not giving others a need to be longsuffering themselves.

Love is a) not jealous and b) not boastful.
The first thing to avoid is envy of what others have.
The second thing to avoid is giving others a reason to be envious.

Love does not a) “puff itself out” or b) “behave shamefully”.
The first thing to avoid is an attitude of superior virtue.
The second thing to avoid is the kind of bad behaviour which makes others feel superior..

Love does not a) make claims for itself or b) allow itself to be provoked.
The first of these two items varies in the manuscripts.
The older reading was “does not claim what does not belong to itself”, i.e. “does not defraud”.
The more modern reading is “does not claim what does belong to itself”, i.e. “does not insist on its rights”.
Either way, the second thing to avoid is being provoked by the claims of others.

The next three items are;
Love does not “keep a record of” evil.
Love does not “rejoice at” ADIKIA- unrighteousness, or injustice.
But love rejoices-together-with (SUNKAIREI) the truth.

If ADIKIA means the injustice that others experience (as Chrysostom thought), then the first two can be paired together;
Love does not indulge in a) resentment or b) “schadenfreude”.
That is, love does not grieve over the injuries it suffers from others
Nor rejoice over the injuries which others are suffering.
Then “being on the side of the truth” could stand as the positive aspect of all the previous statements taken together.

But the verse division associates the two kinds of rejoicing, and the more standard interpretation is that ADIKIA is the injustice which other people do.
Yet we could still link the first two together, as both noting, and gloating over, the fact that other people are sinning.
Whereas love, instead, will be delighted when they escape the world of sin and share in the knowledge of God’s truth.

Finally, Paul returns to the “everything” theme.
He’s already established that knowing all things and saying all things and giving all things would have no value on their own.
But love shows itself in bearing and believing, and hoping and enduring all things.
(“Bearing things in faith” is dealing with the present, while “enduring things in hope” is more about the future)
These are exactly the same qualities that are needed in a state of persecution, and the lesson seems to be that they still apply in the lesser troubles of dealing with the neighbours.

The practical application of this teaching can be found all the way through the letter, every time Paul draws attention to something which the Corinthians would not have been doing, if love had been guiding them.
They would not be dividing into contentious groups (ch1).
They would not be letting the contention spread into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. (ch10).
They would not be looking down on people with different gifts (ch12)
They would not be wronging and defrauding one another (ch6 v8).
They would not be indulging their freedom from scruples at the risk of leading others astray (ch8 vv10-11).
They would not be disregarding their anxious pastor’s guidance (passim).
In fact much of the letter need not have been written at all.

vv8-13 The permanence of love.
Most of the gifts on which the Corinthians have been priding themselves. Like prophecy and tongues and “words of knowledge” will be short-lived.
For one thing, the understanding of God that comes through prophecy and “knowledge” can only be fragmentary.
The arrival of the complete picture, “that which is perfect”, will make them redundant.
In comparison, what we have now is like a child’s knowledge of the world.
It’s like catching sight of God’s face in a (polished bronze) mirror.
When we have “grown up”, when we can see God “face to face”, then we will have grown beyond that fragmentary knowledge.
In fact Paul offers the astonishing prospect of knowing God as closely as he now knows us.

There remains faith, hope, and love.
The inclusion of faith and hope might seem surprising.
Faith is “the conviction of things unseen”, and hope is the same thing with reference to the future.
Surely the full “sight” of God would make them as redundant as prophecy and “knowledge”?
Yet they “remain”.
In fact the verb “remains” is singular, and not plural.
Faith, hope, and love are three qualities which Paul is counting as one.
Now where have we heard that before?

Paul has told us that the church are bound together as one body in Christ.
He’s also told us that the church has a common bond in receiving the Spirit.
These two bonds are closely linked, and their practical effect should be that the church is united through the bond of love.

I find it interesting that Paul removes everything from the christian experience and gets back to the root of pure humanity..

but.. for the 'love' of many, Christians and non-Christians will no longer be spontaneous, but become hard, like wax in it's final stage of cooling and eventually becomes hard again .. insensitive/unconcerned to help others, even among ourselves.. surely the story of the Good Samaritan is riveting humanity to it's chair even now!

No doubt the reason Jesus wanted to make the point.. that we should love one another even as He loved us, a command not a suggestion; he raised the 'bar' of love by stating ..

Love for Enemies

43“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

47And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

source

now, saying THAT at the near height of the Roman empire.................STAGGERING!!!!!!

Sizing up the situation, the Master of human souls had to make a example of what NOT to do, seeing his people being oppressed to the point of shear agony of clinical depression knew that the only way to stop the 'onslaught', as it were, was to raise the bar of 'love' amongst the common people, in every neighborhood He visited and let the elites think what they wanted but, his Kingdom was surely not of this world ..

Knowing this, gave them the above backhanded **** slap to wake people out of their animalistic nature, "eye for an eye"/returning evil for evil.. which had rampaged for century since before even Noah...

and we've come full circle ...

reply to post by Komodo

Thank you for those comments.
Yes, it is true that in a sense this is getting down to the fundamentals of human nature, something that has gobe awry (in Biblical terms) since the time of Cain.
Yet at the same time, you will notice, Paul finishes by treating Love as inseparable from the Christian qualities of Faith and Hope, which are both directed towards God.

The practical application of this teaching can be found all the way through the letter, every time Paul draws attention to something which the Corinthians would not have been doing, if love had been guiding them.

I should have included links to previous threads to go with these examples;
They would not be dividing into contentious groups (ch1).
The fellowship and the common Spirit
They would not be letting the contention spread into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. (ch10).
The fellowship and the Supper
They would not be looking down on people with different gifts (ch12)
The fellowship and the gifts of the Spirit
They would not be wronging and defrauding one another (ch6 v8).
They would not be indulging their freedom from scruples at the risk of leading others astray (ch8 vv10-11).
The saints and the idols
They would not be disregarding their anxious pastor’s guidance (passim).
In fact much of the letter need not have been written at all.

For information;
Once this series has been completed, an Index thread will be added to draw the various threads together and act as a reference.

This series is now indexed in;

The blueprints of the church

a reply to: DISRAELI

I enjoyed the read. Thanks for putting together these well outlined aspects of love.

The old ones are the best.