This post is written by Greg Kilgore as a companion for Unit 20, Session 3 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 7: From Heaven to Earth (Spring 2023).
We live in a day when there is debate over certain spiritual gifts, such as whether a gift continues in use today or it has ceased. While this is an important topic to discuss, we must not overemphasize this debate about the gifts of the Spirit and miss out on the importance of the fruit of the Spirit. If we think our current debates about spiritual gifts can be controversial, the church in Corinth would make these debates look childish. The church in Corinth was being splintered into different groups, due in part to these debates over the spiritual gifts. This is why Paul writes to them about a “better way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). First Corinthians 13, often called “the love chapter,” takes place right in the middle of a long section about spiritual gifts. Paul is showing the church at Corinth that if these gifts are truly being used in a God-glorifying way, then their lives should be marked by love and unity, not by division.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Paul helps Christians understand what love is. Paul describes what love is positively and then negatively before summarizing again positively the nature and character of love.
Paul uses patience and kindness to describe love. Patience carries with it the idea of waiting and sticking with someone. This patience is often used to describe God’s relationship to His people (2 Peter 3:9). The second word that Paul uses to describe love is “kind.” Due to the lovingkindness that God has shown us in Christ, we are to be kind toward others.
Next, Paul uses eight characteristics to describe what love is not: love does not envy, love is not boastful, love is not arrogant, love is not rude, love is not self-seeking, love is not irritable, love does not keep a record of wrongs, and love does not find joy in unrighteousness (1 Corinthians 13:4-6). Think for a moment about the picture of love that Paul is painting here. When you think of those eight characteristics of what love is not, how far short of that standard do we fall? Incredibly short!
Finally, Paul states positively that love rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Think again about the way Paul describes love here: How are you doing in living out the biblical understanding of love? Again, we see how far short we fall.
Yet there was One who never failed to love in this better way—the Lord Jesus Christ. Where we have so often fallen short of this biblical standard of love, Jesus lived this out perfectly. His life was marked by love; even His death on the cross was marked by love. He went to the cross to die and purchase for Himself a sinful people who needed to be transformed by the love of God. Love is not about receiving; rather, it is about giving. We see this ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose from the dead so that we might know God and be loved by Him. Once we come to see and know this love from God as evidenced in what Christ has done for us, then we are transformed to love one another in this “better way.”
Greg Kilgore is the Associational Missions Strategist for the Mid-Valley Southern Baptist Association in Fresno, California. He and his wife, Megan, have three children: Owen, Camille, and Judson Titus. Greg is a PhD student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also teaches as an adjunct professor.
