Upcoming Sunday Scripture Commentary - January 19

January 19 Sermon – “It’s All About Love”

I Corinthians 13

Our scripture reading is from I Corinthians, chapter 13, which is also known as the love chapter. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth because some of them had been bragging that they had more important spiritual gifts than others in the church. In our scripture reading for today, Paul reminds them that loving others is more important than any spiritual gift God may have given them. 

This scripture is often used at weddings to celebrate the love of husband and wife and yet this passage has nothing to do with marriage in a specific way. The reason Paul defines love is because of a problem that had been developing in the church at Corinth.

Paul is addressing the topic of spiritual gifts. The Corinthian Christians were bragging about having certain spiritual gifts which they deemed to be more special than other spiritual gifts. Even though “love” is not technically one of the twenty or so “spiritual gifts” that we find in the scriptures, in a creative and prophetic way, Paul chastises the Corinthians by saying that the most important gift is love.

Three parts of this passage on love:

Part I – VV. 1-3 Love is the most vital thing making everything else we can have secondary.

Part II – VV. 4-7 Love is described.

Part III – VV. 8-13 Love will be one of the things that will continue in God’s new world.

V. 10 – Mirrors were being made in Corinth at the time of Paul’s writing which is why he uses it as a metaphor in describing love.  Mirrors are good but they don’t give a perfect reflection. This is what the present time is like for us as we focus on our faith. In God’s new world (heaven and earth coming together) we will see face to face which is better than using a mirror!

[Note: The resources used for these scripture reading commentaries are based on the Everyone series by NT Wright, The Wesley Study Bible, and the “Montreal-Anglican”lectionary commentaries.]