Thy Strong Word — 1 Corinthians 13:1-13: The Love Chapter

Rev. Dan Eddy, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Beloit, WI, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study 1 Corinthians 13.

Believe it or not, this chapter has nothing to do with weddings, although it’s a very popular passage for the occasion. Instead, St. Paul is speaking to a deeply conflicted congregation and reminding the Corinthians Christians of their duty to one another: love. Love is more than a “warm and fuzzy” feeling. It’s a verb, an action. Christian love is rooted in God’s mercy toward us and mimics the self-sacrificing love Christ showed us. Ultimately, the “love chapter” points us to Jesus, whose love for us it so great we cannot help but share it with others. In this passage, Pastors Booe and Eddy discover why St. Paul says of faith, hope, and love that love is the greatest.

Thy Strong Word reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations.

Thy Strong Word is hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^[b] ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes

1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe

Native North Carolinian Rev. Dr. Phil Booe serves pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and host of Thy Strong Word on KFUO Radio. His parishioners probably think he can’t teach Bible study without a mug of coffee in his hand, and he’ll always be happy to eat a plate of sushi. When he’s not shepherding his flock or teaching on the radio, you might find him watching bad movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and especially binging RiffTrax and MST3K episodes. Some day he’d love to travel to the Lutheran homeland in Germany, but for now he spends time in Minnesota with his wife, son, daughter, and cat, and looks forward to Holy Week every year.