1 Corinthians 13
13
Chapter 13
Love is most important
1I may be able to speak many different languages that people or angels speak. But that is worth nothing if I do not love other people. I would only be making a loud noise, like someone who hits a piece of metal. 2I may be able to speak messages from God. I may understand all God's secret things, and know all the facts. I may have great faith so that I trust God enough to move mountains. But I am nothing if I do not love others. 3I may give all my things to help poor people. I may let other people take my body to burn it. #13:3 ‘I may let other people take my body to burn it’ or ‘I may give my body as a sacrifice so that I can be proud.’ But that would not help me if I do not love others.
4If I love people, I will be patient. I will be kind. I will not be jealous of other people. I will not be proud and say that I am great. 5If I love people, I will be polite. I will not just want to please myself. I will not quickly become angry. If someone does a wrong thing against me, I will not keep it in my thoughts. 6If I love people, I will not be happy when bad things happen. Instead, I will be happy when things happen that are right and true. 7If I love people, I will always accept their problems. I will always believe them. I will always hope for what is best. I will always be patient in troubles.
8Love will always continue. The gift to speak messages from God will not always be necessary. The gift to speak in different languages will stop one day. The gift to know special things will not always be necessary. 9At this time, we know only a part of everything. We can only speak a part of God's whole message. 10But a time will come when everything becomes complete. When God does that, we will not need the small parts that we have now.
11When I was a child, I talked like a child. My thoughts were a child's thoughts. I understood things in a way that a child understands. But now that I have become a man, I have stopped being like a child. 12At this time, we see things as if we were looking at them in a mirror. What we see now is not clear. But the time will come when we do not need a mirror. We will see everything clearly. Now we know only a part of what is true. But then we will know everything completely. We will understand completely, just as God understands us completely.
13At this time there are three things that continue. We continue to trust God. We continue to hope for his good things. We continue to love other people. But the most important of these things is love.
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MissionAssist 2018
1 Corinthians 13
13
The Way of Love
1If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.