love

This passage is considered the most towering statement about love – real love.

Paul wrote it to the Christ followers in Corinth in his first letter to them.

Read it slowly.

There is A LOT of stuff in these 13 verses.

Read it slowly...

1 Corinthians 13



1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels,
but didn't love others,
I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.



2 If I had the gift of prophecy,
and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge,
and if I had such faith that I could move mountains,
but didn't love others,
I would be nothing.



3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;
but if I didn't love others,
I would have gained nothing.




  4 Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous
or boastful
or proud
5 or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable,
and it keeps no record of being wronged.
6 It does not rejoice about injustice
but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up,
never loses faith,
is always hopeful,
and endures through every circumstance.





  8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless.
But love will last forever!
9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete,
and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!
10 But when the time of perfection comes,
these partial things will become useless.  



11 When I was a child,
I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.
But when I grew up,
I put away childish things.
12 Now we see things imperfectly,
like puzzling reflections in a mirror,
but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.
All that I know now is partial and incomplete,
but then I will know everything completely,
just as God now knows me completely.




  13 Three things will last forever:
faith,
hope,
and love
and the greatest of these is love.