Exploring the Scripture

Our congregational identity often is shaped by what we do well. There was a crisis among the disciples in Corinth. Community members were looking for recognition, status, or even control and power, based on their spiritual gifts. Paul knew the people well. We assume that Paul is critiquing those who were boasting of their abilities in speaking, prophecy, and philanthropic efforts. But perhaps Paul chose these examples, knowing they were the spiritual gifts the Corinthian disciples valued most.

Love. Paul uses his final resource right from the start. One easily could interpret this to mean that Paul puts love at the top of the list of spiritual gifts. But Paul is pointing to something else. Speaking—prophesying—giving. In the previous chapter, Paul proposes that love was “an even better way” to strengthen the gifts we have (1 Corinthians 12:31). These words describe what we do with our giftedness, the “what” of our gifts. Paul asserts that love is not so much the what, but the how. Love is the path we take to do what we do. Love is the way.

Love as the “way” is witnessed in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. The Greek word Paul uses for love is agape. That is Matthew’s word in talking about how Jesus taught his followers the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37–39). The good Samaritan story that Jesus uses to describe that love shows us love has less to do with feeling and more to do with action. As the popular 1990s Christian rap group DC Talk reminded us, “Luv is a verb.”

Jesus’s love (way) was a purposeful, intentional pathway to open doorways to justice, inclusion, wholeness, reconciliation, and healing of the Spirit, or shalom. This love never fails. It meets us again and again at the table. After we have failed it, willing to start over and put in the hard work it takes to unite and preserve a united body in a spirit of oneness, this love stands with those whose dignity may be at risk and tirelessly works to create spaces where all are seen, valued, and given a voice. This love seeks goodness for the other (love’s object=others) and then acts in ways that create pathways for that goodness to be clear—made real.

So how do we know if what we are doing is being done in love? Paul provides a helpful tool for discerning what love is and what love is not. With this list, one quickly can see where he or she stands.

Almost immediately you can see in the list “Love is not…” how much these words are centered on the subject…envious (me), boastful (me), insistent on its way (my way)! Compare this with the orientation of love focused on the object, the other. Patience (with you), kindness (to others), truth-seeking (mutual, us, together). We could argue that Paul’s definition of love is the opposite of self-interest. What a powerful litmus test to help answer the important question, “Are there things going on right now in my family, my community, and my world, more important than me being right, being recognized, and getting my way?” When we insist on being right, being recognized, and getting our way, we eventually are left with nothing. We lose it all (v. 3).

What if love is the cure? What are the best steps for addressing the pain, brokenness, and suffering in our families, communities, and world? Perhaps love can be the way of our next conversation. Maybe we should consider:

• Will we enter our next conversation with our agenda and ideas for what is best for the other person and get upset when that person doesn’t immediately do what we’ve suggested?
• Will we begin the conversation with a yearning for good and goodness for the other and then adjust our behavior to ensure pathways are opened so that goodness can become a reality? But in the other’s way? And on the other’s timeline?
• Will we begin the conversation by looking for the other person to understand (and most likely agree with) us? Or will we rejoice in the mutual sharing of various perspectives that may lead us to a broadened understanding of “the truth”?

Project Zion Podcast

Hosts Karin Peter and Blake Smith consider how this week's scripture connects to our lives today.

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Central Ideas

1. Love will strengthen what we do with our spiritual gifts.
2. Love’s greatest yearning is for others to have goodness, and it acts to create pathways for that goodness to be made real.
3. Even if we may have failed love, love never fails.

Questions to Consider

What features of ministry and worship does your congregation value most? (Preaching? Food bank? Generous donations? Choir? Children’s ministry? Community service?) How might a healthy critique, looking through the lens of love, help create space where the giftedness of others in the congregation could form the body of Christ more fully?

1. When has love improved your ministry?
2. How has love strengthened the ministry and giftedness of someone or a particular ministry in your congregation?
3. When has what you do felt more important than how you do it? And what did you lose by holding onto that belief?