The Supremacy of Love, Part I

The sermon series, “All in the Family”, continues with 1 Corinthians 13. It is a chapter often referred to as the “love chapter.” Paul is writing of a “more excellent way” to express one’s spiritual gifts. The Corinthians had abused and misapplied their gifts meant to exalt Christ and cheapened them by exalting self. Paul in a dramatic fashion is challenging the Corinthians to make love the motivation, the fuel, for everything they do including the expression of spiritual gifts. His purpose is not to give them a definition of what love is, but to humble them by demonstrating how God has loved them and how they are now to do likewise for others. The failure to live out this kind of “love” is evident for them and for us.

Where the Corinthians had cheapened spiritual gifts (we also), we all the more cheapen love. You see portions of Chapter 13 on t-shirts, wall decorations, used in wedding vows, etc. We read the list while patting ourselves on the back failing to see it in context and read it with its purpose in mind. If we see failure in it, we quickly point to a person who is supposed to love us this way. What we are supposed to see is Christ’s fulfillment of every requirement and our inability to do likewise. We cannot love at this level. It is not possible for us. This is why Paul in chapter 14 encourages the reader to “pursue love” because we will never obtain it. To begin to love in this manner means to give up self and live exalting Christ (the one who loves this way). Our flesh will fail, but when we plug in spiritually through our gifts which are meant to exalt Christ we are empowered by the Spirit to love as never before. Love of self or love of Christ? We all love. The question is who.