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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
1 Cor. 13-14
1 Corinthians 13 is Paul’s very well-known discourse on love. Although I am very familiar with this chapter, I have never really paid attention to its placement, which happens to be somewhere in the middle of a longer discourse on Spiritual gifts and the body of Christ. I get the impression there was some infighting and misuse regarding the Spiritual gifts. Honestly, not just with the gifts, but with the church gatherings in general. I see a typical human scene where people are vying to be seen and heard and to feel important. As I mentioned yesterday, though, this is not the way a body – which is what the Church is – behaves.
I hear Paul countering this human-driven chaos with a couple of points. For starters, Spiritual gifts are good, but are best when they glorify God and build up the body of Christ. Beyond that, though, there is something even greater than the Spiritual gifts. That something is love, because without it everything else is empty. There will come a time when those gifts will no longer serve a purpose because we will all stand face-to-face with God. Love, on the other hand, remains for eternity. And when all else fades away, love will be complete.
1 Cor. 15-16
“…and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith.” (1 Cor. 15:14). The CSB has a footnote on that word, “vain”, indicating alternate translations of “worthless” or “empty”. This made me think of the book of Ecclesiastes and the Hebrew word, “hevel” used there. Evidently, Paul used the Greek word, “kenon”, but they seem to have a similar meaning. The idea of the word, “hevel”, is that of smoke – something that appears to have substance but doesn’t. Though it looks solid, you can’t reach out and grab it. Such would be the case for a faith that was not based on Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Without that truth, faith is nothing more than religion, and religion is hevel.