Bible Reading Challenge #39

Paul ends chapter 12 with a teaser — a setup for what’s coming next:

“And now I will show you a still more excellent way.”

He’s saying there’s something even better than learning about spiritual gifts.
Something more important, more beneficial, more lasting.

What is that more excellent way? LOVE.

Before we read the passage, let’s pause on the word love itself.
The Greek word Paul uses here is agape — a word that was rarely used in ancient Greece.
Why?
Because the Greeks didn’t admire what it meant.

Agape is not a selfish or self-serving love.
It’s a love that gives rather than takes.
A love that seeks the good of others, not itself.
A love that keeps showing up — even when it costs something.

C.S. Lewis described agape as unconditional love — a divine kind of love.
The best example? God Himself.
He loves with an unearned, gracious, and never-ending love that always seeks the good of those He loves.

So as we read this chapter...

Keep this in mind:
Paul isn’t describing a feeling — he’s describing an attitude.
He’s calling us to a selfless, giving, compassionate kind of love —
a love that’s willing to be hurt, yet keeps on loving.

The Passage: 1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Reflection

Paul’s message is clear:
Spiritual gifts will fade.
Knowledge will pass.
Faith and hope will endure —
but love is what will last forever.

Because love is the one thing that reflects the very heart of God.