Everyone knows that 1 Corinthians 13 is “the love chapter.” It’s a favorite Scripture reading for wedding ceremonies, especially in the 17th century language of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, which called this love “charity” (which today suggests something entirely different!). But not everyone knows what that love is, where it comes from, or what it does. It’s certainly not the romantic sentimentalism of “chick-flicks” or paperback novels. No, what Paul was writing about is that quality of deep selfless devotion that motivates Christian relationships between one another and with the Lord. It is modeled after the “agapé” kind of love that God demonstrates toward undeserving sinners like us in giving His Son for our justification, and giving Himself to us in our sanctification. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
The church at Corinth was sadly lacking in that kind of love. In his first letter to them, Paul issued stern denunciations and warnings to them for their inconsistencies as believers and as a church. There were the sins of divisions and quarreling, of incest, of lawsuits, of economic discrimination in the love feasts at the Lord’s Supper, of boastful pride in the exercise of spiritual gifts, and in all of this a lack of loving church discipline. Paul was appalled (pardon the pun!) by this behavior and severely reprimanded them for it. Apparently, a common theme was a lack of true Christian love within the congregation. Paul addressed the matter of spiritual gifts in chapters 12 and 14. In between came chapter 13, where the apostle wrote that the exercise of these gifts was to be motivated by this unique quality of love, itself one of the dimensions of the fruit of the Spirit.
One of the greatest writings of 18th century American pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards was “Heaven, a World of Love.” In this work he gave an extended exposition of the last few verses of 1 Corinthians 13. To read it is to gain a deeper anticipation of what heaven will be like. It is not the beauty of an eternal home with pearly gates ad streets of gold that should entice us. It is the prospect of living in a society in which the 1 Corinthians kind of love dominates all relationships of heaven’s inhabitants with one another and with the Lord.
As Paul has written so eloquently in this 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, this kind of love is extraordinarily, indeed even supernaturally, valuable. He extolled its virtues as vastly surpassing the value of spiritual gifts that the Corinthians had apparently come to exalt over love. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote that this kind of love was far better than angelic tongues, noisy gongs, clanging cymbals, prophetic powers, deep wisdom, and even faith strong enough to move mountains! The apostle listed its qualities as being patient and kind, without envy or boasting, devoid of arrogance and rudeness. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Unlike the gifts of prophecy and tongues which will cease, love continues.
American Presbyterian song writer Hal Hopson (1933-2025) has given us a hymn based on the first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13, “Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire,” also known as “The Gift of Love.” He has left a sizable legacy of church music, with more than 3,000 published works! His publisher, ECS Publishing Group, said his work is heard weekly in congregations throughout the country. Hopson “composed music that was accessible to nearly all choirs and congregations, always striving to include rather than exclude,” his publisher said. “His published repertoire included almost every conceivable genre: anthems for children, youth and adult choirs, as well as compositions for organ piano, harpsichord and handbells.” His cantata, “God with Us,” was one of the few compositions selected by a panel at the Kennedy Space Center to be placed in a capsule during the United States Bicentennial in 1976. The capsule will be opened at the Tricentennial in 2076 and will be heard again as a representative piece of American choral composition of this century. A church musician throughout his professional life, Hopson also served as a conductor-clinician for workshops and choral festivals in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, and as a professor of church music at Westminster Choir College and Scarritt Graduate School.
Hopson was born June 12, 1933, in Mound, Texas, in a family of 13 children where music making played a prominent role. He first accompanied worship services at age 13 and later graduated from Baylor University and Southern Baptist Seminary. He served on the national boards of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians and the Task Force on Psalmody sponsored by the PC(USA), which resulted in the official Psalter for the denomination, “The Psalter: Psalms and Canticles for Singing.” In the summer of 2013, Austin, Texas, became the home of Hopson and his wife, Martha Smith Hopson, also a church musician. They had three children and six grandchildren, and enjoyed living in the beautiful Texas hill country.
According to the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, the PC(USA)’s associate for Worship, Hopson had 13 works in the 2013 “Glory to God” hymnal and six in the 1990 “Presbyterian Hymnal.”
“Hal brought tremendous energy, creativity, passion and theological integrity to his work composing and arranging psalmody, hymns, anthems and the ritual song that serviced our Sunday liturgy of Word and Sacrament,” said the Rev. Dr. David Batchelder, who served West Plano Presbyterian Church alongside the Hopsons. “What made this collaboration special was that this music was fashioned in the crucible of a vibrant liturgical community whose voices were lifted in praise and thanksgiving each week. It was my honor and privilege to participate in this sacred work with someone so deeply committed to the liturgy.”
“Hal Hopson had a gift for writing music that congregations loved to sing,” said David Eicher, editor of ‘Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal.’ “His gentle, kind spirit spoke through his many compositions and arrangements. He was deeply committed to the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition of psalm singing, and had a special talent for writing singable refrains for responsorial psalms.” “I first met Hal when I was in my mid-20s,” said the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Bracken Long. “He led a choir workshop at Abington Presbyterian Church and asked if anyone had a high C. Everybody pointed at me, and I did the job. When I saw him some 20 years later and introduced myself, he said, ‘Oh, I remember you! You had the high C!’ We’ve been friends ever since. I have so much admiration and respect and fondness for him and for Martha.”
Josh Taylor, PAM’s president-elect, said that having served as a small church musician, “I was grateful for Hal’s commitment to accessible excellence — especially his reduced versions of ‘Messiah’ and ‘Elijah,’ which kept alive a musical tradition he deeply cherished.” “When Hal and Martha decided to move to Austin and were cleaning out their home, I was the recipient of at least 20 boxes of scores, manuscripts, textbooks, etc., from Hal’s collection. It took me over a month to unbox it all … Hal told me that he had specifically pulled the things for me that he felt were most applicable to working church musicians.”
“Hal was extraordinarily kind and generous, with a mischievous sense of humor and an ever-present sense of wonder,” said Eric Wall, Director of Music at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. “His tunes will remain in our ears and on our tongues. He composed, yes; he also arranged and adapted, and Hal the arranger-adapter is an image to hold on to: that generous spirit of asking, ‘What is this music, who are these people, and what might the Spirit do here and now?’”
To honor the life of their parents and long devotion to music ministry and congregational song, the family created and seeded The Hal and Martha Hopson Service Musician Fund. The purpose is to support the Service Musician faculty position and promote congregational singing at PAM’s Worship and Music Conference. For more than six decades, they faithfully served PAM and its Worship & Music Conference in many roles, including as members of the editorial board of Reformed Liturgy & Music, Routley Lecturers, Planning Team members, Adult Seminar leaders, and accompanists for many choirs, the family said. They were awarded honorary lifetime memberships in 2009.
One of the most meaningful aspects of the conference for the Hopson family was the powerful experience of communal singing in Anderson Auditorium at Montreat Conference Center, which the family called “a true expression of faith and unity.” Their deep love for the Worship and Music Conference became a cherished family tradition, with annual journeys that created lifelong memories and lasting connections across generations.
In his final days, family members said that Hal Hopson knew of the plans for this foundation. “It brought him great comfort and joy to know that his name would remain connected to PAM’s Worship and Music Conference at Montreat. We are deeply honored to carry forward Mom and Dad’s legacy and their enduring commitment to the tradition of congregational song through this fund,” family members said. In 2009, a collection of sixty four of his hymn tunes were published in “Hymns for Our Time: The Collected Tunes of Hal H. Hopson.” He died in 2025 at the age of 92.
The lyrics of Hopson’s song follow the biblical text, almost like a metrical Psalm would have done.
Stanza 1 highlights the superiority of this kind of love over even fiery speech and impressive music. The rhyming sounds of “vain” and “gain” point to the greatness of one and uselessness of the other. It reinforces Paul’s argument that Christians should choose and pursue the better of the two. To do so will make our witness more convincing and our heritage more enduring. How many have sadly chosen inspiring speech and impressive musical performance over quiet Christ-like love.
Though I may speak with bravest fire,
and have the gift to all inspire,
but have not love, my words are vain
as sounding brass and hopeless gain.
Stanza 2 adds to the stark contrast between these two courses. To give all that one possesses as a demonstration of this love sounds very good and godly, and it would be so, but not if the heart motivation is not right. If it is not driven by inward love, then “the profit soon turns strangely thin.” That means that we ought regularly to examine our hearts to see if what we are doing is motivated by love for the Lord and His people or for the acclaim we would receive from others.
Though I may give all I possess,
and striving so my love profess,
but not be given by love within,
the profit soon turns strangely thin.
Stanza 3 changes direction. Instead of making a statement for one’s self to ponder, this becomes a prayer to the Holy Spirit, asking that He would work within our hearts to make us the kind of persons who demonstrate this beautiful God-honoring love. Since love is part of the fruit of the Spirit, as listed in Galatians 5, then He is the one we need. We sing here that He would control us as “our spirits long to be made whole.”
Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,
our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
by this we worship, and are freed.
The tune GIFT OF LOVE, as adapted by Hal Hopson in 1972 for his text, is such a familiar tune, and with such a familiar Bible passage, it would be easy to sing it without giving it much attention. The tune is from the British Isles, and has a complex history. Part of its history goes back to the tune name sometimes found today, O WALY WALY. That is a traditional English melody associated with the song “O Waly, Waly, gin love be bony,” dating back at least to Ramsay’s “Tea Table Miscellany” (1724-1742), and as the setting for a folk ballad about Jamie Douglas. It became well known in the 19th century when sung in the Appalachian region of the United States.
It is also known as the folk song “The Water Is Wide.” That was sung by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez as a duet in 1975 as part of Dylan’s movie “Renaldo & Clara.” It starts out as a love song, but it doesn’t end there. It’s about love gone wrong, a break of trust, a test. It expresses the complexity of relationships, of the first blush of love that “fades away like morning dew.” It’s a hard song, a song of sadness, loss, indignance, and still a glimmer of hope.
That’s appropriate to be paired with the 1 Corinthians 13 text. Love is hard. Love takes a lot of work. In the passage from Paul, he outlines all the things that love is not, because it’s so easy to mistake those things for love or to let those things obscure love. And if you sink into it, love, even the deep, holy, sacred Love that we express with a capital L because it is bigger than any one Greek term, love can fade away like morning dew. Love with a capital L takes work. This kind of love is sometimes hard to come by. But it is worth all that effort to see as one dimension of the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of believers.
Here is a link to Hopson’s song sung in folk style.