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.