Paul (died ca. 65).
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” (letter to the Corinthians, ca. 54)
Paul preaching in Athens.
Of all the churches which he has founded, the Corinthian church gives the apostle Paul the most pain. They are a proud and quarrelsome lot, these Corinthians, given to forming cliques and jockeying for position among themselves. Some even try to claw their way to the top of the social heap by showing off spectacular gifts they have received from the Holy Spirit. Among these are gifts of wisdom and knowledge, healing, uttering God’s truths, and speaking in ecstatic tongues.
Paul, having spent 18 months establishing the Corinthian church, has now moved on to Ephesus. However, the problems of the quarrelsome Greek church have followed him, coming to his attention through tale bearers. Paul is too engaged in Ephesus to rush back to Corinth to deal with the difficulties himself and so he writes them a lengthy letter addressing the issues.
Later generations will include this letter in the Bible and name it First Corinthians. When Paul comes to the misunderstood issue of spiritual gifts, he explains that they are given for unifying and building up the whole church, which he compares to a body. A body has many parts with different strengths and different functions. For it to work, all of its parts need to act together. Different gifts are given by one Spirit for the sustenance and improvement of the whole.
One Christian will have one gift, another a different one. Just because a given Christian doesn’t have a certain gift does not make him or her an inferior Christian. He or she is still essential to the body. Spectacular as some gifts are, they are no sign that a Christian is superior to others. The real test of superiority is completely different. And that is what Paul now sets forth.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” he writes. “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
Showy gifts and dramatic acts of faith are worthless without the humble virtue of love.
Eloquent or mysterious words without a loving heart behind them are empty. Incredible acts of faith do not serve their purpose. Gifts given without heart passion prove cheap. Even the zeal or compulsion that sacrifices one’s own body to a cruel martyrdom fails without love.
Love is what Paul prescribes to his troubled congregation. His words will be among the most quoted of the New Testament.
—Dan Graves
Dig a Little Deeper
- Bible. New Testament, especially autobiographical passages from Paul letters and biographical passages from the book of Acts.
- Daniel-Rops, Henri. The Heroes of God. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965, 1958.
- Drummond, Henry. The Greatest Thing in the World. New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1981.
- Finegan, Jack. Handbook of Biblical Chronology. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998.
- Guthrie, D. et al. The New Bible Commentary Revised. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970.
- Lockyer, Herbert. All the Apostles of the Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1972.
- “Paul, St.” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
- Pollock, John. The Apostle, a Life of Paul. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969.
- Prat, F. “Saint Paul.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
- Stalker, James. The Life of St. Paul. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1921.
- Vigeveno, H. S. Thirteen Men Who Changed the World. Glendale, California: Regal, 1966.
