06/12/2022 – Day 105 – Corinthians 13-14 – “The Hymn of Love”
I am going to be wimpy and skip on commentary on Chapter 14: “The Gift of Prophecy and Tongues”. Except to clarify what Paul is speaking of when he speaks of “the gift of prophecy”, with the help of William Barclay’s – “The Letter to the Corinthians”, just as I did last week for Chapters 11 & 12.
My footnote referenence – (*): Wiliam H. Barclay – The Letters to the Corinthians” ISBN # 0-664-21308-1
“It would give a better idea of the meaning of this word if we translated it as preaching. We have too much associated prophecy with the foretelling of what was to happen. But at all times prophecy has been far more forthtelling than foretelling. The prophet is a man who lives so close to God that he knows his mind and heart and will, and so can make them known to men. Because of that his function is twofold. (a) He brings rebuke and warning, telling men that their way of action is not in accordance with the will of God. (b) He brings advice and guidance, seeking to direct men into the ways God wishes them to go.
Ok, here is a copy from last Saturday of the carryover from Barclay for this weeks reading in Chapters 13 & 14.
(v) – Chapter 13 is the great hymn of love which shows men the most excellent way.
(vi) 14: 1- 14: 23 deals with the problem of speaking with tongues.
(vii) 14:24 – 14:33 insists on the necessity of orderliness in public worship and seeks to bring under necessary discipline the overflowing enthusiasm of a newly born Church.
(viii) 14:24 – 14:36 discusses the place of women in the public worship of God in the Church of Corinth.
Chapter 13:
In verses 4-7 Paul lists fifteen characteristics of Christian love. I am going to share some of Barclay’s pithy characterization of selected characteristics:
“…
–Love is patient. The Greek word (makrothumein) used in the New Testament always describes patience with people and not patience with circumstances. Chrysostom said that it is the word used of man who is wronged and who has it easily in his poer to avenge himself and who yet will not do it. It describes the man who is slow to anger and it is used of God himself in his relationship with men, however refractory and however unkind and hurting they are, we must exercise the same patience as God exercises with us. Such patience is not the sign of weakness, but the sign of strength; it is not defeatism but rather the only way to victory…
- Love is not inflated wth its own importance… The really great man never thinks of his own importance…
- Love does not insist upon its rights. In the last analysis, there are in this world only two kinds of people – those who always insist upon their privileges and those who always remember their responsibilites; those who are always thinking of what life owes them and those who never forget what they owe to life. It would be the key to almost all the problems which surround us today if men would think less of their rights and more of their duties. Whenever we start thinking about ‘our place’, we are drifting away from Christian love…
- Love bears everything with triumphant fortitude. The verb used here (hypomenein) is one of the great Greek words. It is generally translated to bear or to endure; but what it really describes is not the spirit which can passively bear things, but the spirit which, in bearing them, can conquer and transmute them. It has been defined as “a masculine constancy under trial”… Love can bear things, not merely with passive resignation, but with triumphant fortitude, because it knows that ‘a father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. On thing remains to be said — when we think of the qualities of this love as Paul portrays them we can see them realized in the life of Jesus himself.
Amen!