The Bible Binge: A Better Way

I Want to Know What Love is

A lot has been written about the epidemic of loneliness. We’ve talked about it some, here at The Table. More people are lonely. More people are depressed. And it’s not just that more people today are lonely. And it’s not just that people are more isolated. The trend is toward intentional isolation… we know what the problem is, and we like it that way. A recent Pew survey found that 57% of single adults here in this country are not looking for a date, they are not looking for a relationship, they are not looking for love. This comports with other data suggesting that marriage with Gen Z isn’t simply in decline, relationships with intimacy are at an all-time low in this age group. And this trend carries over into our culture. It doesn’t take a scientist to see that love is lacking across the board in our polarized society. “Haters gonna hate” is a popular expression for not other reason than there is a not a high value for love in our interactions with others.

Some 1980s philosophers make the statement, I want to know what love is, I want you to show me. The statement is profound. It betrays a longing and a desire to experience one of life’s necessities… and seemingly it has gone missing. Do you love me? can be one of the most disarming questions in relationships. The stories we tell on stage and on the screens ask these kinds of questions:

Video from fiddler

The fascinating thing about that piece is that love is defined beyond emotion. If you look at any dictionary, you’ll see that emotion is the leading definition of love. And in fact, we can talk about love any number of different kinds of love, love for spouse, love for family, love for a friend, love for the Cincinnati Bengals… I want to know what love is, I want you to show me… that indicates that love is expressed not just in emotion, but action. However, that also can be a bit short as well. A best-selling Christian book in the late-1980s was “love is a choice”… aimed at correcting the problem of thinking that love is emotion and chemicals. But the problem with defining love as a decision or action is that our decisions and actions don’t always reflect love. Worse, we simply reinforce a problem present with love being an emotion: we get to define it.

Hopefully our Bible Binge passage for today, will help. We are in 1 Corinthians 13. That chapter we read comes from a letter that Paul writes to a congregation in the Greek city of Corinth. Here is the Bible Project summary… the video highlights the main points of the book, then skips ahead to chapters 12 and 13 where there is discussing of the gathering of the church, and Paul’s description of the church as a body:

Video from Bible Project

What are we to make of this letter?

Paul writes this letter to the church of Corinth to resolve a crisis. There are a number of issues that Paul addresses in this letter… he’s heard of the problems and he’s addressing problems, but there is one issue that all the problems have in common: the church is divided. They are divisive. They are in conflict with one another. Conflict is everywhere in this first letter to the church at Corinth.

Paul writes to a divisive church.

Paul writes about church issues.

Paul writes about marital issues.

Paul writes about cross-cultural conflict.

Paul writes about problems regarding the Lord’s Supper.

Paul writes about spiritual gifts in the church.

Paul writes about financial generosity.

There are problems with every single one of these issues and the common denominator with all of them is that they are divided. Paul hears from a long ways away that there are rival factions in the church. That’s a recipe for disaster in a gathering that is supposed to be unified.

And if there’s a common denominator with all of these problems in the church, well, then… there is a common “solution”.

The “love chapter”

This was mentioned in the Bible project video about the back end of the letter… but the way Paul begins 1 Corinthians 13, you begin to suspect that this is Paul’s one thought for everything that he’s been writing about. If you attend a Christian wedding, you are likely to hear quotes from 1 Corinthians 13. It is called the love chapter, and the quotes are usually Paul’s description of love, love that is exemplified in the bride and the groom..

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This beautiful couple… Paul reminds us that love is patient with each other and love isn’t self-seeking or keeping a record of wrongs… and it is always believing and enduring.. that’s what the marriage is supposed to be about. And the bride and the groom are listening to these words and affirming them and all of us watching are nodding our heads about this glorious description of love in the happy occasion.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news about a popular text, but that’s not the context and certainly not how Paul envisioned what he wrote. It all looks good on a wall plaque, until you understand the context. Chapter 13 is nestled in between chapters 12 and 14 where Paul is talking about how the church at Corinth is to conduct their church services, because there’s a lot of conflict… and chapter 13 follows the first 12 chapters that are conflict after conflict after conflict in a host of church issues.

Chapter 13 is an interruption. An interlude. An indictment.

Paul writes, “Love is patient, love is kind” because this church is anything but patient and anything but kind. This church IS self-seeking, and he already spent a good portion of one chapter noting how they really do keep a record of wrongs because they are suing each other in the city courts. They certainly aren’t enduing all things with each other. They are not a happy couple in a blissful moment… they are divisive and dysfunctional. 1 Corinthians 13 is everything they are not.

And the key to seeing chapter 13 in this light comes from 3 verses that we like to skip over to get to the good stuff. The first three verses are the summary of the context:

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

This is St Paul coming alongside this church and saying what needs to be said without pointing a finger. And he makes it personal. Why? Because he knows that 1 Corinthians 13 is often everything he is not. Here are the three parallel statements… the last half of the “if, then” statements Paul uses here:

“I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

“I am nothing.”

“I gain nothing.”

This is who Paul is without love. This is what the church is without love. In fact, as we read this letter from Paul, this is what they are: noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. They don’t get along. They are arrogant. They abuse the Lord’s table by getting drunk on the wine and shutting out people that don’t fit with their social status. They have a habit of claiming “I have Jesus and you don’t”. Paul summarizes it all… noisy gongs, clanging cymbals, nothing, and gaining nothing.

And it is into this kind of environment that Paul says, “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn’t arrogant. Love isn’t rude. Love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. Love endures all things.”

I find it fascinating that Paul does not put this in command form. He doesn’t say, “You need to love each other. don’t be rude. Be kind. Stop being arrogant. Stop keeping a running record of all the wrongs done to you.” He simply says “love doesn’t do this.” He does this because the problem isn’t so much a behavior problem is an identity problem. They have been made into God’s people and they have been created as a people to love.

But there’s also something else in play. And it has to do with the identity problem. The first half of the “if-then” statements…

I speak human or angelic tongues

I have the gift of prophecy and understand ALL mysteries and ALL knowledge

I have ALL faith, I can move mountains (anything) I give away (everything) all my possessions

I give over my body (in suffering)

You look at this list… you combine all of these features together, and what you have is the impossible. Who does this? Nobody. In fact, there’s only One. That list points to a bigger reality here… there’s only One who has ever loved perfectly. In fact, then, verses 4-7 become one of the most breath-taking descriptions of love ever penned.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is Jesus. This is Jesus FOR YOU. This is a description of how he loves you. He’s patient with you. He’s kind. He’s not keeping a record of our wrongs. Jesus is never irritable. Jesus is never seeking his own self-interest, but ours. Jesus endures ALL things FOR YOU. His love for us never stops! That’s who He is… and because that’s Who He Is, that’s your identity. Your identity is that you are loved by Jesus like THAT.

So yes, the next time you hear this at a wedding… yes, it’s a wonderful occasion and yes, this is the kind of love we want for our marriages and our relationships, but make no mistake, we will never live up to this chapter. Ever. There’s only one. You hear those verses and you remind yourself that those verses are describing Jesus FOR YOU.

That is the answer for divisiveness and conflict. finding our identity as a church created to love in the One who loves us perfectly. The answer for not being noisy gongs is to love each other out of the perfect love Jesus has for us. John says it more explicitly than Paul does:

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

We love… we love each other here at church, we love our community because Jesus first loved us. Our love flows out of His love for us. It all begins with his love. That’s our identity.

I was raised in a context in which we were told that our identity is found in glorifying God and enjoying him. Over and over and over and over we were reminded from the Westminster Catechism that the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That sounds all great until you realize that what it is teaching is that we find our identity in what we do for God. What we do. The law. That’s a dead end road. The law cannot provide us with an identity. Our identity is NOT found in what we do for God. Passages like 1 John 4:19 and 1 Corinthians 13 tell us something else.. our identity is found in the Gospel… in Christ’s love for us. I came to realize that:

The chief end of humanity is to be loved by God.

The chief end of the church is to be loved by Jesus who loves us with perfect patience, whose love for us never stops.

This is the Better Way

Paul starts off this entire “love chapter” with the last sentence in chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12:31 I will show you an even better way.

I will show you a better way to do church. I will show you a better way to get along. I will show you a better way to be the dwelling place of God on earth. This is the better way… a better way than being noisy gongs. This is what Christ’s love for you looks like. This is what you were created to be. A better way than trying to one-up each other and always trying to be first, a better way than claiming you have Jesus and others don’t, a better way than keeping a record of wrongs…

Given where this chapter is sitting and the church situation into which St Paul writes, this is also an indictment on a common attitude that we find in church that is anything but loving. Everywhere you turn, there isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not hearing some Christian say, “the most loving thing I can do for you is to tell you how wrong you are.” There is no love in that statement. In fact, more often than not, that statement is a cover for being abusive and oppressive… it is a power move by somebody using the Bible to control people… and using the Bible as a cover for actions that are anything but loving.

That’s what the church at Corinth was doing to each other. And Paul says, here’s a better way. The better way is love.. a love that is patient. A love that gives up control. A love that gives up self-interest. A love that sacrifices for others the way Jesus did for you. A love that never stops. That’s the better way for your church. That’s the better way for The Table.

And… it’s a better way for our culture, our city. We live in a world where love is lacking. Jesus said that the world will know that we are Christians, not by our success, not by our ingenuity, not by our buildings or name on the door, not by our vote… they will know we are Christians by our love. Love shows them Jesus. Love shows them the cross… love for the neighbor is patient, is kind, isn’t self-serving. That is the better way for people who are saying “I want to know what love is… I want you to show me.”

Let’s pray.

The Table

This Table is Christ’s love for you. In his body and in his blood. This is Jesus’ better way FOR YOU.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26

May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.