1 Corinthians 13

True Spirituality

If i was to ask you to define true spirituality, what would you say?

Spirituality, what is it?

You don’t have to dig very deep into our culture to see

that there’s different messages about what spirituality is

Views on spiritually will vary, from Newtown

to Byron Bay

to India

to a buddist temple in Tibet

there’s all sorts of differing views on Spirituality

because lot’s of people are convinced it’s important

and for good reason

Slide - Deli Lama

Here’s a slide of the Deli Lama telling us what he thinks true spirituality is.

Slide - Break free from illusion

here’s another that I found on youtube, slightly ominous or matrix-like or something

Slide - Chat GBT

here’s what chat gbt said about spirituality…read

There’s so many definitions out there of true spirituality

because so many people are searching for meaning arent they?

Whats the point of life?

how should I act?

iv’e got all these desires, and emotions and senses

What is the meaning of it all?

The Corinthians thought they were spiritual

they thought they were really spiritual

they had these really impressive gifts that enabled them to do some things

but because of how outwarldy impressive these gifts were

they became inwardly proud and jealous of each other

and it caused massive division.

so much so that Paul is having to write to them

saying “chill out, this isnt how you’re meant to act

this isn’t the fruit of the gospel you profess to believe.

And so we come to 1 Cor 13, the centre piece between chapter 12, and 14,

it’s the chapter that holds the other two either side of it together

the chapter that is the steering wheel if you like

of what gathering together as the body looks like.

And Paul answers for us in this passage what being truly spiritual looks like.

Being a spiritual member of the body of Christ

is to be someone who is known by their love.

That’s it.

to be truly spiritual, is to embody love.

We could break this chapter up into 3 chunks

and in vs 1-3, Paul shows us the first chunk, The Importance of Love.

The Importance of Love vv. 1-3

Paul’s formula that he shows us in these three verses is this

Impressive gifts - Love = nothing.

The most impressive gifts, even impressive spiritual gifts

mean absolutely nothing if you don’t have the chief fruit of the spirit, love.

Look at what Paul references right off the bat in vs 1.

tongues.

You see the corinthians had elevated the gift of tongues to be

THE sign that you were a spiritual person.

if you spoke in tongues you had reached the pinnacle of the christian faith.

they glorified this outward sign in people

they thought they were awesome

they thought they were this sweet melody before God

do you know it’s possible that this overemphasis actually came from a good place initially.

do you know where else we see in the bible tongues being a sign that someone is spiritual?

that a supernatural work has happened to them?

Act 2, the day of pentecost.

when Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Spirit onto the disciples,

they started speaking in tongues,

in other languages, so that other people from other nations heard the gospel

and could be saved.

And what has possibly happened here for the Corinthians

is that they’ve heard about the day of pentecost

and over time they have twisted

The Nature of Love vv. 4-7

The Permanence of Love vv. 8-13