(In)complete (Worship Issues, Part 6)

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

These familiar words give us the blueprint for how we are to love each other, the list of ingredients for love. Certainly this is valuable for the relationship between husband and wife, between parents and children, between extended family, neighbors, enemies, etc.

But the context of this is in the realm of church life; even more specifically, in the area of spiritual gifts and our belonging to the body of Christ—to this family intentioned and integrated by God. In this body, as part of the family of God, we must be marked by love. Love has to be the controlling factor, the governing dynamic.

Verses 4-7 are some of the most familiar words in all of Paul’s writings. They are memorable, repeated, beautiful words. But there is one characteristic of love we have not yet read, one very important description of love in verse 8.

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13. If you are able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word. 1 Corinthians 13, beginning with verse 8;

1 Corinthians 13:8–13 NIV

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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Love never fails...

1 Corinthians 13:8 NIV

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

This is a beautiful and fitting end to this list of characteristics used to describe and define love. Love never fails...

Literally, Paul says love never falls. And the word Paul uses for ‘never’ he only uses here; it’s incredibly strong. Love never ever fails, never ever falls.

This love never folds under pressure, even intense and sustained pressure. This love continues through death into eternity. This is the love of God.

Paul wants to underline and circle and highlight the priority of love for all Christians (in Corinth, Rich Hill, and everywhere in between).

To do this, Paul mentions the three gifts at the top of the Corinthians’ priorities: tongues, prophecy, and knowledge.

Each of these will either become irrelevant or else be swallowed up in the perfection of eternity.

Love never fails, but prophecies will. Love never fails, but tongues will. Love never fails, but knowledge will.

No gift of the Spirit is permanent. You saw the phrase “in part” scattered throughout these verses (Paul’s trying to make a point). The gifts we have been gifted with are transitory in nature. They are temporary, passing away. They will cease. They will be stilled. They will, like our earthly lives, vanish as a mist. These gifts are more akin to the morning fog than they are the centuries-old oak.

The Corinthians are putting a lot of stock in the gifts they’ve been given. They’re holding them over one another, bragging about this gift or that gift. They’re asserting one gift is better than another. And it’s lunacy, because no gift is going to last.

Much is incomplete

John MacArthur writes that these “gifts are temporary, partial, and elementary.” Paul is showing us the comparison between the gifts and love.

The point of 1 Corinthians 13:8–13 is that the church must be working in the present on the things that will last into God’s future. Faith, hope and love will do this; prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, so highly prized in Corinth, will not.

It’s important for us to realize what will last and what is passing away. We are living in a temporary world, with temporary stuff, and we can only experience temporary enjoyment of that stuff. What the church in Corinth was focusing upon, giving all their energy to, fighting all their battles about was merely temporary stuff.

How much of our energy, how much of our focus, how much of the battles we fight are focused on the temporary, the fleeting, the transitory?

I dare say most of what we focus upon in the life of the church is, sadly, the temporary; wouldn’t you?

The first few verses of 1 Corinthians 13 teach us what we say is nothing without love, what we know is nothing without love, what we do is nothing without love—without love, what we say, know, and do is woefully incomplete. What we see is the nothingness of tongues, prophecy, knowledge, action; they are nothing apart from love.

In the last few verses of 1 Corinthians 13, we are struck with the the endlessness of love, the permanence of love.

But before we get to that, though, we need to see the incomplete nature of all this.

1 Corinthians 13:9 NIV

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

This pretty well sums it up. ek merous, in part. The nature of these gifts is “for now only.”

This was probably a rude awakening for some of the Corinthians. They, no doubt, thought their knowledge and prophecy was full, not partial. They, like us, no doubt think themselves mature, even perfect, as opposed to being mere children.

Paul’s comment makes it clear that all human knowing is partial—including even his own and that of the most learned, gifted, knowledgeable believers in Corinth.

We don’t know perfectly. We don’t. It’s not difficult to understand, though it’s harder to admit. This is clear—we know in part; the research in every laboratory in the world demonstrates the truth of the statement. The more we know the more we realize we don’t know.

In the TV series Friends, Ross (a paleontologist) and Phoebe (a free spirit hippie) are arguing about science and evolution and gravity (Phoebe says, “Lately I feel less like I’m being pulled down and more like I’m being pushed down.”). At the end of their argument Phoebe asks Ross:

“Now, wasn’t there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the earth was flat? And up until, like 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the small thing until you split it open and this, like, whole mess of crap came out? Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can’t admit that there’s a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?”

It’s a well-taken rebuke to any of us who believe we have it all figured out. We don’t. And we won’t, at least not this side of heaven.

Where the Church and spirituality is concerned, we don’t have a handle on everything. We know in part, we prophesy in part.

In part. Incomplete. Imperfect. These are the words that describe us as we slog our way through this life. “I know in part.” What we say, know, and do = in part.

What we say, know, and do is passing away. Tongues, prophecy, knowledge—it’s all temporary, incomplete.

There is a completeness that is to come, and when it does, all that is in part, all that is incomplete will vanish.

These gifts have their part, they have their place, but they must not take primacy of place. They must not be all important to us because they are not everlasting.

Much is incomplete, and so we

Wait for Completeness

My junior year of college, my professor in Advanced Greek gave us an assignment from 1 Corinthians 13:10. We were to take the word our Bibles translate as completeness or perfection and write a paper explaining it.

We were to work out what this word meant and to what it was pointing. Nothing like asking a bunch of know-it-all 20-year-olds to try to settle a debate that’s been raging on since Paul wrote these words. It was a good exercise in understanding that we don’t, in fact, know it all (not even close). We know in part has never been more true than at that moment.

In teams of 3-4, we struggled through the original language and then tried to work-out what this word completeness/perfect meant. What is this word referring to? This was before the internet was very helpful (we were still dialing-up and watching hamster dance), so we couldn’t cheat and just look up what this scholar thought or see what our favorite preachers had to say about it.

1 Corinthians 13:10 NIV

10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

1 Corinthians 13:10 NASB95

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

The good news for you is that I have seemed to lose the paper I wrote on this one word. I was planning to cite my paper extensively and bore all of you to sleep (or into a deeper sleep as the case may be).

When completeness comes…when the perfect comes...

To teleion, we decided, had to have something to do with Jesus, we just weren’t sure what.

Some thought that this was pointing us to the Bible as the completeness, the perfect.

And that’s not all bad. Some of the great thinkers in the history of the church (Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin) say that’s what it is referring to.

But, verse 12 really throws a wrench into that theory:

1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

The Bible is inspired, it is without error in its original manuscripts, it is dependable and sufficient, but looking at the Bible is not the same as seeing face-to-face. By reading the Bible, we don’t know fully, just as we are fully known.

It’s not the Bible this word is pointing to.

1 Corinthians 13:10 NIV

10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When completeness comes, when the perfect comes—this is speaking about Jesus and His return.

When Jesus comes, He will set the world at rights, judge the quick and the dead, inaugurate His kingdom here on earth. It is then that we will see Him face-to-face. It’s then that we shall know fully, even as we are fully known by Him.

It’s Jesus we’ll see. It’s Jesus we’ll know.

What a glorious day that will be! For any number of reasons, but just imagine: seeing Jesus, beholding Him face-to-face.

And then, to know fully, even as we are fully known. We won’t have a list of questions for Jesus when we get there (you’ve heard people say, “When I get to heaven, I’m gonna ask Jesus why there’s poison ivy and mosquitoes and cancer.”). All our questions, all our deepest, most troubling issues will be resolved in an instant. We will not wonder, we will know. We will not question or doubt or struggle; we’ll get it, instantly.

Oh, for that day to come... “And Lord, haste the day when my faith be made sight!”

For now, we wait. And we understand the coming of Christ will change everything.

Paul speaks in illustrations and in terms of “when” and “now/then”. This helps us get the picture.

Paul says its a matter of maturity:

1 Corinthians 13:11 NIV

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

It’s not a matter of how long it takes to mature from child to man; the focus here is on the two stages: childhood and adulthood.

The goal is maturity in Christ, not temporary giftedness or contentedness with the situation as is.

What the Corinthians failed to realize was that the whole present age is, in comparison to the age to come, a passing, incomplete, partial-revelation and partial-knowledge stage, like the time of childhood.

Not now, but in the coming age there will be a fullness of knowledge (adult). Now, our best understanding is like kindergarten understanding (there are some wicked smart kindergartners, but they are incapable of thinking and reasoning and behaving as an adult).

1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Turns out, the city of Corinth was known for its mirrors—highly polished bronze mirrors which gave a pretty good reflection.

Paul here compares the indirect, imperfect image we see in the mirror (our present experience in this age) with the direct, complete, clear knowledge of God and His truth (face-to-face) that we will experience at the resurrection and beyond.

Paul states at the end of the verse that his best knowledge of God now is partial. We have the truth now, but its incomplete. We do not have the full picture yet.

“Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

How I love that phrase! Now, currently, I know just a little bit, I know in part, incompletely, imperfectly. Then—then, when Christ, the Perfect, returns—not now, but then, I shall know fully, completely, perfectly.

When completeness comes, when the perfect comes, it changes everything.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Paul doesn’t say these three will remain; he’s speaking about the present as he’s writing. Paul meant that faith and hope existed at the time he wrote, not that they would always continue to exist.

Hope doesn’t continue when its object has been realized. When we see Jesus face-to-face, we won’t hope to see Him any longer.

Faith relates to that which is yet unseen. And then, on that day, we will see Him clearly, not through a glass, not in a mirror, but right before our eyes.

To show the importance of love, Paul puts it alongside faith and hope. And then raises love to an even higher level.

Faith, hope, and love stand above all spiritual gifts (lowering the Corinthians’ favorites: prophecy, tongues, knowledge) the greatest of these is love.

The greatest of these is love.

This is a question and a challenge: As the church struggles in its worship, especially in the practice of prophecy and tongues, what was the church’s highest priority?

Paul’s position is clear. The highest virtue for them to pursue was love for one another.

Love is the way of life in the new world to which, by grace, we are bound. We need to learn it here and now. It’s the grammar of the language we shall speak there. The more progress we make in it here, the better we shall be equipped there.

>1 Corinthians 13 teaches us to put everything in its place.

Prophecy, tongues, knowledge, nor any other gift is the end-all-be-all of the Christian experience. Love is. Love as defined here—patient, kind, non-envious, humble, others-oriented, truthful, protective, trusting, hopeful, persevering love.

This is what we must be about. Everything else is passing away. Love is now, and love will be then.

In the meantime, we wait. We wait for Jesus to come again, putting everything at rights. While we wait, we work to love as Jesus loved us, giving His life for our sake.

We trust God’s time-table. And, hopefully, we see how important love is. Love will help us to resist fighting and factions. Love will prevent divisions among the people of God. Love removes boasting over spiritual gifts. Love will give light to help see spiritual gifts rightly.

What’s more, they will know we are His disciples if we love one another.