Sermon Tone Analysis

“THE PERMANENCE OF LOVE”

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(1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

 

      The story of a missionary from Uganda, who had difficulties working with a coworkers; began to read 1 Corinthians once a day and did so for a year.

The results in her life were so remarkable that even those who were unsaved around commented concerning the difference in her life.

Read together and apply together in our reading.

How would you describe Christian love?

It cannot be defined in a single statement.

It is a active thing and that is why the next paragraph, verses 4-7 contain fifteen verbs.

No one loves who is not active in this way.

Here are the activities of love: suffers long and is kind.

One is more passive, the other more active.

And then there are five statements of self denial.

Charity envieth not, vauteth not itself (is not puffed up); doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own.

And then here are the three refusals; charity refuses to be provoked; thinketh no evil, does not reckon up the evil that it has suffered at the hands of others.

Notice this third refusal with both a postive and a negative side: charity 6Rejoiceth not in iniquity (not even when it is found in an enemy), but rejoiceth in the truth; 

 

The four great universals: Charity…7Beareth (covers) all things, believeth all things (takes people at their word), hopeth all things, always nourishes in its heart positive expecation of people even when they have disappointed it from time to time; charity  endureth all things.

And now the passage, the paragraph that we are going to be dealing with tonight concerning the permanence of Christian love.

Verse 8: “8Charity never faileth: but (by contrast) whether /there be/ prophecies, they shall fail; whether /there be/ tongues, they shall cease; whether /there be/ knowledge, it shall vanish away.”

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

10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12For now we see through a glass, darkly (in a riddle, in an enigma; many bewildering things to us); but then (someday) face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these /is/ charity.”

Chapter 14, verse 1: “Follow after charity, pursue it.”

Here is an outstanding statement on the permanence, the eternality of Christian love.

This statement that is made at the beginning of verse 8 is obviously intended to bring the whole preceeding paragraph to its climactic expression: “love never fails.”

The word “fail” is a word that has reference to something falling to the ground because it has decayed and dead.

Or something that is falling out of line, like a soldier who has fallen and is exhausted and cannot go on any longer.

Love never does that.

Love never falls to the ground.

That means two things: first, love never deserts its object.

It will never let down someone whom it it loves.

It is unfailing in its loyalty to its object.

A letter was written in the last several years by a president of a Christian school.

His wife suffered from Alsheimer’s disease, which caused him to step down from the office of president; and when he did so in March of 1990, he wrote his resignation and letter:

 

        “My dear wife Muriel has been in failing mental health for the last eight years.

So far I have been able to carry both her ever-growing needs and my leadership responsibilities at the college, but recently it has become apparent that Muriel is contented most of the time that she is with me and almost none of the time when I am away from her.

It is not just discontent; she is filled with fear, even terror that she has lost me and she always goes in search of me when I leave home.

Then she may be full of anger when she cannot get to me, so it is clear to me that she needs me full time.

Perhaps it would help you to understand if I shared with you what I shared at the time of my resignation at chapel.

The decision was made in a way 42 years ago when I promised to care for her in sickness and in health till death do us part.

So as I told the students and faculty, as a man of my word, integrity has something to do with this decision, but so does fairness.

She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years.

If I cared for her the next forty years, I would not be out of debt.

Duty, however, can be grim and stoic, so there is more.

I love Muriel.

She is a delight to me.

Her child-like dependence and confidence in me; her warm love; her occassional flashes of the wit that I used to relish.

Her happy spirit and tough resilience in the face of her continual distressing frustation.

I do not have to care for her; I get to.

It is a high honor to care for so wonderful a person.

Love never fails; never deserts the objects of its intentions.

The second thing that this means, and in the conext, this is the primary meaning, and that is that love never comes to an end.

It is everlasting.

Not only is love unfailing in its loyalty, but it is unfailing eternally.

It will not die.

That is the primary thing that the apostle is saying in this passage as he moves on now in the remainder in the remainder of verse and down to verse 12 and he contrasts love with the exercise of spiritual gifts in Christian ministry.

! I.    THE CONTRAST BETWEEN LOVE AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS

 

Let’s look at this together.

In the remainder of verse 8, in this section contrasting love with spiritual gifts, Paul predicts that someday spritual gifts will pass away.

A little background on this: every beleiver is given by the Holy Spirit some gracious ability; a gracious bestowal that he might be able to profit the rest of the believers in the body of Christ.

This is a gracious bestowal by God to enable to literally do things that build up others in the faith so that there are eternal consequences to my life.

These are called spiritual gifts; there are nineteen or twenty of them listed in five passages in the New Testament.

There are either nineteen or twenty because it depends on whether you refer to celibacy as a spiritual gift, which it may be.

As you know, the Corinthian church did not fail in any of these gifts.

All of them were present in their assembly; the apostle refers to this in chapter 1, and they evidently existed in this assembly in some degree of excellence.

But these people were not exercising these gifts so that they were building up the body; they were actually exercising them for self-gratification.

And so, in chapters 12, 13 and 14, we have the most extended discussion in the Word of God on spiritual gifts.

The apostle, right in the middle of that discussion, is concerned that to show the Corinthians what he calls in the end of chapter 12, verse 31, the “excellent way,” the superlative Christian behavior.

In other words, what he is saying is that there is even something beyond our exercising our gifts in service to one another; there is something even more superlative than that and that is this thing that he calls love.

Paul is going to argue for that thesis, as he points out in this paragraph that the gifts are temporary; they are going to pass away.

But love never will.

Love never faileth.

Love is eternal; it will never die.

So, in verse 8, he takes by way of example, three of the spiritual gifts and the three with which the Corinthians seem to have been most occupied and he says this about them, he makes this prediction about their passing.

He says, “Let’s take prophecies—they are going to fail.”

Literally, they shall be done.

What about tongues—the gift with which the Corinthian church was most enamored?

Tongues will cease.

Or knowledge, also, just like prophecy shall be done away.

We need to take a few moments to drop out of the explanation of these verses and the theme of Christian love and make some reference to the current phenomenon, the charismatic movement and its particular emphasis upon the gift of tongues, so that we can see exactly what this verse and the succeeding verses are teaching concerning the ceasing of tongues and the passing away of other gifts.

So let’s by way of an extended footnote give a teaching of this passage.

We are going to have to be somewhat technical, because some important questions are going to be raised by these next few verses, and the grammar of these verses is extremely important to rightly understanding what Paul is saying concerning the gift of tongues.

Notice verse 8:  three gifts are mentioned, but he says two different things about their passing.

The words “they shall fail” (you may want to underline) when it refers to prophecies, and the last four words of verse 8, “it shall vanish away,” referring to knowledge.

These two phrases are exactly the same word in the language in which the New Testament was written.

It is one word, translated two different ways.

In the margin of your Bible, you might want to write these four words “shall be done away.”

Prophecies shall be done away.

Knowledge shall be done away.

The reason that these two phrases can legitimately be translated this way is that this verb occurs one more time in the passage, at the end of verse 10.

What are the last four words of verse 10? Shall be done away.

It is the same verb, in exactly the same form.

If you keep the translation consistent, it will be easier to understand, and the third way that it is translated will probably help us to understand the concepts more easily.

One other thing that we need to do.

Notice that concerning this third spiritual gift in verse 8, you have a different word, and it is translated a different way.

Of tongues, it says, “they shall cease.”

You might want to underline that phrase and write out in the edge of the margin of your Bible this translation of what that phrase means, “shall cease themselves.”

Or you could put, “they shall cease of themselves,” all on their own—is the idea.

Let’s talk for a moment about English grammar.