1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Please consider your sponsorship or support of The Text This Week.
- Reading the Text:
- NRSV (with link to Anglicized NRSV) at Oremus Bible Browser.
- Greek Interlinear Bible, ScrTR, ScrTR t, Strong, Parsing, CGTS, CGES id, AV.
- The Bible Gateway: NIV, NASB, CEV, The Message, KJV, etc.
- The Blue Letter Bible. KJV, alternate versions, Greek text with concordance, commentaries.
- The World Wide Study Bible includes commentary, exposition and sermons.
- Historical References, Commentary and
Comparative Texts:
- Comparative World Scriptures from United Communities of Spirit:
- Chapter XLIX of The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Clement of Rome (ca. 96).
- II.XXVIII.3, 7, 9, IV.IX.2, IV.XII.2, V.VII.2, Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus of Lyons. (c. 180)
- I.6, II.1, III.1, Paedagogus, Clement of Alexandria (c 200)
- IV.7, IV.18, V.1, VII.10, VII.12, Stromata, Clement of Alexandria (c 200)
- II.2, On The Apparel of Women, Tertullian (c. 202)
- V.8, Against Marcion, Tertullian (c. 212)
- Chapter I, Chapter XIV, Against Praxeas, Tertullian (c. 213)
- Chapter I, On Modesty, Tertullian (c. 217)
- VI.12, X.27, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Philocalia [anthology of Origen prepared by St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen], Origen. (c.230)
- VI.XX, VII.XXXVIII, VII.L, Against Celsus, Origen (c. 246)
- X.9, XI.2, XI.3, XII.6, XII.23, XII.41, XIII.5, XIII.7, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Origen. (c.247)
- On the Unity of the Church, Cyprian of Carthage (c. 250)
- Epistle LXXII -- Cyprian of Carthage (c. 256)
- On the Advantage of Patience -- Cyprian of Carthage (c. 256)
- "Paul's Praise of Christian Love," 1 Corinthians 13, Martin Luther, c. 1525.
- From the
Geneva Notes.
- "For seeing that faith and hope tend to things which are promised and are to come, when we have presently gotten them, to what purpose would we have faith and hope? But yet there at length we will truly and perfectly love both God and one another."
- From
Matthew Henry's
Commentary.
- "The excellent way had in view in the close of the former chapter, is not what is meant by charity in our common use of the word, almsgiving, but love in its fullest meaning; true love to God and man. Without this, the most glorious gifts are of no account to us, of no esteem in the sight of God."
- The Great Duty of Charity Recommended (1 Cor 13:8): sermon by George Whitefield.
- 16 Sermons on Charity and its Fruits (1 Cor 13). Sermons by Jonathan Edwards. (Scroll down to index at site.)
- From
Wesley's
Notes.
- "The love of God, and of our neighbour for God's sake, is patient toward, all men. It, suffers all the weakness, ignorance, errors, and infirmities of the children of God; all the malice and wickedness of the children of the world: and all this, not only for a time, but to the end. And in every step toward overcoming evil with good, it is kind, soft, mild, benign. It inspires the sufferer at once with the most amiable sweetness, and the most fervent and tender affection."
- On Charity (1 Cor 13:1-3), On Love (1 Cor 13:3), Imperfection of Human Knowledge (1 Cor 13:9). Sermons by John Wesley.
- When I Was a Child, I Thought as a Child, Edward Griffin, c. 1830.
- From the
Commentary on the Whole Bible
(Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, 1871).
- "Love makes allowances for the falls of others, and is ready to put on them a charitable construction. Love, so far from devising evil against another, excuses "the evil" which another inflicts on her [ESTIUS]; doth not meditate upon evil inflicted by another [BENGEL]; and in doubtful cases, takes the more charitable view [GROTIUS]."
- From
The
People's New Testament, B.W. Johnson, 1891.
- "The imperfect will give way to the perfect; the perishable to the enduring. "The perfect" was expected at the coming of Christ. Some think that it came when the church was fully matured, since the special gifts then ceased. If there is a reference to this, the final and complete reference is to the glorified church."
- Contemporary Commentary, Studies and Exegesis:
-
- "In this season of Epiphany, our pursuit of love can bring the light of Christ to those in darkness ? to the poor, to the captive, to the blind, to the oppressed."
-
"First
Thoughts on Passages on Year C Epistle Passages in the Lectionary,"
Epiphany 4, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in
Australia.
- "The point of 13:9-12 is to assert human vulnerability. We have not arrived - some at Corinth thought they had."
-
-
- "Because of God?s faithfulness and love, we have the strength to develop into communities that carry out the loving, liberating works for which our world searches."
-
"Love and Virtue," Mark Ryan, The Ekklesia Project, 2010.
- "My belief is that the association of virtue with scripture can only be justified if it can help us to read scripture well at a given time and place. I propose a moment?s meditation on virtue as a help to getting Paul?s hymn on love back from the greeting card to the struggling church as its setting."
-
"Love on the Move," Melissa Bane Sevier, Contemplative Viewfinder,
2010.
- "Love, real love, is implanted in our souls by God. When we see someone else hurting, our hearts go out to them. It?s natural."
- "Beginning at the End," Confessing Jesus as Lord: Selected Epistles (Epiphany to Palm Sunday), David Fredrickson, Word & World Texts in Context, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, 1998.
- "For Better or For Worse," study guide, Robert B. Kruschwitz, (other resources at) "Marriage," Christian Reflection, The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2006.
- "Showing the Body: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 12 - 13 for Epiphany," Dennis Ormseth, Word & World Texts in Context, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, 1986.
-
"Love,"
Rev. Bryan Findlayson, Lectionary Bible
Studies and Sermons, Pumpkin Cottage Ministry Resources.
- "Consider your own church. In what sense is it divided and how can love unite it? More important, how can love be among us?"
-
- "We are better served not to posit definitions, but to wrestle with ourselves and creation regarding the bedrock relationships that continue in halcyon days and brokenness."
-
Expository Essay,
1 Corinthians 13, Dr. William R. Long.
- "Love truly is the more, and most, excellent way."
-
- "What has discouraged you at your local church? What has encouraged you? Who has inspired you to remain? Why do they inspire you?"
-
"Love Abides," Gilbert Meilaender,
The Christian Century, 2000.
- "What does that really mean--to say that 'love abides'? Or, indeed, what possible sense could it make to say this in a world in which the truth so clearly seems to be that love quite often does not abide?"
-
- Articles & Background:
-
"A Rhetorical Gem in a Rhetorical Treasure: the Origin and Significance
of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7," Stephen J. Patterson, Biblical Theology
Bulletin, 2009.
- "This essay argues that 1 Cor 13:4-7 is a rhetorical set piece developed in the wisdom school Paul assembled in Ephesus in the years immediately following his departure from Corinth...The fact that Paul and other members of the school devoted themselves to disciplined reflection on agape signals an importance and prominence to this concept that is often overlooked in Pauline scholarship."
-
"Tongues and Cymbals: Contextualizing 1 Corinthians 13," Anathea Portier-Young,
Biblical Theology Bulletin, 2005.
- "The key to understanding Paul's metaphor of the cymbal in 1 Corinthians 13: I lies in knowing that within the biblical tradition, the cymbal was never played alone, but always accompanied other instruments, singing, and words of praise."
-
"The Virtue of Hope," John E. Hare,
(other resources at)
"Heaven and Hell," Christian Reflection, The Center for Christian
Ethics at Baylor University, 2007.
- "Hope in the final full actualization of the kingdom of God can sustain our commitment to improve life here on earth...But the virtue of hope must be rooted in faith in God, not mere optimism about human beings? capacity for self-improvement."
- The Spirit and the Forms of Love, Daniel Day Williams. Full text online at Religion Online.
-
"Beyond the Polarization: Grace and Surprise in Worship," Peter W.
Marty, The Christian Century, 1998.
- "Divisions caused by choices about worship patterns are nothing new."
- "In Each Other's
Likeness: Twin Brothers Separated by Faith after the Holocaust," Eugene L.
Pogany, Cross Currents.
- "If only posthumous efforts like reciting the Kaddish could diminish the inner barriers between this devout Christian minister and the quietly courageous Jewish husband, father, and grandfather who was his twin brother. For finally, in each other's sorrow and in each other's passion they would have discerned their own."
-
"A Rhetorical Gem in a Rhetorical Treasure: the Origin and Significance
of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7," Stephen J. Patterson, Biblical Theology
Bulletin, 2009.
- Recommended articles
from ATLAS, an online collection of religion and theology journals, are
linked below.
ATLAS Access options are available for academic institutions, alumni of
selected theological schools, and clergy/church offices.
- Berding, Kenneth,
"Confusing Word and Concept in 'Spiritual Gifts': Have We Forgotten James
Barr's Exhortations?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society,
2000.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Bowman, John Wick,
"The Three Imperishables: A Meditation on 1 Corinthians 13,"
Interpretation, 1959.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Burghardt, Walter J., "Love among the Married: A
Dialogue with Paul," The Living Pulpit, 1992.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Corley, Jeremy,
"The Pauline Authorship of 1 Corinthians 13," The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly, 2004.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Cox, Steven L.,
"1 Corinthians 13 -- An Antidote to Violence: Love," Review &
Expositor, 1996.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Fredrickson, David,
"Confessing Jesus as Lord: Selected Epistles (Epiphany to Palm Sunday),"
Word & World, 1998.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Gill, David H., S.J.,
"Through a Glass Darkly: A Note on 1 Corinthians 13.12," The Catholic
Biblical Quarterly, 1963.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Green, Gene L.,
"'As for Prophecies, They Will Come to an End': 2 Peter, Paul and Plutarch
on 'The Obsolescence of Oracles,'" Journal for the Study of the New
Testament, 2001.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Houghton, Myron J.,
"A Reexamination of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13," Bibliotheca Sacra,
1996.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Lovell, Arnold B.,
"I Corinthians 13," Interpretation, 1994.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - McDougall, Donald G., "Cessationism in 1 Corinthians
13:8-12," Master's Seminary Journal, 2003.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - McRay, John, "To Teleion in 1 Corinthians
13:10," Restoration Quarterly, 1971.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Nagel, Norman E., "The Spirit's Gifts in the
Confessions and in Corinth," Concordia Journal, 1992.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - O'Day, Gail R., "The Ethical Shape of Pauline
Spirituality," Brethren Life and Thought, 1987.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Ormseth, Dennis, "Showing the Body: Reflections on 1
Corinthians 12-13 for Epiphany," Word & World, 1986.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Patrick, James, "Insights from Cicero on Paul's
Reasoning in 1 Corinthians 12-14: Love Sandwich or Five Course Meal?"
Tyndale Bulletin, 2004.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Pogany, Eugene L., "En Each Other's Likeness: Twin
Brothers Separated by Faith after the Holocaust," Cross Currents,
1995.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Pool, Jeff B.,
"No Entrance into Truth Except through Love: Contributions from Augustine of
Hippo to a Contemporary Christian Hermeneutic of Love," Review and
Expositor, 2005.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Pool, Jeff B.,
"Toward a Christian Hermeneutic of Love: Problem and Possibility,"
Perspectives in Religious Studies, 2001.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Reynolds, Thomas E.,
"Love without Boundaries: Theological Reflections on Parenting a Child with
Disabilities," Theology Today, 2005.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Sanders, Jack T.,
"First Corinthians 13: Its Interpretation Since the First World War,"
Interpretation, 1966.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Shogren, Gary Steven, "The 'Ultracharismatics' of
Corinth and the Pentecostals of Latin America as the Religion of the
Disaffected," Tyndale Bulletin, 2005.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Smit, J.,
"The Genre of 1 Corinthians 13 in the Light of Classical Rhetoric,"
Novum Testamentum, 1991.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Talbert, Charles H., "Paul's Understanding of the
Holy Spirit: The Evidence of 1 Corinthians 12-14," Perspectives in
Religious Studies, 1984.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Thomas, Robert L., "1 Cor 13:11 Revisited: An
Exegetical Update," Master's Seminary Journal, 1993.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Touissaint, Stanley D., "Symposium on the Tongues
Movement: First Corinthians Thirteen and the Tongues Question,"
Bibliotheca Sacra, 1963.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - Walker, William O., Jr.,
"Is First Corinthians 13 a Non-Pauline Interpolation?" The Catholic
Biblical Quarterly, 1998.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials - White, R. Fowler,
"Richard Gaffin and Wayne Grudem on 1 Cor 13:10: A Comparison of
Cessationist and Noncessationist Argumentation," Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society, 1992.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
- Berding, Kenneth,
"Confusing Word and Concept in 'Spiritual Gifts': Have We Forgotten James
Barr's Exhortations?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society,
2000.
- Sermons:
- "Cultivating Attentiveness," Kevin R. Armstrong, Faith and Leadership, 2010.
- "Love Is for Grownups," the Very Rev. Robert Wright, Day 1, 2010.
- "It's About Love, Love, Love," Pastor Edward F. Marquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle, Washington.
- "Knowledge Through Love," Paul Tillich, from The Shaking of the Foundations, 1955. At Religion Online.
- "As Through a Glass, Darkly," the Rev. Dr. Joanna Adams, Day 1, 1998.
- "What the Christian Community Can Offer a Polarized Society," The Very Reverend Nathan D. Baxter, Dean of Washington National Cathedral, 1995. 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club.
- "Love Doesn't Always Feel Like It," The Rev. Dr. Gil Bowen, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2001.
- "Loving Enemies is Hard Work - But Somebody's Got to Do It!" Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches. 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2004.
- "The Greatest of These," Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2002.
- Reviews:
- Review: Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison with Special Reference to "Faith That Can Move Mountains" and "Your Faith Has Healed/Saved You." Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Review by Timothy Gombis in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2004.
- With Children:
- "The Greatest Commandment - Love," Illustrating the Story (lessons, children's sermons), coloring pages, activity sheets, crafts, children's songs. MSSS Crafts.
- "Love Letter," Jim Kerlin, childrensermons.com.
-
"The Gift of
Love,"
- Drama:
- "When the Memory Fades," Glenn A. Hascall, dramatix.
- "Double Word Score," Walt Scheiman, dramatix.
- "How to Install Love," Rick Anderson, dramatix.
- "If I've Told You Once..." Susan Irvine, dramatix.
- "Wedding Plans," Joanne Miller, dramatix.
- "Wires Crossed," Erina Caradus, dramatix.
- Liturgy:
- Graphics & Bulletin Materials:
- Commercial Site: "Love Is..." (1 Corinthians 13), Visual Liturgy/Film, The Work of the People.
- Clip Art, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Fr. Richard Lonsdale, Resources for Catholic Educators.
- 1 Corinthians 13:8, Heartlight - Free Christian PowerPoint Backgrounds.
- Hymns and Music:
- Hymns with Scripture Allusions: 1 Corinthians 13:1, 2, 4, 12. The Cyber Hymnal.
- Hymnal Scripture References, The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Worship.
- At Digital Hymnal (midi files, guitar chords, karaoke files, projection text):
- Fine Arts Images Linked at The Text This Week's Art Index:
- Movies Listed at The Text This Week's Movie Concordance, with the following themes:
- Study Links and Resources for the Book of 1 Corinthians
