More than just a part of speech, make love a verb

November 4, 2002

BaptistWay Bible Study for Texas lesson for Nov. 10

More than just a part of speech, make love a verb
_

_1 Corinthians 13
___¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
___⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
___⁸Love 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. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When 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 childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor 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.
___¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

____Editor's note: The Standard apologizes for a delay in presenting commentaries on the November BaptistWay lessons. Because commissioned commentaries did not arrive, the Standard will run a commentary each week for the remainder of the month.
___By Mark Wingfield
___Have you ever known a person who was all appearance and no substance? Someone who always looked good or could be seen in the right places to be seen but who, when it was time for serious thought or work to be done, suddenly turned up missing?
___That's the kind of person the Apostle Paul references in 1 Corinthians 13--only with an added twist.
___Paul writes in the context of "love," a word we sentimental Americans immediately translate into something mushy and soft and sweet.
___But that's not the point this time. The love of which Paul writes is love that hits the pavement, that stands in the gap, that does the hard work of relationships, that becomes the hands and feet of Christ.
___Tough love
___What does Christian love look like?
___Don't go to a wedding to find it, or even a Sweet 16 birthday party. Stop humming Karen Carpenter songs and start thinking Bruce Springsteen. Put away the cotton candy and grab a pair of work gloves.
___The love of 1 Corinthians 13 is a love that works, a love that endures, a love that hangs on in tough times.
___I was reminded of this reality last month as we stood watch over my father's bedside at a hospice unit in Albuquerque, N.M. He had been battling lung cancer for several months, and the last two weeks of his life were incredibly difficult.
___He was yellow with jaundice. His yellowed skin stretched tightly over his protruding skeleton. A ring of sores had broken out all around his mouth. He couldn't control his bladder, and was too weak to get out of bed and go to the bathroom.
___The situation was more than some of his friends could handle, and they stayed away. Others came to care for him and for us, his family standing watch.
___But the most remarkable people who came into Dad's room where the hospice nurses and volunteers--particularly the volunteers.
___I was astounded that on the day before Dad died, two volunteers and a nurse came into his room to bathe him. They smiled and laughed and spoke in pleasant tones. They gently lifted and turned Dad, sponged his fevered body with washcloths, changed his diaper and his bedding.
___Those volunteers received no recognition for their act of incredible kindness. No one but me saw them there or knew how tenderly they cared for a dying man.
___But they came and they served, motivated by a love that transcends understanding. They were patient and kind, humble, protecting, trusting, hoping, persevering.
___The gong show
___On the other hand, Paul paints a picture of what Christian love is not. He's writing to a church at Corinth that was wracked with divisions, with pride and prejudice.
___In chapter 13, he says, he will show these overblown and shallow believers a "better way" of living--a course driven by love.
___The wrong way of living is like being a contestant on "The Gong Show." Even though you may think you're the star of the show, your performance proves to be shallow and lacking. Then the image is shattered with the hollow ring of the gong.
___The believers to whom Paul wrote knew about gongs too. The cymbal was used in temple worship, and huge gongs hung in the Roman temples as well. In the Greek culture, people who talked much but said little were called "gongs."
___The point of the Christian life, Paul says, is not just to make sound but to make music.
___Or as Shakespeare later would write in "Macbeth," we stand in danger of telling the tales of idiots, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
___Trail of life mix
___Does Christian love, then, require keeping your mouth shut but doing lots of good deeds? Not necessarily.
___What's required, Paul teaches, is to have the right mix of action and motivation (and perhaps words) as we travel the trail of life.
___In this sense, 1 Corinthians 13 bears an interesting parallel to the New Testament book of James, which teaches "faith without works is dead."
___Paul's version is that prophecy without love proves powerless, charity without compassion rings up worthless and martyrdom without meaning leaves only ashes.
___James and Paul also echo each other in other passages. Lay alongside 1 Corinthians 13 these instructions from James:
___ "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial."
___ "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry."
___ "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."
___ "Don't show favoritism."
___Paul and James agree that as we pack our bags to hit the trail of life, we must include both orthodoxy (right beliefs) and orthopraxy (right actions). Neither works without the other.
___Tongue lashing
___Baptists love to use 1 Corinthians 13 to beat up on our charismatic brothers and sisters in the faith. And in fact, Paul might have been speaking to Corinthian Christians who wallowed in the gift of tongues but never came up for air long enough to do anything God told them to do. More on that in chapter 14.
___For now, the broader application is about speech in general. Talk is cheap, Paul says, but love is costly.
___Paul wants to move the Corinthian believers toward a greater maturity in the faith. Immature Christians may babble and dwell on the easy-to-digest milk of the faith, but mature Christians will speak clearly and act responsibly as they seek to live out a life evidenced of love.
___Gifts that keep on giving
___Another way to understand Paul's message is to think about the Christmas season we're approaching. Consider the differences in expectations between a child and a mature adult.
___At Christmas, American children are obsessed with the flash, the glitter, the razzle-dazzle of gifts. They long for things that bring immediate gratification but not necessarily long-term benefit.
___How many children's Christmas toys don't make it until Easter?
___For this reason, it's easy to buy a Christmas present for a child. Virtually anything will do. But for mature adults, the task is harder--not just because they already may have acquired many of the necessities of life but because they have become more interested in the long-term value of things.
___At 50, a few shares of Microsoft look a whole lot more enticing than an X-Box game apparatus.
___Paul wanted to teach the immature Corinthians that they were lusting after things that would not last. They wanted spiritual toys, when God was offering spiritual investments that pay long-term dividends.
___Making this transition requires a change in perspectives. From a natural human vantage point, we "know in part and prophesy in part; ... we see but a poor reflection."
___But in time, we will see from the expanse of God's wider view, and everything will look different. A mark of the mature believer is to take the broad view, even when it would be easier to focus on what would bring satisfaction or peace or prosperity for the moment.
___Time and eternity
___Dealing with my father's recent illness and death reminded me of this lesson yet again. For days, Dad lingered and suffered, and we cried and literally begged God to let him die. In the moments in which we lived, time seemed to stand still, and it felt as though God did not hear our prayers.
___As soon as a week after Dad's death, however, I realized a new perspective on what had just transpired. Looking back, those days and weeks seemed so short.
___I was reminded of a verse from Psalm 90 that says to God a thousand years are like a day that has just gone by or a watch in the night.
___It is hard to adapt an eternal perspective on anything. The daily pressures and necessities of life constantly pull us toward a lower vantage.
___Paul wants to pull us up out of the mire of daily living, to plant our feet on higher ground, as the songwriter Johnson Oatman so aptly expressed:
___"My heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay. Though some may dwell where these abound, my prayer my aim is higher ground. Lord, lift me up and let me stand, by faith on heaven's table land, a higher plane than I have found, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."
___Proof in the pudding
___In this lyrical passage on love ("agape," rather than the Greek "eros" or "phileo"), the apostle tells us more what it is not than what it is.
___Love, he writes, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, never fails.
___However, he does give some positive examples.
___Love, Paul says, is patient and kind, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
___Note that these characteristics relate not to what one believes and relate only indirectly to what one says. Instead, they relate primarily to what one does, how one acts and what kind of character one exhibits.
___These are internal qualities, not external appearances.
___Compare this list to the fruit of the Spirit Paul gives in Galatians 5: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
___These are the external evidences of the abiding Spirit of Christ within the believer. They are, as the old saying goes, the proof in the pudding.
___The ultimate model of such living, of course, is Jesus Christ himself. Thus we are admonished in 1 John to "walk in the light, as he is in the light."
___New Testament scholar John Polhill has summarized it this way: "Three things only will abide throughout eternity--faith made perfect, hope realized and love. The last is the greatest because it is the power by which heaven itself lives."
___Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Baptist Standard

Questions for thought and discussion
___ How have you used this familiar passage of Scripture in the past? Perhaps in a wedding or other special event? What has it meant to you?
___ Who are the people who have touched your life, like the hospice volunteers mentioned above, with the love of Christ at unexpected times?
___ What parallels do you see between 1 Corinthians 13 and the Book of James? Are Paul and the author of James saying the same thing?
___ Which is more important: What a person believes or what a person does?
___ What ways have you found that help you get a higher perspective on life and rise above the natural inclination to look after immediate concerns only?
___ What do you think Paul means when he writes that only three things will remain, faith hope and love, and the greatest of these is love?

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