"The Greatest of These Is Love" Season Three/Episode Twenty-Three (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

The Blessed Hope Podcast -- with Dr. Kim Riddlebarger

Episode Synopsis:
What the Bible says about love, and the way most Americans think about love, are usually two vastly different things. Our contemporaries tend to think of love as a powerful emotion, most often associated with romance and intimacy. Images of hearts and cupids on Valentine’s Day are ingrained in us from an early age. Love is also tied to a utopian dream when people experience a powerful sense of brotherhood and unity when they join together for a worthwhile cause. Sadly, these images are far from the biblical meaning of love (agape)–an emotion which issues forth in action. Agape arises in our hearts not from romantic or sentimental feelings, but from reflecting upon the bloody cross of Good Friday through which God redeems unlovable sinners–people like us who are anything but worthy of the love which God showers upon us in Christ’s work of redemption.
Paul will make the case that love (agape) is the glue which holds the divided Corinthian congregation together during their current time of distress. Despite all the tensions present in the Corinthian congregation, the church’s members are the temple of the living God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and given gifts of the Spirit to equip them for service, and to enable them to properly and faithfully love one another.
This type of love, Paul says, will continue on in Christ’s church until the perfect comes. Paul is not a cessationist–the gifts of the Spirit no longer manifest themselves in the church when the New Testament is completed, or after God’s people reach a certain level of spiritual maturity. Those gifts enumerated by Paul in chapters 12-13 remain active in the church until Jesus returns. Granted, there are no more apostles (and those gifts associated with that office, miracles and healing, have ordinarily ceased), but there are ministers, elders, and deacons, who are equipped through the various gifts of the Spirit to rule and serve in Christ’s church until the Lord of the church returns.
Meanwhile, Christ’s church is to be a body of redeemed saints, who are to grow strong together and serve one another in love as equipped by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Tongues, prophecy, and knowledge will all pass away when the Lord returns (i.e., the coming of the perfect). Until then, faith, hope, and love will abide, but the greatest of these is love.
For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/