Reflections on 1 Corinthians
“Focus on your relationship with Jesus.” When my friend—whom I had traveled several thousand miles to see—said this, I knew it was the answer to all of my questions. I had been so focused on God’s calling that I had neglected my relationship with the caller, Jesus. My pastor had warned me of this, but I hadn’t listened. And this is precisely Paul’s message when he says to the Corinthian church, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a ringing brass gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1). Without love, our lives are simply noise.
When God provides us with great gifts or reveals our calling, our response should be to fall more in love with him. But often, we fall in love with the gift or vision instead. We forget that it’s not about where God is taking us—it’s about God himself. We may feel that we know “who we are” and “what we’re all about,” but we know absolutely nothing if we don’t know God. We’re like an orchestra trying to play music without a conductor.
When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, his goal was to help the Corinthian believers refocus. They had become so consumed with spiritual gifts that their worship services had become disorderly. They were beginning to act like those who practiced other Graeco-Roman religions. Paul tells the Corinthian church:
If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I parcel out all my possessions, and if I hand over my body in order that I will be burned, but do not have love, it benefits me nothing. (1 Cor 13:2–3)
Without love, everything becomes out of tune—and anything can be misused. Love holds everything together. Paul changes the behavior of the Corinthians by showing them the simplest, yet most profound, message of all: Make your lives about love. One of my closest friends once said, “The wisest thing someone with immense spiritual gifts can do is to read 1 Cor 13 every day.” If we really want to know God’s work and will—and to wisely steward his call upon our lives—we must be grounded in love. This is how we join God’s orchestra. Paul says:
Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, it does not boast, it does not become conceited … [it] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will pass away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Cor 13:4, 7–8)
This is what love sounds like. And when we ground ourselves in Jesus, who is love, we see God’s way and we play his song (1 John 4:7). We may all be small instruments, but each of us has a part to play (1 Cor 12:12–19). All things may pass away, including spiritual gifts, but love will not. Its song goes on.
It took a several-thousand-mile journey for me to learn that I needed to refocus on my relationship with Jesus. And it took the honesty of another friend for me to see that all of God’s gifts are really intended to help me love him more. These are things that I knew in my head but didn’t really believe in my heart.
How about you? Are you ready to fall more in love with Jesus—for who he is, not just for what he can do for you? Are you ready to change your melody and start singing his song?
JOHN D. BARRY
Smith, A.
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