You know this passage from a wedding you were in or attended. But what is Paul, a single, tent maker and Old Testament scholar doing writing about love? There must be something more going on than a wedding sermon. The New American Standard Bible uses the heading “The Excellence of Love” to designate 1 Corinthians 13. The chapter reads:

1 If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.[1]

The passage truly is a good fit for weddings because it reminds us to look to the ultimate example of love for our earthly relationships. The passage inoculates us against short-term, emotionally driven, and subjective love that we see modeled by much of the world. Here, love is defined as something that lasts, putting it at odds with all temporary imitations. But can the chapter be more?

As with most scripture, the previous chapter really helps us understand chapter 13 as something greater than a lonely-hearts advice column. 1 Corinthians 12 teaches about spiritual gifts and how some Christ followers are called and gifted to do powerful things through the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. But then Paul starts verse one of chapter 13 by pivoting to a warning essentially saying: “Let’s say you have all the gifting I just talked about, but you don’t have love in your heart when you use it. You are just a lot of noise.”

Q. How can someone be gifted by God but not serve Him or others out of love?

Q. What replaces love for them?

Q. “How does love here differ from the way you talk and think about love in your community, family, and church?”[2]

Q. “What is the easiest part of loving people in the way described in 1 Corinthians 13? What is the hardest part for you?”[3]

The hardest part of studying this passage is our preconceived interpretation. Modern Protestants usually come to this passage from a very literal tradition—helpful and faithful in many places but not always applied in the right way here. If we aren’t careful (or perhaps it comes from being too careful), our view of this chapter is too small. It is typecast for usage in weddings and February as Paul seems to stop talking to the church to offer a session of couple’s therapy. We should not miss deeper meaning. To help, we can go back to the 1100s to see what a celibate monk thought about a chapter on love.[4]

Bernard of Clairvaux (read more here and here) wrote: “Love is the fountain of life, and the soul which does not drink from it cannot be called alive.” He divides love into four categories, and describes three when he mentions our chapter:

To love our neighbor’s welfare as much as our own: that is true and sincere charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned (I Timothy 1:5). Whosoever loves his own prosperity only is proved thereby not to love good for its own sake, since he loves it on his own account. And so he cannot sing with the psalmist, ‘O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious’ (Psalm 118:1). Such a man would praise God, not because He is goodness, but because He has been good to him: he could take to himself the reproach of the same writer, ‘So long as Thou doest well unto him, he will speak good of Thee’ (Psalm 49:18, Vulgate). One praises God because He is mighty, another because He is gracious, yet another solely because He is essential goodness. The first is a slave and fears for himself; the second is greedy, desiring further benefits; but the third is a son who honors his Father. He who fears, he who profits, are both concerned about self-interest. Only in the son is that charity which seeketh not her own (1 Corinthians 13:5).[5]

In this third way, Bernard talks about loving God for God’s own sake from verse 5.

 Q. How do we love God and others without seeking benefit?

Pastor and psychologist Bill Gaultiere, wrote about this part of Bernard’s teachings on love:

Now we love God for what He really is. Our love is pure, and we obey out of a pure heart and in loving obedience (1 Peter 1:22). We love justly… This love is also pleasing because it is spontaneous. It is true love, because it is not just wordy, but it is demonstrated by deeds (1 John 3:18). It is righteous, because it gives as it receives. The person who loves like this, truly loves the things of God… without self-interest (1 Corinthians 13:5). This is to love those things that belong to Jesus Christ, even as Christ sought our interests, or rather sought us, and never looked after His own [interest]…[6]

The chapter as a whole reminds us of Ecclesiastes 12. Everything is meaningless without the right perspective. In this case: everything is meaningless without love. Why? Because everything else is temporary. We see this at the end of the chapter. Prophesy is just a temporary thing. It will one day be made clear. Likewise, the knowledge you have now will one day be surpassed either in this life or in the next. Love is what lasts.

But not just any kind of love. Paul’s Greek and Bernard’s four categories helps far more than our English singularity “love.” The love in 1 Corinthians 13 is the agapē, benevolent love of God. It’s as if Paul is reminding the readers that though they have heard things said about other forms of love, this type of love will not let them down. It will outlast other possessions and even other forms of temporal devotion. You may remember Matthew 6:19-21 when Jesus gives a lesson in spiritual banking?

Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. [CSB]

If you have ever wondered what things is Jesus talking about storing up, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that one treasure is most certainly dedicated, benevolent, and patient love. It is lasting. When all else fades away or is replaced by the full knowledge of Christ, 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that the greatest asset of mankind remains. The love of Christ for His church endures. The believer can leave the chapter now humming the tune “here comes the bride [of Christ], all dressed in white.” Active love seeks not to return upon itself but to rejoice in Truth for eternity.

[1] Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.

[2] Denise Kingdom Grier, https://www.faithward.org/1-corinthians-13-bible-study/

[3] Ibid.

[4] To be fair, Bernard has many flaws in his personal application of theology not least of which is his virulent advocacy for crusades against Muslims in the Middle East and Cathars in southern France. Yet, his writings on love offer a bit of the “meat” from the less desirable “bones.”

[5] https://www.ccel.org/ccel/bernard/loving_god.xiv.html#xiv-p2.4

[6] https://www.soulshepherding.org/bernard-of-clairvauxs-four-degrees-of-love/