Read the passage several times through, slowly and prayerfully. It might help to use your imagination to picture the scene. At the end of the text you will find helpful background information in our ‘Setting the Scene’ section.

As you read, look out for shockers and blockers.

Shockers – a phrase, word, image or something from the text that resonates, stands out or connects with you.

Blockers – something from the text that raises questions for you.

1 Corinthians 13.1–13

What if I could speak all languages of humans and of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. What if I could prophesy and understand all secrets and all knowledge? And what if I had faith that moved mountains? I would be nothing, unless I loved others. What if I gave away all that I owned and let myself be burned alive? I would gain nothing, unless I loved others. Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn’t selfish or quick tempered. It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do. Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil. Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails!

Everyone who prophesies will stop, and unknown languages will no longer be spoken. All that we know will be forgotten. We don’t know everything, and our prophecies are not complete. But what is perfect will someday appear, and what isn’t perfect will then disappear.

When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways. Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love.

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Setting the Scene

Paul writes this magnificent chapter on love to a church in Corinth. Corinth was an unsavoury place – a place of excess, sexual license and dominated by the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love!
This well-known chapter about love is often heard at weddings, but it is actually located in the middle of a lengthy discourse on spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12–14). Paul wants to remind the church that love, faith and hope will outlive the gifts and that the gifts are nothing without love.
Paul is painting a picture of true love, one that is much greater and richer than our contemporary notions of romantic or erotic love. Agape is the highest form of unconditional love that transcends and serves others regardless of circumstances.

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