The More Excellent Way · 1 Corinthians 13
The Love Chapter
Paul closes chapter 12 mid-thought — “a still more excellent way show I unto you.” Chapter 13 is that way — not a poem written for weddings, but Paul's answer to a church tearing itself apart over whose spiritual gift mattered most. Read in its own setting, it says something sharper than “love is nice”: the gift you are proudest of is worth nothing without love for the very people you are competing against. And then it says something wider still — a love this patient, this unselfish, this enduring, turns out to be true of every love a Christian practices, marriage included. Both things are true at once.
The Setting
— a chapter bracketed by gifts, not written for a weddingChapter 13 does not open in a vacuum. Paul has just spent chapter 12 answering a church that was ranking its members by which gift they displayed — “the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee” (12:21). He closes that argument by promising “a more excellent way” (12:31) — not a replacement for gifts, a way of usingthem. Chapter 14 opens by picking the gifts thread straight back up: “Follow after love; yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts” (14:1). Chapter 13 is answering a question about gift-rivalry on both sides. It was not composed for a wedding.
But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.Earnestly pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.Honor the wedding use — it is not erased by the correction. Agapēas Paul describes it here — patient, kind, not self-seeking, bearing and enduring all things — genuinely describes marriage, friendship, every relationship a Christian is in, even though the occasion for writing it was congregational, not marital. The church's long-standing instinct to read this chapter at weddings is not a mistake to be corrected; it is a widening — recognizing that a description of love written to correct gift-envy in Corinth turns out to be true everywhere love is practiced. Both are held here, plainly.
Having assigned the differences among charismatic graces and the ministries in which the members of the Church are distinguished, the Apostle now deals with charity, which is inseparably connected with sanctifying grace.
Thomas Aquinas· Commentary on 1 Corinthians (1274), on 13:1
Love Does
— 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 — Greek gives love fifteen verbs where English meets adjectivesReading the ring
a solid spoke — love doing something
a dashed spoke — the ou/ouk prefix, love refusing something
Eight refusals, seven actions — every spoke a finite verb, Paul’s subject in every clause is love itself, not the Corinthians.
Movement One: The Escalating Triad
— 13:1–3Three clauses, each naming a gift the Corinthians prized more than the last — tongues, then prophecy plus total knowledge plus mountain-moving faith, then total self-sacrifice — and each one, without love, comes to nothing. Not diminished: nothing. The climax is deliberate: Paul is not picking three random examples but stacking the church's own hierarchy of impressiveness and knocking every rung out from under it.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.tongues--from these he ascends to "prophecy" (1Co 13:2); then, to "faith"; then to benevolent and self-sacrificing deeds: a climax.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:1
Though I speak with all the tongues - Which are upon earth, and with the eloquence of an angel. And have not love - The love of God, and of all mankind for his sake, I am no better before God than the sounding instruments of brass, used in the worship of some of the heathen gods.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 13:1
It is the charitable heart, not the voluble tongue, that is acceptable with God. The apostle specifies first this gift because hereupon the Corinthians seemed chiefly to value themselves and despise their brethren. Prophecy, and the understanding of mysteries, and all knowledge.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 13:1
If should speak with the tongues of men. He begins with eloquence, which is, it is true, an admirable gift, considered in itself, but, when apart from love, does not recommend a man in the estimation of God. When he speaks of the tongue of angels, he uses a hyperbolical expression to denote what is singular, or distinguished.
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554), on 13:1
And Paul in like manner declares, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law:' and [he declares] that when all other things have been destroyed, there shall remain 'faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of all is love;' and that apart from the love of God, neither knowledge avails anything, nor the understanding of mysteries, nor faith, nor prophecy, but that without love all are hollow and vain; moreover, that love makes man perfect; and that he who loves God is perfect, both in this world and in that which is to come.
Irenaeus· Against Heresies, Book IV (202), on 13:2
Yet they may be without love; in which case the 'goods' and 'body' are given, but not the soul, which is the sphere of love. Without the soul God rejects all else, and so rejects the man, who is therefore 'profited' nothing (Mt 16:26; Men will fight for Christianity, and die for Christianity, but not live in its spirit, which is love.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:3
Give all my goods to feed the poor, yea, though I deliver up my body to be burned - Rather than I would renounce my religion. And have not the love - Hereafter described. It profiteth me nothing - Without this, whatever I speak, whatever I have, whatever I know, whatever I do, whatever I suffer, is nothing.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 13:3
A manuscript note, named honestlykauthēsomai / kauchēsōmai
The Greek behind “give my body to be burned” (kauthēsomai) has an ancient and well-attested manuscript rival, kauchēsōmai— “that I may boast.” If the rival reading is original, the verse warns against showy, self-glorifying martyrdom rather than martyrdom itself. ASV, KJV, and BSB all print “burned.”
And though I give my body to be burned - Ἱνα καυθησομαι· Mr. Wakefield renders this clause thus: 1. And though I give up my body so as to have cause of boasting: in vindication of which he, first, refers to Dan 3:28; Act 15:26; Rom 8:32; Php 1:20. 2. He says that there is no such word as καυθησωμαι. 3. That καυχησωμαι, that I may boast, is the reading of the Ethiopic and Coptic, and he might have added of the Codex Alexandrinus; several Greek and Latin MSS. referred to by St. Jerome; of Ephraim; and of St. Jerome himself, who translates the passage thus: Si tradidero corpus meum ut glorier: i.e. If I deliver up my body that I may glory, or have cause of boasting.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on 13:3
A pastoral correction the chapter itself has had to make.Augustine wrote to correct a reader who took “give my body to be burned” as license for suicide under persecution:
This is the sense in which the apostle said, 'If I give my body to be burned.' Mark also what follows: 'If I have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.'
Augustine of Hippo· Letter 173, To Donatus (430), on 13:3
Movement Two: The Fifteen Verbs
— 13:4–7Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Fifteen distinct clauses by the traditional count. The grammatical point worth making plainly: in the Greek, these are not adjectives describing a quality love has — they are finite verbs, with love as the grammatical subject of a string of action verbs (makrothymei, “acts patiently”; chrēsteuetai, “acts kindly”; and on through the list). Love in this chapter is not a disposition Paul describes from the outside; it is depicted as continuously doing fifteen distinct things.
- suffereth long
- is kind
- envieth not
- vaunteth not itself
- is not puffed up
- doth not behave itself unseemly
- seeketh not her own
- is not easily provoked
- thinketh no evil
- rejoiceth not in iniquity
- rejoiceth in the truth
- beareth all things
- believeth all things
- hopeth all things
- endureth all things
The love of God, and of our neighbour for God's sake, is patient toward, all men. It, suffers all the weakness, ignorance, errors, and infirmities of the children of God; all the malice and wickedness of the children of the world: and all this, not only for a time, but to the end. And in every step toward overcoming evil with good, it is kind, soft, mild, benign.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 13:4
Extending good to others. Compare with love's features here those of the 'wisdom from above' (Jas 3:17). envieth--The Greek includes also jealousy. vaunteth not--in words, even of gifts which it really possesses; an indirect rebuke of those at Corinth who used the gift of tongues for mere display. not puffed up--with party zeal, as some at Corinth were (1Co 4:6).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:4
Consider, for example, from what point he at once began, and what he set first, as the cause of all its excellence. And what is this? Long-suffering. This is the root of all self-denial.
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 33 (407), on 13:4
not . . . unseemly--is not uncourteous, or inattentive to civility and propriety. thinketh no evil--imputeth not evil [ALFORD]; literally, 'the evil' which actually is there (Pr 10:12; Love makes allowances for the falls of others, and is ready to put on them a charitable construction.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:5
Doth not behave itself unseemly - (οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ ouk aschēmonei). This word occurs in 1Co 7:36. See the note on that verse. It means to conduct improperly, or disgracefully, or in a manner to deserve reproach. Love seeks that which is proper or becoming in the circumstances and relations of life in which we are placed.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 13:5
Love hates what is unjust and rejoices in what is good and honorable.
Theodoret of Cyrus· Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 253 (458), on 13:6
'Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness:' i.e., doth not feel pleasure over those that suffer ill: and not this only, but also, what is much greater, 'rejoiceth with the truth.' 'She feels pleasure,' saith he, 'with them that are well spoken of,' as Paul saith, 'Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep.'
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 33 (407), on 13:6
He that has this charity fears nothing, for charity casteth out fear; and fear being thus banished and thrown aside, charity beareth all things, endureth all things.
Ambrose of Milan· Letter 78, To Horontianus (397), on 13:7
Movement Three: Love Never Fails
— 13:8–13Verse 8 sets the frame: love never fails, but every gift the church was competing over is partial and passing. Verse 11's child-to-man image and verse 12's mirror-then-face image both illustrate the same point from different angles, landing on verse 13's summary: faith, hope, and love remain — and love is greatest.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.When 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 set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim 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.And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.never faileth--never is to be out of use; it always holds its place. shall fail . . . vanish away--The same Greek verb is used for both; and that different from the Greek verb for 'faileth.' Translate, 'Shall be done away with,' that is, shall be dispensed with at the Lord's coming, being superseded by their more perfect heavenly analogues; for instance, knowledge by intuition.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:8
'Love never faileth.' Seest thou when he put the crown on the arch, and what of all things is peculiar to this gift? For what is, 'faileth not?' it is not severed, is not dissolved by endurance. For it puts up with everything: since happen what will, he that loves never can hate. This then is the greatest of its excellencies.
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 33 (407), on 13:8
Love never faileth - It accompanies to, and adorns us in, eternity; it prepares us for, and constitutes, heaven. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail - When all things are fulfilled, and God is all in all.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 13:8
'We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.' It is not therefore knowledge that is done away, but the circumstance that our knowledge is in part. For we shall not only know as much but even a great deal more.
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 34 (407), on 13:9–10
When I was a child - The idea here is, that the knowledge which we now have, compared with that which we shall have in heaven, is like that which is possessed in infancy compared with that we have in manhood; and that as, when we advance in years, we lay aside, as unworthy of our attention, the views, feelings, and plans which we had in boyhood, and which we then esteemed to be of so great importance, so, when we reach heaven, we shall lay aside the views, feelings, and plans which we have in this life, and which we now esteem so wise and so valuable.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 13:11
God's word is called a glass or mirror also in 2Co 3:18. then--'when that which is perfect is come' (1Co 13:10). face to face--not merely 'mouth to mouth' (Nu 12:8). Ge 32:30 was a type (Joh 1:50, 51). know . . . known--rather as Greek, 'fully know . . . fully known.' Now we are known by, rather than know, God (1Co 8:3;
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:12
'For now we see in a mirror.' Further, because the glass sets before us the thing seen indefinitely, he added, 'darkly,' to show very strongly that the present knowledge is most partial. 'But then face to face.' Not as though God hath a face, but to express the notion of greater clearness and perspicuity.
John Chrysostom· Homily on 1 Corinthians 34 (407), on 13:12
And now abide faith, hope, and charity; but the greatest of these is charity. True grace is much more excellent than any spiritual gifts whatever. And faith, hope, and love, are the three principal graces, of which charity is the chief, being the end to which the other two are but means.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 13:13
“That which is perfect” (τὸ τέλειον, v. 10) — the contested hinge, stated compactly
This exact question already has a full card-pair treatment on /featured/spiritual-gifts (“The Contested Center”) — this section states the positions compactly and links out rather than rebuilding that card.
The completed-canon reading.“That which is perfect” = the finished New Testament; once Scripture was complete, the sign-gifts (tongues, ongoing-revelation prophecy) became obsolete. The classic articulation runs through B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles(1918); the modern, most-read version is John MacArthur's Charismatic Chaos (1992) and Strange Fire (2013) — both already logged on /featured/spiritual-gifts as that case's own advocates. No patristic or Reformation-era commentator in this chapter's pool reads it this way.
The eschaton / face-to-face reading — the broad majority, continuationist and modern-cessationist alike.“That which is perfect” = the consummated state at Christ's return, grounded in 13:12's own language, “face to face,” which echoes theophany language (“mouth to mouth,” Numbers 12:8 — see the JFB row above). This is the reading the site's own public-domain pool overwhelmingly returns for 13:10–12 — Chrysostom, Henry, Wesley, and JFB all read it this way, with no completed-canon reading appearing anywhere in the patristic or classic-Reformation material pulled for this chapter.
But when that which is perfect is come - At death and in the last day. That which is in part shall vanish away - Both that poor, low, imperfect, glimmering light, which is all the knowledge we now can attain to; and these slow and unsatisfactory methods of attaining, as well as of imparting it to others.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on 13:10
When that which is perfect shall come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When the end is once attained, the means will of course be abolished. There will be no need of tongues, and prophecy, and inspired knowledge, in a future life, because then the church will be in a state of perfection, complete both in knowledge and holiness.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 13:10
Maturity readings.A minority, mediating position: “that which is perfect” names the church (or an individual believer) reaching settled, complete maturity, leaning on 13:11's child-to-man image as the interpretive key rather than 13:12's face-to-face language. Held less widely than the two above.
Everything which is imperfect will be destroyed. But destruction occurs by making the imperfect perfect, not by removing it altogether.
Ambrosiaster· Commentary on Paul's Epistles (384), on 13:10
Where the site's own tradition sits (named, never stamped as a verdict):MannaFest's home tradition is Wesleyan-Pentecostal and continuationist, and its gifts pages (/featured/spiritual-gifts, /featured/1-corinthians) present the eschaton reading at full strength beside the others — cross-link there rather than re-arguing here. The page adjudicates nothing; the chapter's own governing point stands over the dispute either way: whatever a reader concludes about when the gifts end, love does not.
Agapē, Honestly
The devotional insight, at full strength.C. S. Lewis's four-fold Greek-love schema — storgē (family affection), philia (friendship), erōs (romantic desire), and agapē (unconditional, self-giving love) — is the most widely taught popular framework for understanding what kind of love this chapter describes, and it earns its place: the fifteen verbs describe a love that keeps giving when it receives nothing back (“seeketh not her own,” 13:5) and keeps enduring when its object is unworthy of endurance (“beareth all things … endureth all things,” 13:7) — precisely what distinguishes agapēfrom the other three in Lewis's scheme.
The linguistic caution, held alongside it, not instead of it. The popular schema overstates how cleanly the New Testament itself keeps agapē and phileōapart. The same relationship — the Father's love for the Son — is described with both verbs within two chapters of John's Gospel:
The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands.agapa — the Father loveth the Son.
The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. And to your amazement, He will show Him even greater works than these.philei — the Father loveth the Son.
The most-preached instance of the same question is John 21:15–17, where the risen Jesus asks Peter three times whether Peter loves him — agapas me the first two times, phileis me the third — and Peter answers philō seevery time. The popular reading takes this as Jesus lowering the bar to meet Peter where he is, or as a threefold restoration mirroring Peter's threefold denial. The honest linguistic caution, named alongside that reading rather than displacing it:John's Gospel elsewhere swaps near-synonyms without evident theological weight in the very same passage (the exchange also varies “lambs”/“sheep” and “feed”/“tend” across the same three questions) — the basis many Greek scholars give for reading the agapaō/phileō swap as stylistic variation rather than a deliberate three-step theological ladder.
When they had finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus replied, “Feed My lambs.” Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus told him, “Shepherd My sheep.” Jesus asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was deeply hurt that Jesus had asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” “Lord, You know all things,” he replied. “You know I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.Neither the devotional value of the four-loves teaching nor the linguistic honesty should be allowed to erase the other.
Further Voices
Additional public-domain testimony on the chapter, drawn wide across the pool's patristic and Reformation-era range, not already used above.
2Co 5:7); and charity, or love, alone never faileth (1Co 13:8). But in another sense, 'faith and hope,' as well as 'charity,' ABIDE; namely, after the extraordinary gifts have ceased; for those three are necessary and sufficient for salvation at all times, whereas the extraordinary gifts are not at all so; compare the use of 'abide,' 1Co 3:14.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 13:13
The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly summed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, and those three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome calls virtues of grace.
G. K. Chesterton· Heretics, Ch. 12: Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson (1905), on 13:13
The founder's curated roster is relevance-gated: the topic-to-voices decoder has no dedicated entry for 1 Corinthians 13, agapē, or “the love chapter” — the gate was applied by hand.
Where It Points
Christ-centric, always: the love this chapter describes is not a human achievement Paul is coaching the Corinthians toward by willpower — it is the character of God himself, given its fullest demonstration at the cross, and the standard every reader is measured against and invited into by the Spirit, where agapē again leads the list of the fruit of the Spirit.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.Closing
Paul wrote this chapter to a church fighting over whose gift mattered most, and the answer he gave outgrew the argument that occasioned it. The gift you are proudest of is worth nothing without love for the very people you are competing against — and the love that follows, patient and kind and never failing, turns out to be true of every love a Christian practices, because it is first true of God.