If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NIVUK
Why do we do what we do?
Why do we evangelise?
Why do we sing?
Why do we preach?
Why do we provide technical support?
Why do we teach children?
Why do we clean the church?
Why do we do anything for God and for the church?
What is our motivation?
That is what Paul is appealing to in these verses. He is not saying that we should not minister.
No, he is saying that we should ensure our motivation is right.
These verses have a close link to Philippians 2:1-11. In the letter to the Philippian church, Paul is making a deeply emotional plea for the Philippians to get their head right – to put right their attitude. Right in the middle of these awesome verses, we see these words:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Philippians 2:5 NIVUK
In 1 Corinthians he is making a similar appeal, but this time to the heart.
In Philippians he calls for us to have the mind of Christ; in 1 Corinthians he appeals for us to have His heart.
And that is immensely challenging.
Because right away we have to face a stark reality:
We are in control of how we feel. And if we are in control, then we are both responsible for it and able to change it.
That is why Paul appeals for the Corinthians, and through them, us, to have the same heart as Jesus Christ.
His beautiful prose here is a bridge. It’s a bridge to chapters 12 and 14. He is saying that even if we get these chapters right and to exactly what he says, it still isn't enough – if we do not love.
Let me say that again. We can obey the teachings of chapters 12 and 14 to the letter, but if we do not love – and love like Jesus Christ – then everything we do is useless.
Paul talks about three aspects of church life here that are useless without love.
The first is speech. In particular, he talks about a particular type of speech that is clearly prized by the Corinthians – that of speaking in tongues.
And not just any tongues. He is not just saying here that the Corinthian church are skilled linguists – although their skills in this area doubtless would have made most British and American churches stop in their tracks with amazement.
No, he is clearly talking about two types of tongues: the abilities to speak human language (to communicate the Gospel in an intelligible way, as per Acts 2:5-11), and a spiritual language used as a personal response in worship (see Acts 10:46, 19:6).
That is, the tongues of humans and angels.
Or, to use the Greek used in Acts 2, glossa (which primarily referred to naturally learned language but can also refer to ecstatic speech) and dialectos (which refers solely to human speech and conversation).
The gift of tongues was clearly both important to the Corinthian church and a serious source of contention.
But Paul is cutting right through a that to say that speaking in tongues – either human or angelic – is not the most important: love is.
In fact, it has to be stated that speaking in ecstatic ‘angelic’ tongues is not even the main sign that someone is a believer.
Love is.
‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
John 13:34-35 NIVUK
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12 NIVUK
In other words, the primary evidence that we are believers, as stated by none other than Jesus Himself, is our obedience to the threefold command to love God, others and ourselves.
It is not speaking in tongues.
And without love, speaking in tongues is just a meaningless, and irritating, sound.
If this is true for a type of speech primarily aimed at the heartfelt worship of God, then it isn’t a stretch to extend this to any speech.
So it doesn’t matter if we are the finest of orators or brilliant at public speaking or a supremely gifted teacher: if we do not have love, every word we say is in vain.
As well as speech, Paul talks about gifts and abilities:
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2 NIVUK
https://bible.com/bible/113/1co.13.2.NIVUK
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul tells the Corinthians that they should be eager to prophesy, because in prophesying they ate speaking intelligible words to their listeners that build up the church (1 Corinthians 14:4, 5, 9-12, 18-19, 39). He also lists prophecy as one of the didactic gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:10.
Later on we will explore what Paul meant by ‘prophecy’.
However, what we need to understand here is that Paul is referring to one of the most desired and desirable gifts. More than that, in Jewish history there was a four hundred year period between the Testaments when there were no prophets, which was foretold, ironically, by a prophet:
‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
Amos 8:11-12 NIVUK
Perhaps this is engrained in Paul’s mind when he talks of the office of a prophet.
Even a quick glance through Jewish history will tell you that when Jewish kings were on God’s side, the prophets were highly valued. When they were bit, they were despised, yet, at the same time, feared.
So if you were a prophet, this was a big deal. A really big deal.
Yet Paul is saying that if you have all the wisdom and knowledge this world could afford and had the gift of prophecy that enabled you to reveal great divine mysteries, yet did not have love, it would all be for nothing.
More that, Paul talks about a great spiritual giant here, one whose faith moves mountains.
Think about that. A highly prized, highly revered, greatly sought-after gift of divine origin, and an astounding level of physical greatness, and Paul says that without love, you are nothing.
How much more our gifts? How much more our skills? How much more our abilities?
You see, here’s the problem. If we exercise our gifts and abilities without love then it can quickly become an ego trip. Before we know it, our work becomes about us, not God: our talent; our ability; our opportunities; our demands; our wants; our reputation; our glory.
The exercising of our talents has to be an act of sacrificial love for God and the church. Ultimately, it is always an act of worship. If love is absent, it’s not an act of worship for God, it’s an act of worship for us ourselves.
In other words, remove love from the equation and you become an idolator.
And that will not do.
Apart from speech, gifts and abilities, Paul now goes on to martyrdom.
Yes, even martyrdom – the supreme sacrifice – can be wrongly motivated.
Paul here talks about two incredible acts of devotion to God. Firstly, he talks of surrendering all belongings and giving them to the poor. This sense of communal thinking actually happened in the early church (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-34). Paul would doubtless be aware of it, and the impact the distribution of this bounty had even on some priests (Acts 6:7). So this actually happened and likely continued to happen. In fact, believers were often relieved of their goods by force when they were being persecuted (Hebrews 10:34). This meant that the early Christians had to keep a very loose hold on their belongings (1 Corinthians 7:29-30).
Secondly, he talks about Christians surrendering their body to the flame. This happened too.
So regularly, in fact, that Emperor Nero used to light up his garden by burning live Christians as human torches.
So this was real. Very real.
Yet Paul says that even this, without love, is meaningless and gains nothing.
So we are left, then with a rather stunning conclusion. Even the very highest acts of worship and devotion can be done with the wrong motivation.
And this is all too true.
Every brilliant preacher can do the job for the respect it brings.
Every brilliant praise and worship leader can do it for their own glory.
Every teacher for the thanks and appreciation.
Every technical specialist for the sense of superiority over others.
Every deacon or elder for the power.
Every committee member for the sake of ‘correct procedure’.
Every person working in the church can care more about the dignity of their role than they do the need to give themselves away for others.
It’s all too easy to slip out of love God and His church, and to exaggerate love for ourselves.
But what happens as a result of this?
We become hypocrites in the truest sense of the word.
The Greek word for ‘hypocrite’ essentially means ‘one who pretends’. If we are not carrying out our ministry out of love for God’s people then we are pretending – pretending to be obedient to God and to be serving His people when we are not: we are disobeying the Greatest Commandment and are serving ourselves.
That’s what makes these verses so challenging.
And so we must ask ourselves why it is that we do what we do, because it’s not just how well we do it that matters, but why.
Questions
Why do you do what you do in church? Do you think your motivation makes any difference to how you do it?
Do you agree that ‘if we do not love, then everything we do is useless’? Why / why not?
How can you show your love for the people in your church?
Without love we are clanging symbols and noise. Doing things to attract attention. To intentionally show love we can do this as prompted by Jesus. Every believer ought to have love one for another. Not because the leaders say so.