고린도전서 Chapter 13

Translation: ESV

1

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Key Message

Any excellent gift without love is empty noise. Love is the reason for the existence of all gifts.

▸Chapter 13 presents love as the more excellent way than gifts, standing between chapters 12 and 14.

Chapter 13 presents love as the more excellent way than gifts, standing between chapters 12 and 14. Even the most impressive linguistic ability—the tongues of men or angels—is nothing but noise without love. 'A noisy gong' and 'a clanging cymbal' symbolize the sound of religious ceremony without content—empty form.

Related Verses

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
2

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Key Message

All spiritual capacity and knowledge without love renders one's very existence meaningless. Love gives meaning to gifts.

▸Three excellent gifts—prophecy, knowledge, and faith—are worthless without love.

3

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Key Message

It is not the greatness of the act but the motivation of love that gives the act value. Love must be the foundational motive for all sacrifice.

▸Even the most extreme self-sacrifice—giving away all one's possessions and even giving one's life in martyrdom—profits nothing without the motivation of love.

4

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

Key Message

Love is expressed not in abstract emotion but in concrete actions and attitudes. The essence of love is patience and kindness.

▸Verses 4–7 describe the concrete qualities of love.

5

or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

Key Message

Love moves away from self-centeredness toward others, and does not remember or keep a record of wrongs.

▸The negative qualities of love continue.

6

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Key Message

Love is not mere emotion but an ethical principle that refuses wrongdoing and rejoices in truth.

▸Love has a moral dimension.

7

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Key Message

Love possesses in every circumstance the patience that does not give up and the steadfastness that endures to the end.

▸The final qualities of love are expressed with four 'all things.

8

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Key Message

Gifts are temporary but love is eternal. This is the very reason why love is more excellent than gifts.

▸The eternality of love is the key point.

12

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Key Message

Present knowledge is partial and incomplete, but at the end we will know God completely. Love belongs to this eschatological completion.

▸This is an epistemological contrast between the present and the future.

13

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Key Message

Faith, hope, and love are eternal Christian virtues, and love is the greatest because love is the very essence of God.

▸This is the conclusion of chapter 13 and a core proposition of New Testament theology.