Sign In
Store
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1
D.L. MOODY
If we want to be wise in winning souls and to be vessels for the Master’s use, we must get rid of the accursed spirit of self-seeking. That is the meaning of this chapter in Paul’s letter. He told the Corinthians that a man might be full of faith and zeal, he might be very benevolent, but if he had not love he was like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. I believe many men might as well go into the pulpit and blow a tin horn Sabbath after Sabbath as go on preaching without love. A man may preach the truth, he may be perfectly sound in doctrine, but if there is there is no love in his heart going out to those whom he addresses, and if he is doing it professionally, the apostle says he is only a sounding brass.
ERWIN LUTZER
Communicating the gospel is not just a matter of words; it is not just a matter of telling the truth. People don’t just listen with their minds, they listen with their hearts. And if we show judgmentalism rather than love, if there is a spirit of superiority rather than humility, we are “a noisy gong and a clanging symbol.”
Let’s read the preceding verse, “Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:30). Then in 13:3, Paul says even if you were martyred yet have no love, it amounts to zero. What is it that should distinguish us from the world? Love.
Paul says love is more excellent than being a good prophet, a good teacher, or even having the supernatural gift of tongues. It is the way of love. One fruit of the Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22–23). It’s supernatural! It comes to us from God and that’s why we can love.
PRAYER
Father, teach me to love as you do, and that it might motivate all that I do.REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Why would everything else be useless without love?
How do believers grow in the love that Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 13?