Love Trifold <3 |1 Corinthians 13

Hello y'all! I hope everyone is doing good, despite the fact that it's Monday! Well, I'm writing this on a Saturday, cause I have a camp starting Sunday. But I hope your Monday is going well nonetheless :)

So, today we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians 13 talking about love! And no, not the gushy awkward teenage crush love. We'll be talking about Christ's love. Paul outlines three parts of love--hence, the trifold. And thanks to the awesome New Testament Bible Knowledge Commentary, we have three words to summarize the trifold.

Summary of the Love Trifold

I'll give you a little background before we get into it. As I said when we were in 1 Corinthians 12, the church at Corinth was messed up. One issue they had was focusing on their spiritual gifts for selfish gain, rather than for the strengthening of the church. So, Paul is telling them how much more important and superior love is to the spiritual gifts they selfishly desired. Here's a summary of what Paul says:

#1 PREEMINENCE (verses 1-3)

FYI, this is just a fancy word for important. Paul describes several actions in these 3 verses--speaking, self sacrifice, and the use of spiritual gifts--and says that they are worthless without love. If our motives are selfish, like wanting to do these things to make yourself look good, our seemingly 'selfless actions' have no meaning or worth.

#2 PERFECTIONS (verses 4-7)

Here, Paul talks about the perfectness and purity of love. Love spawns other Christ-like traits, such as kindness, humility, true selflessness, patience, etc. These traits reflect Christ, and without his love, we are unable to display them.

#3 PERMANENCE (verses 8-13)

Love is eternal. Spiritual gifts, current circumstances, and the imperfectness of this world will fade, but love will remain! Paul brings up 2 analogies in this section: they are to show the temporary status of gifts and how Christ will make the world perfect when He returns. So, even when the world transitions from its imperfection to Christ's perfection at His return, love will remain. Other things, like spiritual gifts, will die away, as they are no longer necessary (their whole purpose is to build up the church, but when Jesus returns, He will perfect the church). In verse 13, which is probably one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible, talks about faith, hope, and love. Faith and hope are byproducts of love, meaning they come out of love. Without love, faith and hope would be impossible.

Love is important, perfect, and eternal <3. Therefore, we should strive to reflect Christ's love in everything we do. That's how people will see Him in us, which is what we're called to do :)

If you have any questions, because this full chapter has a lot of historical and cultural context in it, feel free to text me on the Instagram account, and I will do my best to answer! I wrote a small outline for this post in the picture at the top, so feel free to reference that as well.

Thanks y'all! See you Thursday!

--Elizabeth :)