1 Corinthians; Chapter 13, Are You Loving?

The Big Picture.
Chapter 12: Holy Spirit, Body of Christ, Unity
Chapter 13: LOVE
Chapter 14: Get Organized

[1Cr 12:1 ESV] Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
Unity & Diversity in the gifts of the Holy Spirit
1 Holy Spirit
1 body of Christ

Chapter 13: Grow UP, It’s about Love

This is Hyperbole, because the real issue is LOVE.
[1Cr 13:1 ESV] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
[1Cr 13:2 ESV] 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.
[1Cr 13:3 ESV] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Def. of tongues:
A. the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations

Can Paul really do all these things? No.
Did Paul experience some really cool stuff? Yes!
Paul experienced all the Sign Gifts.
Here is a highlight.
[2Cr 12:1 ESV] I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
[2Cr 12:2 ESV] I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.
[2Cr 12:3 ESV] And I know that this man was caught up into paradise--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows--
[2Cr 12:4 ESV] and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

The road to Damascus when he met Christ.

God’s Love
[1Cr 13:4 ESV] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
[1Cr 13:5 ESV] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
[1Cr 13:6 ESV] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
[1Cr 13:7 ESV] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Ten Commandments
1-4: Relationship of Man towards God
5-10: Relationship of Man towards Man.

[Mat 22:36 ESV] "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
[Mat 22:37 ESV] And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
[Mat 22:38 ESV] This is the great and first commandment.

[Mat 22:39 ESV] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
[Mat 22:40 ESV] On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Love is greater than Spiritual Gifts
[1Cr 13:8 ESV] Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
[1Cr 13:9 ESV] For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
[1Cr 13:10 ESV] but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

John connects the Love Bridge.
[1Jo 4:9 ESV] In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
[1Jo 4:10 ESV] In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
[1Jo 4:11 ESV] Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
[1Jo 4:12 ESV] No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
[1Jo 4:13 ESV] By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
[1Jo 4:14 ESV] And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
[1Jo 4:15 ESV] Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
[1Jo 4:16 ESV] So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
[1Jo 4:17 ESV] By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
[1Jo 4:18 ESV] There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
[1Jo 4:19 ESV] We love because he first loved us.
[1Jo 4:20 ESV] If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
[1Jo 4:21 ESV] And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

We are now reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.
[Rom 5:7 ESV] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--
[Rom 5:8 ESV] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[Rom 5:9 ESV] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
[Rom 5:10 ESV] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
[Rom 5:11 ESV] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

What does it look like to Love your Brother.
1. Come to church
Hbr 10:24 NIV - And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,
Hbr 10:25 NIV - not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
The other Christians Need You!

It’s the foundation of all Five Christian Disciplines
Worship
Fellowship
Ministry
Evangelism
Discipleship

[Eph 4:11 ESV] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
[Eph 4:12 ESV] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
[Eph 4:13 ESV] until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
[Eph 4:14 ESV] so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
[Eph 4:15 ESV] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
[Eph 4:16 ESV] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.


These gifts must be temporal spiritual gifts for certain time frames on Earth.
[1Cr 13:8 ESV] Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
[1Cr 13:9 ESV] For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
[1Cr 13:10 ESV] but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

I believe Scripture is pointing us straight to Heaven and our future with God. Full intimacy
The perfect is the return of Christ.

The question is: When will the sign gifts cease?

What is “The Perfect”?
[1Cr 13:10 ESV] but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

Two major camps of spiritual gifts. Cessation-ists and People who believe it Continues.

Many Cessationist make the claim that since the conclusion of the Cannon of Scripture is complete that is the “perfect”.

Historical, aside from the Bible, there is not much actual records of sign gifts like tongues & healing.

Is the Bible “The Perfect”?
The Word of God is Perfect, but is it The Perfect referred to by Paul?
There are several problems with that understanding.
Doubtful Paul while writing this letter, consider that his letters and a few other letters with the Gospels would become a small library and thus “complete and bring in the perfect”.

I believe the reason the gifts have not ceases is because the Holy Spirit is still manifesting Himself in powerful ways right now.
Salvation
Sanctification
The Fruit of the Spirit
The Ability to pray
Answered Prayer