(A) Introduction. (Read the reference)

At the end of chapter 12 Paul writes: But eagerly desire the greatest gifts. v31. It is important to possess abilities that can be used in the service of Christ. However, chapter 13, the incomparable chapter 13, is an antidote to a common ill. We can be so preoccupied with our abilities, our gifts, that we lose sight of people. Love is the most excellent way because it never, never loses sight of people.

The passage, one of the few in Corinthians, is easy to divide up. I shall consider: Love's primacy, portrayal and permanence. It will make this exposition much longer than usual!

(B) Love's Primacy.

Paul teaches that love takes precedence over competence. I suppose that I am guilty of valuing my competence above everything else. I have taken immense satisfaction through the years in my prowess as a cricketer! I long for recognition as a Bible teacher!! Competence is certainly highly valued by those needing something done. In one of his essays C.S. Lewis asks his readers to imagine an isolated island with just two doctors - one is competent and gets his patients better and the other is incompetent and doesn't. He then poses the question: 'Which of the two doctors will the islanders prefer?' But, I think C.S. Lewis overlooked something. There are times when only love will do. Yesterday I was playing scrabble with Edward and Dorothy when Edward told me, for the third time, of his final visit to his surgeon Mr Kennedy. Edward was actually told by the nurse that he could not see Mr Kennedy. He was also kept waiting long after his appointment was due! Eventually, Mr Kennedy turned up. He particularly wanted to see Edward - to tell him that there was nothing more he could do for him. Edward said, "He was so nice. He put his arm around me and talked to me as if I was his father. He reassured me that if ever I wanted to consult him I could phone up and he would see me .... ." Edward was shown love by his doctor. It was all the doctor could offer! It meant a very great deal to my old friend. In the circumstance it was the best medicine.

Paul illustrates the primacy of love over ability, even supernatural ability, in 3 graphic ways:

(1) Without love I offend others. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. v1.

There are quite a few Christians who make incoherent noises in church:

(a) Ranting preachers. I have seen them on the God channels - working themselves up into an hysterical frenzy.

(b) The ecstatic incomprehensible language used in charismatic churches.

(c) The unintelligible lyrics that so often accompany Christian rock music.

If the crazed preacher, garrulous charismatic and screaming pop singer are performing for their own gratification - which seems very likely - a discordant note is sounded. Whenever we show off, strive for effect and indulge ourselves we engage in a language without love; what we produce is jarring sound like the reverberating gong, the clashing cymbal or the honking horn.

(2) Without love I am nothing. 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 have not love, I am nothing. v2.

There is the severest warning here. It is possible:

(a) To be a wonderful preacher - without love. A successful preacher or teacher may be in love with their subject, in love with the communication of it, but have no love for the flock. When I started out in teaching I loved Geography more than I loved my pupils. At the end of my career I valued the relationship I had with my students more than the mastery I had of my subject or my ability to teach it. I tried to make my lessons as interesting and entertaining as possible!

The preachers who make no concession to the weakness of their hearers do not show much love. A loving speaker will not weary his congregation by going on too long. His message will not be without humour and anecdotes. He will not preach above the heads of the people. A loving speaker will have sympathy with his hearers. He will not enjoy belabouring them, dwelling on sin almost, if not quite, to the exclusion of grace and threatening them with hell fire.

The preacher, however successful, impressive and esteemed, whose ministry is without love is nothing in God's eyes.

(b) To be a great scholar - without love. A man may know all there is to know, be right about everything and hold to a faultless doctrinal statement, yet be without love and trash in God's sight. Great learning can make a scholar arrogant, condescending, dismissive and contemptuous. It ill becomes a Christian theologian to sneer and belittle the uneducated.

Such was the attitude of the Jews to Jesus. When they said, "How did this man get such learning without having studied" (John7v15), the Pharisees were not being complimentary. The religious elite were shocked that Jesus dare teach publicly in Jerusalem without receiving the appropriate education. (See exposition on John7v14to24)

Only the other Sunday a visiting lay preacher was chatting to me about the reaction of a retired, very Calvinist pastor to his views on faith. Colin argued that it was wrong to quote Ephesians2v8 to indicate that faith was a gift from God. The pastor said, "Colin, you've a lot to learn." This was not a loving remark.

The great apostle Paul was often pretty sharp with the Corinthians because they seemed to misunderstand so much of what he said. In spite of his exasperation Paul reasoned with the Corinthians. He was not dismissive or contemptuous but took pains to teach them what was right - because he loved them. No-one reading his epistles can doubt the love Paul had for the churches.

(c) To have great faith - the faith that removes mountains - without love.

This is easy for us to understand because in the 20th century the adherents of Communism and Fascism had faith without love. Many Communists had tremendous faith in the system and the Chinese peasants who terraced hillsides literally moved mountains. Sadly the most fanatical Communists had faith without love. People didn't matter - they were expendable.

I am afraid that there have been Christians with great faith who have lacked love. This is what Roy Hattersley writes about William Booth in his biography of the founder of the Salvation Army: William Booth was both arrogant and autocratic in his relations with everyone except his wife. And he was at his most dictatorial and inhuman when he feared that personal failings and foibles imperilled the Army's good name. In all his relationships - with the single exception of his marriage - he lacked warmth, sympathy and understanding.

I can remember a time when my church was considering building an extension to the chapel. I said, "I don't think we should engage in a project of this sort until it is necessary." Our building was hardly full to capacity! One of my fellow elders replied, "The trouble with you, John, is that you lack faith." This was not a loving remark!

It is very sobering to realise that we can possess a faith that surmounts every obstacle and achieves great things in the name of Christ, yet be without the one essential grace that counts for something with God.

(3) Without love I gain nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. v3.

It is evident in our day and age how men and women can be martyrs without love. The suicide bombers blow themselves up for the cause. They do not have any love for all those that they maim and kill.

Many give to the poor in a grudging, patronising way. We may give to gain a reputation or coldly as a necessary duty. In Dicken's, 'Great Expectations' Mrs Joe Gargery brought up her orphaned brother, Pip, 'by hand'. She never let Pip forget it. When he came home late after his encounter with the convict on the marshes this was the result:

"Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys."

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself (after a dose of the Tickler!).

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister, "If it warn't for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?"

"You did," said I.

"And why did I do it, I should like to know?" exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, "I don't know."

"I don't!" said my sister. "I'd never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I've never had this apron of mine off, since born you were. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother."

Needless to say Pip's sister did not show him much love! If, like her, we give without warmth and genuine affection there is no gain - no treasure laid up in heaven.

Love's portrayal.

Henry Drummond in his famous sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 likened Paul's description of love to the spectrum. Just as light is made up of many colours so love has many facets. Love is a many-coloured thing. Paul recognises 15 aspects of Christian love or agape. Some of these are shared with the natural loves - affection, eros and friendship.

LOVE IS:

(1) Patient or longsuffering. Love is patient.

Love is slow to give up on people. A loving parent will not readily give up on her child. A loving teacher will not happily write off a pupil. A loving craftsmen will bear patiently with the inadequacies of an apprentice.

I am a great fan of Alexander McCall Smith's 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series set in Botswana. Smith writes about Mr Matekoni, proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and his relationship with his two apprentices. His apprentices know it all, their work is slapdash and they are preoccupied by girls. They do not love engines as Mr Matekoni loves engines! But Mr Matekoni is very longsuffering and gradually the two rather feckless young men make progress.

Leaders of a church with ignorant, arrogant and immature believers need patience! Paul suffered much from the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the church members at Corinth. He bore with them in love. He was longsuffering even though the Corinthians were not, on the whole, very loveable!

(2) Kind. Love is kind.

Kindness is an aspect of love displayed by Christian and non-Christian alike. It is foolish to pretend otherwise. My old friend Dorothy Boreham who is 96 likes to tell me stories of her childhood. One day in spring her older sister, dying of consumption at the tender age of 14, said she would like some violets. So Dorothy and her friend, Phoebe, six and eight respectively, went out to search for violets. They hunted high and low without success. Eventually Phoebe saw some on the far side of a small pond. The only way to reach them was to wade into the pond. Dorothy's friend was determined. She said, "Phoebe shall have them." So she tucked her dress into her knickers and waded through the murky water to pick a posy of the deeply scented flowers. The fragrance and beauty of Phoebe's bouquet made Dorothy's dying sister happy. It was a small act of loving kindness. See the story about the publican and the story, 'Love is Kind.'

If a person loves you they will be kind to you. In 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens the Ghost of Christmas Past took the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, back in time. He was taken back to a Christmas Eve during his apprenticeship to Old Fezziwig. Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat: laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice -

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

"You ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Lets have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

Eventually the whole household was assembled and the fun began: There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer....... .

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. ....

"A small matter" said the ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge. ....

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money; three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his later, self. "It isn't that, spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up - what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

This is one of my favourite passages in Dickens - because it is so true. Christians who love the brethren will make every effort to give pleasure and happiness to others - and it needn't cost a fortune!

(3) Generous. It does not envy.

A man of generous spirit is glad and not envious when others are popular, successful or appreciated. If we love someone we rejoice in their triumphs. For many years my brother Peter tried to better himself. He left school without any qualifications and it took him many years and much expense to obtain the five O levels that allowed him to apply for teacher training. In the very last year that applicants without A level passes were considered for the profession Peter was accepted by Strawberry Hill Teacher Training College. I can see my mother now weeping for joy at the breakfast table.

I am afraid that Christians do envy one another. When I started preaching at the age of 17 I was made much of by my church. There was one old lay preacher who never gave me one word of encouragement - he was, in his own words, "As jealous as a child." That old man needn't have worried - fifty years later I am still on the bottom rung of the preacher's ladder! See exposition on, 'The Generous Spirit'.

(4) Modest. It .... does not boast.

A boastful person does not exhibit love. Boasting makes people feel inadequate, uncomfortable or irritated. Goliath the Philistine had a boastful spirit. As the boy David approached him he said: "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. "Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!" 1Sam17v43and44. We all know what happened to Goliath!

Boastfulness is a very unlovely trait. Christians should not beat their own drum - particularly not church leaders! Yet, I have known pastors who talk incessantly about what they are doing!

Modesty, a little mentioned virtue in church, is an endearing quality. Our church treasurer and her husband are both modest. They are very gifted practically but rarely talk about their accomplishments. Modesty is a sweet, chaste, unassuming virtue.

(5) Humble It is not proud.

A humble man is not inflated with a sense of his own importance. The Pharisees and scribes were proud and showed no love for the man born blind whom Jesus healed. When the man whose sight Jesus miraculously restored began to argue with the Jews and stick up for Jesus, they said to him: "You were steeped in sin at birth, how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. John9v34. I like the Authorised Version's: "Dost thou teach us?" I am afraid that is how very religious people have reacted to dissidents through the centuries: "Dost thou teach us?" Dissidents should be loved quite as much as conformists! After all, Jesus was a dissident!

A humble loving man will have at least three characteristics:

(a) He will be able to admit that he is wrong. Why is it that we hate owning up to mistakes? Christians are quite happy to confess that they are hell-deserving sinners but find it so difficult to acknowledge that they are in error. What a lot of trouble and misery has ensued because religious leaders have been too proud to accept that some of their cherished beliefs, or practices, are wrong.

(b) He will be himself in any company. There will be no side to him. Once a month I take 96-year-old Gladys shopping. She likes to tell me of the first time she entertained my father, the prospective pastor of her church at Brockley. My father stopped the night with Gladys and her husband Jack. In the morning my father came down to shave. Gladys was greatly impressed because he shaved in the kitchen while she prepared breakfast! My father was certainly very comfortable in the company of the working class. He was less at ease with upper and middle class people!

(c) He will roll up his sleeves and get stuck into whatever needs doing. Pastor David Piper, the administrator of the Grace Baptist churches in East Anglia, is a man like that. He will do any job in his own church of Rattlesden - mowing the grass, decorating the chapel, driving the minibus and picking up the elderly ... . You name it - he does it.

(6) Gentlemanly It is not rude. (Does not behave itself unseemly. A.V..)

Love doesn't embarrass, discomfit or distress. Love will not bring a blush to the cheek. I must confess that the girls I taught during my career would not absolve me of this. I cannot claim to be a gentleman!

Love is polite, courteous and shows delicacy of feeling. My mother revered her father-in-law - my grandfather Reed. He was a market gardener, profoundly deaf and certainly lacked both charm and polish. But I can remember my mother telling me that he treated her with consideration, affection and great delicacy of feeling. He would do and say nothing to make her in any way uncomfortable.

One of my favourite Dicken's characters is Captain Cuttle in the novel, 'Dombey and Son.' Captain Cuttle is a rather rough and ready retired seaman with the quaintest turn of phrase. Eventually poor Florence Dombey, the heroine of the story, seeks refuge with Captain Cuttle. Florence begs the Captain not to send her away and promises to explain her plight later. He responds: "My lady lass," said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with his arm until it shone like burnished copper, "don't you say a word to Ed'ard Cuttle until such times as you finds yourself a-riding smooth and easy, which won't be to-day, not yet tomorrow. And as to giving of you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's help, so I won't, Church catechism, make a note on.!"

Captain Cuttle then set about comforting Florence and making her as comfortable as possible. Eventually he gets her to bed. After a while : He knocked softly with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or thrice; but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then to enter ..... .

She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle, with perfect awe of her youth and beauty, and her sorrow, raised her head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had fallen off, and darkened the window a little more that she might sleep on, and crept out again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs. All this, with a touch and tread as light as Florence's own.

Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness - the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!

(7) Selfless. It is not self-seeking.

Love does not insist on its rights. A mother nurtures her children without demanding payment for her work. There is no debt to pay in later life! Many fathers are just the same. My old friend, Phyllis, was talking to me recently about her son-in-law Gary. He has three married sons. Phyllis said, "One or the other is always phoning Gary with the request, 'Dad I'm doing X on Saturday - do you think you could lend me a hand?'" Gary is the unpaid handyman for his entire family.

Jesus love for his disciples did not insist upon its rights. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Last Supper where Jesus washed his disciple's feet. He told them: Now that I your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet." John13v14.

One of the great features of Christian love is its disinterestedness. Once again I like the way the Authorised Version puts it: Seeketh not its own. In 'Dombey and Son' by Charles Dickens there is another wonderful comic character - Mr Toots. He falls hopelessly in love with Florence - and hopelessly is very much the appropriate word. Mr Toot's love was not returned. But, in the end, Mr Toots was willing to serve Florence without thought of reward. Mark Whyte, in his introduction to Dicken's novel, writes: The real 'star' of Dombey and Son is Toots. .... Toots is a true friend, whose moral greatness surely conquers the most unpromising and unprepossessing exterior by which youth was ever discouraged. He is painfully self-conscious, yet never allows self to restrain his courage or hamper his good deeds. With him, and towards him, Florence reveals real charm.

It is something if we never allow self to restrain our courage or hamper our good deeds - if our love is truly disinterested.