Certainly Paul means chapter 13 to be
applied in this way, for the entire book of 1 Corinthians is Paul strongly encouraging
the church “Come on guys, you are the church so behave like Christ toward one another. Put your own desires aside for the good of everyone and love one another above yourselves” but we cannot leave
it there because Paul is not one to stop preaching until Jesus walks in. And we get to Jesus by reading on in the
chapter. Paul suddenly switches to talking about not understanding things right now but a time is coming when we will understand fully. That now we need faith, hope and love, but the greatest of the three Is love. So there is a time coming when we will no
longer need faith and hope for they will be fulfilled; all God’s promises we
have to put our trust in now, we will see them come to pass and we will receive
them. Our hopes will be fulfilled! And love will keep on going… into all
eternity… it IS the greatest!
So this love that Paul is describing, that
goes on into eternity, well, perhaps goes back into eternity past too. Who do we know who goes back into eternity
past? Why, the creator of the
universe! And didn’t this creator visit
earth at some point? If we look into the Gospel writings we read
about the creator, Jesus Christ, on earth with men. The Gospel writers describe how he loved
fallen man; going above and beyond the usual boundaries of human love to lay
down his life for evil doers and sinners; those who didn’t deserve it. In every single way he treated his fellow man,
Jesus treated them with love and compassion. Could it be that Paul is describing
Jesus himself in this passage?
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