Love in the Church: A Study of First Corinthians, Chapter 13

Abstract

The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians loses some of its force through our familiarity with it. It is one of the bestknown passages of the Bible, and many a man who has little interest in the Church, and less patience with Pauline theology, will accept it as a literary classic and warmly express his admiration of it. No one who is responsive to elevated thought or sensitive to beauty of language will deny it its right to a place in an anthology of literary excellence, whether it be regarded as eloquent prose or as lyrical poetry, whether it be read in the original Greek or in the mellifluous music of our English version. But the custom of abstracting it from its setting and treating it as a poem or hymn, self-complete and selfilluminating, brings great disadvantages.