Brian "Head" Welch

My class enjoyed this today. It also provoked some interesting and good discussion.

CAUTiON: you might be humming this melody after viewing

why is love the greatest? [1 Cor 13.13]

I'm glad you asked. There are several reasons.

FIRST of all, the context is about spiritual gifts [1 Cor 12-14]. Paul's point is that the engine of all proper employment of the gifts is love. The gifts will not be needed for all time, but love will stick around.

SECOND, the nature of faith and hope is that they are not eternal. This is closely related to the first point. When we are forever gathered with God and His people, faith and hope will not be necessary. They are gifts in the present that work with love to sustain us until then. The temporal nature of faith and hope help to point to the permanence and greatness of love.

THIRD, the idea of the person of the Holy Spirit is closely tied to Paul's understanding of love [see Rom 5.1-5, Gal 5.22, Eph 4.1-3, etc]. Edwards, Augustine, and Gordon Fee do an excellent job showing this. Thus, love's enduring nature says something about God the Spirit.

FOURTH, isn't real love supposed to be perpetual by definition? Take it, Billy:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

"LOVE REJOiCES WiTH THE TRUTH"

The following is not robust historical-grammatical exegesis. I understand the context of 1 Cor 13 and spiritual gifts, but this is thinking more broadly about love and truth. Enjoy.

If love rejoices with the truth and this statement is in the middle of a litany of statements about love, doesn't that mean that every other principle about love should be seasoned with joy?

For example, if "love is patient" is a true reality and we already know that "love rejoices with the truth," shouldn't the patient-love combination include a demeanor of rejoicing? I'm thinking so.

One problem with all this is that the air we breathe redefines these two ideas. Love is painted primarily as sex and tolerance. And truth is whatever is true for you. This kind of "love" cannot rejoice with truth. Further, this kind of "truth" cannot be rejoiced in by love. The ideas of love and truth that are a happily married couple together in 1 Cor 13 are ideas of love and truth that stream from the personhood of God.

Therefore, biblically speaking, truth is absolute, but is not static. It is relatable. Furthermore, love is a source and a stream. "God is love. Love is from God" [1 Jn 4.7-8]. The deal is that both of these are defined on the basis of who God is and what He is doing. So, love doesn't rejoice with the truth if the definitions of "love" and "truth" are only our culture's.

Biblical love and biblical truth are the joyfully married couple. I would also say that the immediate consequence of divorcing love and truth is the absence of both.

I feel like this should resonate to how I think and live.

Love, Courage, Wisdom

Ammon Hennacy was a Catholic activist who lived from 1893-1970. He never payed taxes. He also said:

Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolishness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. But the one who has love, courage, and wisdom moves the world.