The Greatest Thing
Musicians such as country star Alan Jackson and rocker Bruce Springsteen wrote songs about the grief and sorrow the terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center caused.
Jackson’s Drive album featured the song “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)?” Springsteen’s album, The Rising, a recording permeated with Christian themes, included a song called “Into the Fire,” which praised the bravery and sacrifice of those people who went into the World Trade Center buildings to save others.
Both songs quote 1 Corinthians 13, which is probably one of the most moving and famous passages of the entire Bible.
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around A.D. 56. It was one of his many letters to the new Christian congregations that had sprung up in the decades since the death and resurrection of Jesus.
If there is such a thing as a perfect church, it doesn’t appear in the pages of the New Testament.
Sure, the Book of Acts records the dedication of early believers and the many powerful miracles they performed.
But within a few years, infighting and arguments over tiny details of faith and practice tore apart these once-dynamic congregations.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul lectured the believers in Corinth about their sexual immorality (including adultery and incest), their arguments over whether or not Christians could eat meat sacrificed to pagan gods, and the fighting that erupted over one of the most important Christian rituals—the Lord’s Supper.
As if these problems weren’t bad enough, Christians were also getting upset with each other about the use of such spiritual gifts as prophecy and speaking in tongues, which were common at the time.
They wanted to know which gifts were most important (and perhaps, which Christians were most important, too).
Paul tried to defuse their childish competitiveness.
“Love is patient,” he continued, spelling out the key characteristics of this most important virtue. “Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (v. 4).
Paul even argued that love was more important than faith and hope, two virtues that the Bible celebrates throughout its pages.
If it were not for faith, we would not be able to believe in God and see his work in our lives. If it were not for hope, we would be unable to apply this life-transforming faith to the challenges of daily life.
Even still, it is love that knits the whole package together in a way that is pleasing to God and helpful to others.
God, help me to realize that you care about not only what I do, but why I do it.