The Need for Love and the Character of Love

The Need for Love and the Character of Love
1 Corinthians 12.31b-13.7

When people say, as they sometimes do, that Paul must have been a very difficult person to have around – that he seems to have been awkward, cantankerous, argumentative, and generally an unpleasant character – this passage is one I often quote in reply.

It seems to me impossible to imagine that this passage could have been written in a very personal letter by the founder of a community, to that community, unless he knew, and he knew that they knew, that this is the kind of person he himself was. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Paul lived up to this stunning picture of love every minute of every day. But that he had (unlike some of the teachers in Corinth) spent his life and energy being what he was and doing what he was for the sake of other people, copying and embodying the love that Jesus himself had shown in dying on the cross, I think we can be sure...

Taken from Paul 1 Corinthians for Everyone – by Tom Wright