1 Corinthians 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker says that speaking in tongues, prophecy, deep knowledge, mountain-moving faith, giving everything away, and even handing over his body are worth nothing to him without love. He then describes what love does and does not do, and says love never fails, while prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will be brought to an end. Present knowing is only partial. He speaks of having spoken, thought and reasoned as a child, and of seeing now as in a dim reflection, and closes by naming faith, hope, and love as what remains, with love the greatest.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • If a person speaks in the languages of men and of angels but does not have love, he has become sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal.
   • Speaking in the languages of angels is spoken of as a possibility.
   • Love is what makes such speech more than noise.
2. 13:2
   • If a person has the gift of prophecy but does not have love, he is nothing.
   • If a person understands all mysteries and all knowledge but does not have love, he is nothing.
   • If a person has all faith, enough to move mountains, but does not have love, he is nothing.
   • Faith can move mountains.
3. 13:3
   • If a person doles out all his possessions to feed the poor but does not have love, he gains nothing.
   • If a person hands over his body to be burned but does not have love, he gains nothing.
4. 13:4
   • Love is patient under wrong.
   • Love is kind.
   • Love does not envy.
   • Love does not boast.
   • Love is not puffed up with pride.
5. 13:5
   • Love does not behave disgracefully.
   • Love does not seek its own interests.
   • Love is not provoked to anger.
   • Love keeps no account of wrong done to it.
6. 13:6
   • Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
   • Love rejoices together with the truth.
7. 13:7
   • Love bears up under all things.
   • Love believes all things.
   • Love hopes all things.
   • Love endures all things.
8. 13:8
   • Love never falls away.
   • Prophecies will be brought to an end.
   • Tongues will cease.
   • Knowledge will be brought to an end.
9. 13:9
   • We know in part.
   • We prophesy in part.
10. 13:10
    • When the complete thing comes, the partial will be brought to an end.
11. 13:11
    • When the speaker was a child, he spoke as a child.
    • When the speaker was a child, he thought as a child.
    • When the speaker was a child, he reasoned as a child.
    • When the speaker became a man, he put away the things belonging to a child.
12. 13:12
    • At present we see by means of a mirror, indistinctly, as in a riddle.
    • Then we will see face to face.
    • At present the speaker knows in part.
    • Then the speaker will know fully, just as he has been fully known.
13. 13:13
    • Now faith, hope, and love remain.
    • These are three.
    • Love is the greatest of the three.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

"Charity" here does not mean giving to the needy, which is what the word means in modern English. In 1611 it still carried its older sense, taken from the Latin caritas: love, deep regard for another person. The Greek word is agape. The KJV uses "charity" throughout this chapter where the same Greek word elsewhere in the KJV is translated "love." "Tongues" is the old word for languages. The Greek word means both the organ in the mouth and a language spoken, just as "tongue" once did in English. In the Corinthian congregation it also named a particular practice of speaking in unknown utterance, which Paul has been discussing in the two preceding chapters. "Sounding brass" is a bronze instrument or vessel that resonates when struck. A "tinkling cymbal" sounds delicate in modern English, but the Greek verb means clashing or clanging. Both images are of loud noise without meaning, not of faint sound.

13:2

"Prophecy" in this letter means speaking a message given by God, whether about the future or about the present. It is not limited to predicting what will happen. "Mysteries" does not mean puzzles or unsolved cases. The Greek word names something that was hidden and has now been disclosed, a secret let out. "Remove mountains" was a proverbial expression in the ancient world for doing what looks impossible.

13:3

"Bestow all my goods to feed the poor" means handing over everything I own, distributing it piece by piece to the hungry. "Though I give my body to be burned" translates a wording that the ancient manuscripts disagree about. Two Greek words differing by a single letter and one vowel sound lie behind the split: one means "that I may be burned," the other means "that I may boast." The KJV follows the first; many modern translations follow the second, giving a sense like "hand over my body so that I may boast." The evidence does not settle the question. "Profiteth me nothing" uses "profit" in its plain sense of gain. I come out with nothing.

13:4

"Suffereth long" is not about suffering in the modern sense. The Greek word describes a long fuse: slow to grow hot with someone, willing to go on putting up with a person. "Vaunteth not itself" means does not show off or talk itself up. "Puffed up" is the KJV's regular phrase for inflated self-importance. It is a favorite image of Paul's in this letter, of a person swollen with their own significance.

13:5

"Unseemly" means indecent or disgraceful in the way one acts toward others, closer to "rude" than to "unattractive." "Seeketh not her own" uses "her" only as a grammatical pronoun pointing back to "charity." No woman is in view. It means love does not go after its own interests. "Is not easily provoked" contains a word the Greek does not have. The Greek says simply "is not provoked," that is, not stung into anger. The translators of 1611 added "easily" to soften the claim. "Thinketh no evil" translates a bookkeeping term. The verb means to reckon up, to enter in a ledger. The sense is that love does not keep a running account of wrongs it has been dealt.

13:6

"Iniquity" is an old general word for wrongdoing and injustice, not a particular kind of sin.

13:7

"Beareth all things" translates a Greek verb built on the word for a roof. It can mean to cover over and so protect, or to bear up under a weight without giving way. Both senses were available to a first-century reader and translators divide over which is meant. "Believeth all things" is not a claim that love is gullible. The verb is the ordinary word for trusting, and the phrase describes a disposition to trust rather than an opinion that every statement is true.

13:8

"Faileth" carries its older sense of falling away, collapsing, coming to an end. It does not mean love is never unsuccessful. "Vanish away" and "fail" in this verse both render forms of one Greek verb meaning to be rendered idle, put out of use, set aside. The point is that these things are made obsolete, not that they evaporate on their own.

13:10

"That which is perfect" would be read today as morally flawless. The Greek word means complete, entire, brought to its full end, and it is also the word used of a person who has reached adult maturity. That second sense sets up the picture of the child and the grown man in the next verse.

13:11

"I understood as a child" uses "understood" for the process of reasoning something out, not for the result of getting it right. Paul is listing three childish activities in a row: talking, feeling, and working things out.

13:12

"Through a glass" does not mean through a window. "Glass" was the ordinary English word for a mirror, and ancient mirrors were sheets of polished bronze, which gave a real but dim and imperfect image. The Greek says we see "by means of" a mirror, that is, we see a reflection rather than the thing itself. Corinth was known in antiquity for manufacturing such mirrors. "Darkly" translates a Greek phrase meaning "in a riddle." The word is the root of the English "enigma." What is seen is obscure and needs deciphering, not merely poorly lit.

13:13

"Abideth" means remains or stays in place. It is the opposite of the things in verse 8 that stop: these three are still standing after the others have been set aside.