A More Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13 has been called “the love chapter” by many, because that is what it is – for in it, Paul writes to the Corinthian church about love.

In chapter 12, Paul writes of spiritual gifts and their importance, and how each believer has one or more, and that each should use his or her spiritual gift for the edification of the church. But after doing so for a while, he stops, and writes, “...and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way”. And from there, he dives into chapter 13, where he speaks of love.

In the King James Version of the Bible, the one we use solely for this magazine, the word is not love, but charity. In the Greek the word is ἀγάπη, directly translated as agapē. And it means “affection or benevolence...dear, love.” In the KJV it is translated into “love” most of the time, but it is also translated into “charity”, “dear”, “charitably”, and “feast of charity”.

Most of the time when we think of charity, we think of something like: giving to the poor, a “charitable” organization or person, helping someone in need, etc. But what is behind true charity? A loving heart – a heart that is torn apart when it sees a man on the street without a home; a heart that is ripped up when it hears of the billions of children that are forced to work as slaves; aheart that screams out when it learns that thousands of babies are being aborted daily. That is a loving heart. That is a charitable heart. That is a heart that cares.

That is love.

Paul writes that no matter what you do, without love, it doesn’t amount to anything, it’s worth nothing. He says that no matter who you are, if you don’t have love, then you are nothing. He makes it clear that there are no exceptions. He says that even if you give your life away, but don’t have love, it profits you nothing. Without love you can’t do anything worthwhile, you can’t even live or die and gain anything if you lack love.

Now that he has told us what happens when we don’t have love, he tells us what love is; he says that love/charity:

-Is patient

-Is kind

-Doesn’t envy

-Doesn’t boast

-Isn’t proud

-Isn’t rude

-Isn’t self-seeking

-Isn’t easily angered

-Doesn’t think evil

-Doesn’t rejoice in iniquity

-But does rejoice in the truth

-It bears all things

-It believes all things

-It hopes all things

-It endures all things and

-It never fails

That’s quite a list, isn’t it? It covers everything that love is. Look at the list again, how many of those things do you do without fail? Are you always patient? Are you always kind? Are you never rude? Are younever self-seeking? Are you always believing, hoping, and enduring? Do you never fail?

I know I come way short of that, and if you are honest with yourself it will be clear that you fall short, too. The only one who has that kind of amazing love is God. For God is love! (1 John 4:8)

So how can we have this great love? Through Christ, it’s the only way. As fallen human beings the only way we can show this love to others is to allow Christ to shine His love through us, for we are incapable of showing it on our own.

How can we let Christ shine through us? We must give our lives completely over to Christ, letting Him live in us. And then put our own wants and needs aside so that the love of Christ shines through us in our words, actions, and attitude. Easy, right? No, not really. For it is in our human nature to look out for our own interests first, and other’s second. So to override this human nature, we have to get a new nature; and to get this new nature, we must “believe in the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16:31) and we will become “a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Once we give our lives over to Christ, and surrender to Him, we are empowered and helped by the Holy Spirit to make good decisions – putting Him first, others second and ourselves last. We must put our priorities straight, just like the little acronym JOY: Jesus, Others, You.

So what is this “more excellent way” that Paul wrote of? Love. Greater than any spiritual gift, for without love, nothing you do will amount to anything – you won’t amount to anything without it. Without love, you cannot be a Christian, for a Christian is one who loves God with all their heart and believes in Him. One of the most obvious ways that you can show your faith to the world is through your love. Love your friends, love your enemies, love them with Christ’s love, love them even when they hurt you, love them even if they kill you. How? “...through Christ which strengtheneth me!” (Philippians 4:18)

The best example of someone showing love is the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Even though He is God, He loved us so much that He was willing to take human form and live a perfect life, and be tortured and killed for us. That’s love!