Tag: 1 Corinthians 13

Giving and Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been taking us through 1 Corinthians 13 lately to see what the Apostle Paul has to say about love. Tonight, we’re going to be looking at the topic of love in relation to giving.

Many of us often see big announcements from businesses when they make donations. If you go to some stores and shop, you can see them announcing how much they’ve given to a local charity. Most of us upon seeing this can think it’s just PR. To an extent, we can be right about that.

Of course, we shouldn’t blow it all off that way. Some companies could really care about these charities and want their customers to know that this is a caring company. We cannot judge the hearts. However, we can at the same time be aware that a large act of giving does not necessitate the existence of love.

Paul here tells us that one can give all that they have to the poor and still not have love. We can remember the story of Jesus being in the temple and seeing the rich come in and dropping in large amounts of money. It is when the widow comes in and gives all that she has that Jesus really pays attention.

We can also remember the words about the Pharisees that Jesus said in that they like to make it known when they are giving gifts so everyone can see. He tells us that they have their reward then. They want to give to be seen by men and so they are seen by men. The reward is given.

Now sometimes you will give and the giver will know who you are when giving. This happens with PayPal donations today to our ministry and we definitely see it when we have Christmas and birthday celebrations going on. “Okay. This gift is from Mom. This gift is from Aunt Susie. This gift is from my brother.”

Isn’t there such a blessing however in receiving a gift often and not knowing who it’s from? Right off, I can think of three incidents in recent history in which I have received a generous gift from someone and to this day, I have no idea who it is. Of course, I can speculate each time, but I suspect that the person just wants to see the satisfaction of knowing that we enjoy the gift. In a sense, that person too has their reward in the joy of giving, but I can be sure that they have even more coming eventually.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells them that God loves a cheerful giver. When we give, it should not be something that we think we’re guilted into. A lot of churches do this on sermons involving tithes. Whether you think the tithe is valid today or not, the point is that sermons on giving to the church regularly tend to be met with skepticism, and we can see why. Unfortunately, there are a lot of churches today that are highly interested in big bank accounts on Earth instead of in Heaven.

By all means, Christians should give, but giving itself is not a sign of love. It has been said that you can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. Let us learn to love first then and those of us who might have a tendency to being stingy can learn more about giving on the way.

We shall continue next time.

Faith and Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, I’m going to be continuing our look at 1 Corinthians 13 and how much we can learn about love from this chapter. I invite you all meanwhile to come to see our new Facebook page that has been put up. If you are on Facebook, just type in Deeper Waters and check us out.

The text today tells us about if we have the faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, then we are nothing. There’s a story about a man who visited a monk living alone on a mountain. The monk asked the visitor “How are things going in the world? Do they yet have the faith that can say to this mountain ‘Rise up. Throw yourself into the sea.’?” At this, the mountain began to rise to which the monk said “Mountain. I was not giving a command. I was just quoting Scripture. Sit back down” and the mountain sat.

It’s amusing, but it is not what Christ had in mind. Of course, that could be possible if God so desired it, but it is doubtful the request was based on a wish to change the topography of Israel. The ancients were prone to hyperbole and Jesus is using an extreme answer to make an extreme point. However, what is really being talked about with faith?

Faith is never to be seen as blind belief. It’s not just a great hope that we have. Faith could best be translated as a kind of trust or loyalty. Faith in YHWH is the kind of loyalty that can move mountains. When one realizes that He is able to do all that He has said he would and that He truly is who He claims to be, then one is living by faith.

But how can one have loyalty and not have love? Such a question is simple to answer when one thinks about situations we have today. Many of us have had bosses who we have not respected at all. We did what they said and we were sure that they were able to carry out what they told us that they would, but we did not do so out of love for them. It was done simply because we had to. In other words, we were going through the motions if anything, to save ourselves from being fired.

Service to God can become the same way. We can serve God simply in order to avoid his judgment or by just going through the motions. We could thus be incredibly loyal to God, but if we do not have the kind of love that God is looking for, then our loyalty counts for naught. What good does it do to have a loyalty to God that does not end in our becoming Christlike? None whatsoever.

This is also important for the Word of Faith teachers who think that the performing of miracles in their presence is the sure sign of God’s blessings. While I question the huge majority of those claims, God could respond to the faith of someone who is sincerely seeking him through the flawed teaching of a word of faith teacher. To point to several miracles done around you is not proof that you are of God. Matthew 7 makes that clear to us.

Next time, we shall continue going through the text.

Knowledge and Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been going through 1 Corinthians 13 lately and tonight, I’d like to look at one of my favorite topics as an apologist, and that is the topic of knowledge. After all, for many of us, our books are our life’s blood. A Seminary professor’s wife I know once stated in a talk to women whose husbands were in Seminary “Make peace with the books.” Books mean everything to us.

The relevant part of 1 Cor. 13:2 tonight tells us that if we can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge but don’t have love, we are nothing. Now consider that if you are of the apologetic mindset. Paul refers to many things in the Bible as mysteries. These could not be understood without divine revelation. Note that he doesn’t mean it in the sense in which a pastor often asked how God can be three and one says “It’s a mystery” instead of giving an answer that He is three in one sense and one in another.

Imagine having that spiritual insight that when Paul speaks about a mystery, you could say that you knew it all along. You were able to divine that before the revelation was given. Paul wants you to realize that even if you could do that, if you did not have love, you are nothing.

What about if you have all knowledge? Now Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 8:1 that knowledge puffs up. The solution to this is not to cast aside knowledge but to gain humility in addition to knowledge. Sadly, this knowledge can often come across in the form of spirituality. After all, I know what God approves and disapproves of and I am a better Christian than you for doing what he approves and not doing what he does not approve.

In the apologetics community however, it’s easy to think that you have to answer every objection out there. It’s tempting to see other people as a threat. We have to avoid that. We also have to realize that just because someone knows a lot about God, it does not mean that they really know God. The love of God is more than intellectual knowledge, although it is certainly helped by such knowledge. The more you love something, the more you will want to know about that something.

C.S. Lewis wrote about how it can be to look at the woman in church who is a little old lady and think about what an impoverished life she lives not knowing about such things as the Nicene Creed or the Calvinism/Arminianism debate or who Irenaeus and Justin Martyr were, but then you realize that in her prayer life and devotion to God overall, you are not worthy to untie her sandals, it brings a humility to you. Let us never make the mistake of thinking that being a better Christian apologist means that we are a better Christian.

Now I’m not saying that this lady would not be blessed by knowing about the Nicene Creed and such. In fact, I think she should seek to know about them, but she does not have to be an intellectual. Not all Christians are of that kind of mindset. That is fine. Each has their own part to play.

For instance, in our household, I am the intellectual. My wife is smarter than she realizes, but her bent is more towards matters of the heart. That is fine. She helps me in many ways by seeing things from a layman’s perspective that I often miss and by being a strong encouragement and fortification for me.

Is knowledge important? Absolutely. Knowledge is not love and if we do not have our knowledge with love, we essentially have nothing.

We shall look at the next part next time.

Prophecy and Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve decided to take us on a tour lately of 1 Corinthians 13 and see what this magnificently beautiful chapter has to say about love. My wife knows that one of my prayer requests every night is to understand this chapter. Tonight, I’d like to look at the first part of verse 2. It raises the point about having the gift of prophecy.

What do we know about Paul and his view of prophecy? Paul was abundantly clear that prophecy was the greatest of the gifts and he advised the church to seek prophecy. Moses in the Old Testament had a wish that all of God’s people could be prophets and in the New Testament we see at Pentecost the start of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel as to the pouring out of the Spirit would mean that people would prophesy.

Now we’re not going to get to the end of the verse tonight, but Paul’s point here is that if one has prophecy, but they do not have love, then they are nothing. Note that he is not saying that he has nothing. He is saying that he himself is nothing. As important as prophecy was to Paul, love was far more important.

What was prophecy? Today, we can often think of prophecy as simply foretelling the future. To an extent, that did happen in prophecy in the Old Testament especially, but it was not always that. Much of prophecy in the Old Testament is the exhorting of the people to righteousness. It was not so much telling the future as it was giving commentary on the present.

In the New Testament, the closest role could be to that of a pastor. Because someone was a prophet, it did not mean that they were telling the future. It could mean that they possessed a key insight into the message of God at the time and knew how to apply it to the lives of the people. After all, it is doubtful following the rules of 1 Cor. 14 that God would give one prophecy to one person only to have them sit down when He decided to give another prophecy to a different one.

Paul values prophecy because it is involving the proclamation of the gospel. Tongues would be seen as a means of conveying the gospel, but prophecy would be seen as having to do with the content of the gospel. Paul was grateful to God that he had the ability to prophesy. Of course, being an apostle, he did such on a far greater scale, yet at the same time differentiated. In 1 Cor. 7, we find him making a distinction between what he says and what the Lord says. If anyone could say “Thus sayeth the Lord” surely Paul could, but he did no such thing. He simply pointed to his authority as an apostle and we trust today that God did guide this fine evangelist in what he said.

Let us not skip over this part however. Remember what Paul says about prophecy and look at what he says about it after this chapter and what is his conclusion? IF you have prophecy, but you do not have love, you are nothing. You’re not worth talking about. No one should take you seriously at all.

Let us keep this in mind as we pursue what love really is.

Tongues of Love

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’m going to be continuing again our look at 1 Cor. 13. Last night, I wrote on how agape is the kind of love being discussed in this passage. What is agape exactly? Before he gets to what it is, Paul wants us to know how valuable it is. Often times, I fear some of us can be so eager to get to the latter part which describes love and then get to the ending part with so many great quotes we regularly use, that we miss the gravity of what has been said here.

The text is as follows:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

The text is straightforward enough, but what is being said? Let us consider the surrounding context. Paul has been talking about spiritual gifts and one that has been a hotbed of controversy is the gift of tongues. For now, let us lay aside what we think the gift of tongues is. Whatever it is, we can all agree it is a gift and all sides I know of believe it contains with it a way of speaking another language or understanding another language, be it an earthly language or a prayer language.

Let us suppose that someone has this gift, to which Paul himself later says that he does. Note that in Paul’s time, oratory ability was highly valued. There were several rules for speaking and one needed to be a good speaker in order to get the point across. Paul does the same in his epistles as well as there was a proper rhetoric to follow when giving an argument.

Many of us have experienced today the idea of being dazzled by a speaker and while we cannot really tell what they said, they sure sound persuasive. Politicians try to specialize in this wanting to get an audience caught up in an emotion rather than address the arguments that they put forward. Sadly, a lot of preachers do this as well thinking that a lot of emotion in place of a good point is enough to spur people to Christlikeness and shows that their message is from the Holy Spirit.

In saying that, I am not against rhetoric. I do believe that talks ought to be presented in a way to be persuasive. I believe there is a great importance in emotional appeal, thus there is no reason to decide someone does not know what they are talking about simply because there is great emotion there. There is also no reason to they they know what they’re talking about because they lack great emotion.

However, what Paul is saying is to picture that you are a great speaker in some way and you do have the gift of tongues, even if you could communicate with the tongues of angels. Paul says that if you do not have love while you have that gift, then you are simply making noise.

Consider the magnitude of this. This was a gift that the Corinthians were taking pride in. They were vaunting their spirituality by this gift and what does Paul say about it? “You’ve got the gift? Well congrats. But you don’t have love, so you’re just making noise. Nothing good will come of it.”

What does that say to us today? It tells us that we don’t want to be just making noise either. Now I believe in our evangelism there is a time to be tough and a time to be soft, but there is never a time to not have the love of Christ in what we say. In our talks, we need to be persuasive and prepared, but we must have love. It is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, we could spend hours upon hours talking, and we would simply be making noise.

What else has Paul to say about the importance of love? That is for next time.

Agape

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve lately been looking at 1 Corinthians 13 and love. In discussing the four type of love in Greek thought, we are going to be discussing now the one that Paul writes about, which is agape.

We are often told that agape is God-love, but this isn’t really the case. After all, agape is said to describe the love of darkness that some people have. We would not say that they have the love of God of darkness. What can it mean then? I would take it most likely to mean something like the love of devotion.

More can be said about agape love as we go through this series, particularly after we get started on verse 4. However, I do wish to give some general comments. To begin with, I do believe that agape is the love that makes all of the other loves better.

What about storge? As an Aspie, I am familiar with how people can do social niceties and not mean anything whatsoever by it. They just do it because that is what they are supposed to do. I don’t know how many times I heard someone come to me at work and say “How are you?” and then have them walk right on by. It always has left me with the impression of “If you don’t care, don’t ask. I’d appreciate it more.”

Of course, there could be times people really do care and I don’t realize it, but wouldn’t it be best if good manners were genuine rather than something that we do because we think we have to and aren’t going through the motions? Wouldn’t it be great if when someone at church said “I’ll pray for you” that you were sure that they meant it?

What of Phileo? Phileo is the love of friendship and we would like the friend that sticks closer than a brother. What would it mean for phileo if friends were really, well, friends? Christ told us that there was no greater love than that a man would lay down his life for his friends. Do we have that kind of love?

And eros love? What would it mean if sex was more focused on the joy that one person could bring the other than in the joy that person received from the other? Now I do know that you do have to in part focus on your pleasure as well so your spouse can know the best way to please you, but that should not be the focal point. If you are both focused on the love of the other, then will you not find your own pleasure that way?

Agape improves everything. Devotion to that which is good in proper proportion is always good. Let us make sure we are doing both. We should only devote ourselves to that which deserves devotion. We should also not devote ourselves to that thing if we make it greater than what it is. As wonderful as your spouse is, don’t make an idol out of them. My wife and I regularly make sure to state that we are each other’s #2 in life. God is our #1.

Next time, we shall start going through the text.

Eros

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve started to take a look at the topic of love as found in 1 Cor. 13 and tonight, I’m going to be talking about eros. Why am I doing so in this order? Storge love is familiar love. Phileo is a higher form of that in friendship. I consider eros a deeper form of friendship and thus a sexual form.

Note that eros is not sex however. Sex is a part of eros and when eros is fully shared, it is an important part, but it is not the whole. A mistake of our society is to confuse sex with eros where if a couple has sex, then it can be seen as automatically having eros.

Sex can in fact be just a physical action between two people. Now I have actually heard a guy tell me before that he thought I was making too big a deal since I did not believe in having sex before marriage. After all, I was told, it’s just orgasm. Such a person however does not understand what is going on.

Sex is a physical activity, no doubt, but it is not just physical. It transcends the physical and while it certainly has great physical sensations, the greater joy of sexual love between two people in a married relationship is the bond of intimacy that they are building with one another.

For a woman, she has to be totally open with her body. She reveals herself entirely to her man. There is nothing for her to hide behind. She has to give total trust to him and open up to him a very vulnerable part of her body and give him the freedom to come and enjoy her.

For the man, he also has to have a high degree of trust. Many men do suffer from insecurities that they will not share, as do women, and for most men it has to do with their bodies. They have to trust that their wives will accept them and put a lot on the line when they engage in a relationship with the woman, particularly the sexual one. Am I really a man? Do I have what it takes to please this woman?

And for both, because they are different sexes, there has to be trust in what is being experienced. A man can never know firsthand what sex is like for a woman. He can study all about the female body all he wants and understand all the physical aspects, but he can never know what it is like the same way a woman can. The same goes that a woman cannot know what it is like for a man.

Thus, in the act itself, the husband and wife have to give total trust to each other in what is liked and what isn’t liked. If the wife says that she likes something, the man has to trust that she really is liking it and she is not just saying it in order to please her husband. The same goes the other way. The woman has to trust that the way she is acting with her husband is bringing him joy or not bringing him joy.

We’re often told that for men the act is physical and for women it is emotional and relational. There’s some truth to that I think, but we need to realize that really, the act is both for both. A man can be incredibly fortified by the act and have an affirmation from his wife that, yes, he is a man. That bond that he feels with his wife is incredibly strong.

This is something many women can seem to forget, hence that there can be marriages where the man feels he is sexually neglected. For women, I’d say if you think your marriage needs some work, try starting in the bedroom. “Well he doesn’t do what I want him to do!” Okay. Are you doing what he wants you to do? A woman can clean the house all day and take care of the kids and the man can appreciate that and she should be doing that, but what the man will really want is to know that his wife can affirm him sexually. Women need to realize that this is a deep need for a man.

Men on the other hand need to realize that because their wife isn’t interested at the time does not point to a lack of love necessarily on her part. A man can be ready for sex in a moment’s notice. A woman is not that way. It has been said that women are stoves and men are microwaves. If men want to be have times of romance from their wives, they need to do their part. Are the men cleaning up around the house? Are the men helping with the kids? Are they forming dates? Men. Don’t expect to come home, prop your feet up on the footstool while sitting on the couch, expect your wife to bring you dinner while you watch your favorite TV show, and then have her be in a mood to please you when the day comes to an end. Go the other way. Why not wait till she has to go out one day while you’re home alone? Clean up the house, take care of the kids (And send them to their grandparents then or someone else’s house) and when she comes home, have dinner ready and let her hold the remote control. Or better yet, go without the remote and try a candlelight dinner where you just talk. Such actions will build up desire in your wife for you.

Our society has made sex an idol and fails to realize eros has many more components to it. Eros is found when the man is being a man for his woman and the woman is being a woman for her man. It does not have to be necessarily sexual, but there is such an aspect. It is when the woman fixes her hubby dinner, or when the man holds open the door for his wife.

To limit sex to just the physical is to cheapen the activity entirely. You might be able to get a good time out of it, but you wouldn’t be getting the best time that you could get. This happens in the bond of marriage where the two are already committed to each other. Neither one of them needs to think that they are on trial. They have already been accepted and can then give themselves with abandon.

To which also men need to make sure that their women know that they are more than just objects of sexual pleasure to them. Women, on the other hand need to know that the sexual pleasure they give their husbands is important. Sex should not be seen as everything in marriage. The other temptation to be avoided is seeing it as nothing.

In sex in marriage, there is a unique bond in that you two are the only people that can satisfy that desire for the other. If the man wants to go watch a movie, he can call a guy friend up and go watch a movie. If he has to, he can go watch one by himself. If he wants to have sex however, he can’t (Or he shouldn’t at least!) call up another female and ask if they want to get together for sex. The same goes for a woman. She cannot call up just anyone to get that unique closeness she should only have for her husband.

Another mistake we make with eros is that we make eros a feeling. Eros can and certainly often does result in feelings, but strong feelings are not the sign of eros either. When you marry, you do not make a commitment to a psychological state of feelings where you say you will have those feelings for the rest of your life. You make a commitment to a person and that commitment is before God and men and lasts until death do you part. When the feelings are there, enjoy them. They’re great! When they’re not, then oh well. You’re still called to be a great spouse anyway. As one in ministry, I can attest that if I only served Jesus when I had strong feelings for serving Jesus, I would not be serving Him that much.

Eros will also grow deeper over time. For the sexual aspect, the honeymoon is just the start of it and it’s a start that gets better and better as the two of you come to know each other more and more. You will come to understand your spouse in other ways as well and know their personality. My wife and I today are far closer to each other than we were the day we got married and I am still amazed many a night when I go to bed and realize the woman I am sharing it with. God was not obligated to give me a spouse, but He did. That is His blessing and I ought to treasure her more and more every day.

For the young Christian also, enjoy eros. Many of us can have a feeling of shame when it comes to eros. God made the sexual system however. It was His idea. He fashioned all the parts and even has a whole book of the Bible for celebrating sex, the Song of Songs. We can talk all we want of it being an allegory of God and Israel or Christ and the Church, and in some ways it could be, but let us also affirm that it is also a book celebrating sexual love. If God considers it something to celebrate, ought not we?

Of course, the Song includes warnings about not awakening it before its time, so don’t. Be cautious. There are many a couple who have regretted not waiting until their wedding night. I do not know of any who do regret waiting until their wedding night. My wife and I both waited, and we are glad we did.

Next time, we shall look at agape.

Storge

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, I’d like to start a new topic to discuss. I recently preached a sermon at my church on 1 Corinthians 13. The sermon was quite popular and now I’d like to write out some more about the topic of love. Before doing that, I think we should take a look at what love is and to do so, we should see what each of the four kinds of love are.

First off is storge, which is familiar love. Storge love is the kind of love you have for your fellow man just because he is a man. It is also the kind of love that you have for family. For example, suppose that you did not know the people that are now your parents. I am assuming that you have a good relationship with your parents for this. If not your parents, try to think of any relative you have a good relationship with. If you were not related to this person and you just met this person, do you think you’d really form such a bonding relationship with them?

It is because they are family that you form such a great bond. For some of my younger readers, I wish for you to know that if you have a relationship with your folks that isn’t terrible, but you wish it would be better, that it does improve when you get out of the house. It’s amazing how much you learn that your parents really do. Now as a married man, I have come to realize more and more that my mother knows a whole lot more than I ever realize and our relationship, though it has never been bad, has never been better.

Storge love does not mean that you make the stranger someone you have a deep devotion to, but it means that all things being equal, you treat them as a human being. You hold the door open for someone just because they are a person. It is the kind of love that we ought to show, which is what should ideally take place when driving for example, a place that we can bear to improve on.

Of course, this does not mean that you can never be tough on someone, but they must give a reason for such toughness. If some stranger comes up to me and insults my wife for example, he’s not going to get storge. He may be the stranger still, but he is also someone who has shown himself to be in opposition to the good of the person that I love far far more.

Most of us don’t deal with such, although we do deal with some people who get under our skin. It is our case of judgment to know when we ought to say something and when we ought to ignore. As one in the working industry, I often ignore such things realizing when I go home at the end of the day and spend the time with the Mrs., that what was said will not really matter. Are there some battles not worth fighting? Of course. Some are however, and I suggest the reader consider themselves more on which battles to fight and which to not based on their ability, the situation, and the possible consequences.

Next time, we shall look at Phileo.