but have not love,

1 Corinthians 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,

Let us summarize the list (from the ESV):

•  2 And if I have prophetic powers,
• and understand all mysteries
• and all knowledge,
• and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

• but have not love, I am nothing. 

• 3 If I give away all I have,
• and if I deliver up my body to be burned [to death],

• but have not love, I gain nothing.

WE are nothing and we gain nothing without this love – we are NOT Christians without Christ’s love evident in our faith and in our lives.

This famous “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13 is most notably read (often at weddings) as an example of the love of a husband and a wife. The following verses, more notably than the opening verses, are truly much more than just the romantic love between a husband and wife; for the Apostle Paul speaks not of eros, nor phileo (brotherly love), but of agape – a godly love to which Christians must cling, pouring out sacrificially from the overflowing fountain of the love of Christ Jesus.

The literal translation of agape love in the King James Version is charity. (Don’t get it mixed up with the giving away of money; charity is an outpouring of the overflowing love of God.)  Think of ‘charity’ as the love given so personally by our Lord Jesus Christ – charity is the touch of love Jesus would give to another, if He were you.

1 Corinthians 13 in the original KJV.

IF you were to replace the word ‘love’ with ‘charity’ or ‘agape’ in your Bible, you would likely come nearer the intention of what the Apostle is telling Christians about its importance in the witness of our lives. The following is such an example from the Amplified Bible:

 4 Agape [Charity] endures long and is patient and kind; charity never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
5 It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Agape (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
6 It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
7 Charity bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
8 Agape never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].

Please study more about this special love Christians must have for each other; for it is a command of our Lord Christ Jesus.

Let us close in consideration of the briefness of this life in the flesh, in witness to the charity of Christ Jesus. Closing in the same manner of substituting “charity” or the original Greek word, agape. from the Amplified Bible:

  13 And so faith, hope, charity abide [faith—conviction and belief respecting man’s relation to God and divine things; hope—joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; charity —true affection for God and man, growing out of God’s love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is agape.