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Wednesday Night - June 20th

Saxophones, 5 inch Floppies, and Training Wheels - 1 Corinthains 13:8-12 (Week 5)

by JM

I’ve sat down with a number of couples facing significant relational stress in their marriages. Often the man and/or women have invested considerable time, money, and energy in something regarded as important: usually, but not exclusively, a job or education. It can easily be a passion or a calling different from career: ministry or marionette making. Such endeavors are sometimes met with degrees, certifications, awards, or something like this. Now of course, these things are quite important for living a fulfilled life, yet as the counseling session soon reveals, these things occupy too much importance. Imagine with me such a session.

“So Bob,” I say “you have a degree in engineering?” “Yep.” Bob responds. I continue, “I bet that means you’ve read a ton of books on the topic?” “More than I wanted to” he sighs. I retort, “But probably no less than you needed.” “You’re right” he says, “in fact, periodically I’ll take night courses to keep up with the industry.” “Bob, I imagine you’re good at what you do?” Bob, with half-suppressed but glaring pride says, “Well, I consider my job my calling.”
At this point, the conversation takes a revealing turn.

“So Bob, how many books have you read on marriage?” Silence………. “They make books on that,” Bob says with inappropriate humor trying to alleviate the painful, glaring, and undeniable reality to which he was oblivious to up to the question. I prod. “You haven’t answered the question: how many books?” He turns to his wife and asks with desperation, “Honey, didn’t we read a book by John Dobson; you know that Families in Focus ministry, right before we got married? You know the one, ‘Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus.’”

Now, certainly Bob would have admitted that his wife is far much more important than the job, and at some level we might even believe him. But he’s certainly not convincing his wife nor the counselor trying to repair years of dysfunction.

This little illustration isn’t a spring board for a discussion on marriage, but on all things that matter in life, including marriage. In keeping with Paul’s overall thought in 1 Corinthians. 13, I want to address the following problem: There are certain matters in life which are very important, but not most important. Due to some flaw in our vision, we gravitate towards elevating very important matters as most important matters, and most important matters as of lesser importance. In addressing this problem, I’m going to import the temporally important matters of life (e.g., car, credit, career, clout, comfort) into Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts in chapter 13. To illustrate Paul’s thought, I will use a Saxophone, a 5 inch Floppy Disk, and Training Wheels.

Saxophones

During a fundraising event at our church, one of our members donated a saxophone to be displayed and bid on in an auction. This seemed to be an ordinary saxophone: it produces sounds when you exhale into it in a certain way; it has knobs which when operated properly provide soul-stirring notes; it came with a case to be used, as it appeared to have been use before - for travel purposes. But when someone purchased it and brought it home for use, something wasn’t right. They tried and they tried to produce sound, but to no avail. It then became apparent to the new owner that there was an obstruction in the saxophone. They placed their hand into the instrument and pulled out a bag of marijuana. One can only image the reaction at this point: “I don’t think that this was in the bidding description at the church?” Of course, it wasn’t. In the exoneration of our altruistic member who donated the sax, it was from a time long ago when he knew not Christ. Nevertheless, it was no longer a secret that the saxophone was used a bit differently than it was designed to be used.

Paul says this in verses 8-13

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

If I may paraphrase the thought, Paul is saying

“One day you will shed your gifts. When they are removed, what will remain? Sure, they are on display now, and what they do is obvious. Oh, certainly, it appeared that your prophecies, tongues, and teaching were all meant to sound a glorious tune for God’s fame and love for neighbor. But not so fast, Oh Corinthians, you might have fallen into the trap of elevating the very important function of your gift above their most important function and God-designed intention: loving God and others. Are you blowing your own horn? Are you inhaling when you should be exhaling? What’s at the core of your instrument?”

Or take ones’ car, career, credit, clout - the important things of life: a person may keep telling others that all these important matters are pursued out of love and devotion to others, family, church, or God. “The reason I work so hard is for you…for them..for...” That’s the appearance; that’s the claim; that’s the supposed function of our lifes’ activities. But when these things are shed, will love remain, or self-love? Paul says that one day one’s motives will be revealed – will it be elating, or embarrassing?

5 Inch Floppy Disks

I imagine a man who had the inside scoop on the cutting edge technology of floppy disks. I also image that such a man might have believed this invention to be one which will have enduring affect and place in all future technology. “The Floppy disk is the wheel of the 20th century.” Of course, he invests heart and money into the budding technology, and when the 80s rolled around, all hopes and aspirations were confirmed beyond his wildest imaginations. “The plane, the wheel, the 5 inch Floppy disk!” was his cry of joy. By the early 90s, we find him mourning. You see, the burgeoning information technology roared passed the unsophisticated and clumsy floppy disk. One can no more retrofit the floppy to the new and ever-changing technology than one can retrofit a covered wagon with hydraulic breaks. The wagon, as well as the floppy, must be scrapped.

Here was his mistake. Certainly the man should have invested in the floppy, but he should have also positioned himself for long term success by putting his attention in the technology under girding the floppy. Put differently, he failed to see the difference between the temporary floppy-disk wave of technology, and the oceanic reservoir that would toss up other waves like CDs, Flash drives, and the like.

In addressing the church, Paul says,

1 Corinthians 13:8-10 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

Spiritual gifts, or those temporally important matters of life have a shelf-life; they are designed to become obsolete. Their present glimmer and shine makes one think that they will endure, yet as quickly as are born, they will die. “The world is passing away… (1 John 2:17). Love, on the other hand, is eternal. As such, I must discern the difference between the transient waves of love (be it prophecy, knowledge, or some human endeavor), and the oceanic reservoir of love that fuels every wave that rises and falls. If I master love, I’ll be prepared for whatever expression that God establishes in time or eternity. If I master temporary expressions or shells of love, and not the love itself, I’ll be ill-equipped for new and heavenly dimensions awaiting.

Training Wheels

My 4 year old daughter is under the delusion that she has mastered bike riding because she has training wheels. It’s the exact opposite. The fact that she has training wheels is powerful evidence that she has accomplished anything but mastery in bike riding. Because of her delusion, she attempts to handle her bike in ways unfit for bikes with training wheels. We all know that training wheels help, but they can easily harm. She’s safe so long as she rides slow and avoids dips into driveways, but as soon as she reaches a certain speed or drops into a drive way, the occasions are ripe for serious injury.

We all know that a little age will clear up her misperceptions of her bike-riding ability. Right about nine years of age, she’ll see her childish ways - her misplaced pride in training wheels - as well as her ‘mastery’ of bike-riding, and then shed the training wheels and truly experience the joy of the sport.

1 Corinthians 13:11 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Paul relates this chapter to a group of people who believe that they had mastered the Christian life because of their possession and use of spiritual gifts. Paul saw the absurdity of that view. The fact that the spiritual gifts were in operation was clear proof that they had not arrived. The fact that prophecy is in operation shows that we know very little of what we need to know. The fact that knowledge and tongues are in use shows that we only see faint glimpses of glory and perfection. Spiritual gifts are crutches, or training wheels for people who aren’t even remotely ready for glory. If we boast in the gifts, we glory in our deficiency.

Spiritual gifts are to love what training wheels are to a bike. One day we will shed the gifts. When that day comes, did we take advantage of the training wheels to learn some rudiments of love? Or will we have missed the lesson altogether to our embarrassment.

Let’s use the important matters in life as an application. How many people are under the delusion that if they get these things in life in place (e.g. cash, credit, car, career, comfort, clout) and are managing them well, then they have arrived? The fact that one would boast in such an accomplishment discloses the childish overestimation of earthly things. Success is rooted in how well we do in taking the important matters of life and wielding them in service of the most important matters of life: loving God and others. Life and its blessings are meant to hang on these two things:

Matthew 22:35-40 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

The Boundaries of Love - Week 4 - Small Group Study

The Boundaries of Love: Love isn’t a Doormat, but it may be a Stepping Stone

by JM

Is “Love” masked exploitation?

Upon reading verses such as “Love is patient, love is kind…it always protects, trusts, hopes, preservers. Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4 & 7), some have concluded that the contents of this chapter are not so much a recipe for a good marriage or healthy relationship, but for exploitation. Friedrich Nietzsche more than once made statements like this:

"I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed--as the greatest and most impious lie…”

Nietzsche’s rationale for this scathing declaration was rooted in what I perceive in the following areas. The Christian ethic, namely, the Christian notion of love is:

•foreign to nature
•an assault on individual expression
•an assault on personal fulfillment
•an endorsement and reinforcement of the slave ethic.

The believer readily admits that agape love is foreign to nature; nature here being clearly defined as creation in the throes of a curse - a curse that moves humans imprinted in the image of God to bite, kick, scratch, harm, maim, and murder like their animal subordinates who have no divine imprintation. Nietzsche has got us on this one.

The Christian readily admits that agape love is an assault on individual expression; it tells them to stop biting, kicking, scratching, harming, maiming, and murdering when you want to give vent to your “nature.” Nietzsche has got us on this one too.

Now, we’re a little bit more cautious to conceding to Nietzsche the third accusation: agape is an assault on personal fulfillment. Certainly we would admit that turning the other cheek doesn’t pay immediate dividends of pleasure. However, Nietzsche would be the first to concede that within his own experience, there are certain pleasures that may be immediately experienced and enjoyed by someone, yet that same pleasure may be an obstacle to a greater pleasure that yields greater satisfaction that is gradual, not immediate. I derive immediate pleasure in watching TV. However, to turn off the TV and discipline myself to practice an instrument or read a book sets the stage for great satisfaction - a satisfaction that may be delayed. In the same way, agape is an assault on the pleasure of personal fulfillment. But agape says that pleasure of self-absorption is inferior to the pleasure experienced in communal engagement - a pleasure that pays dividends gradually.

Lastly, the believer refuses to accept the last charge: the Christian ethic of love is pure exploitation that those in power wield to paralyze their subjects. True love, Paul insists, is zealous about fairness and truth.

Love Delights In and Upholds Justice and Truth

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”

- 1 Corinthians 13:6-7

Paul declares to the Corinthian church that Love is Zealous for:

•Right Living (Justice) – the opposite of evil
•Right Thinking (Truth) – the opposite of falsehood.

Which is to say, whatever “patience, kindness, trusting, believing, hoping, enduring” mean, it can’t be taken to exclude notions of justice and truth. I would even suggest that it is quite likely that the Corinthians believed that Love somehow excluded the emphasis on right living and right thinking. Paul seems to be referring to something that this church is doing which they suppose to be loving, pure, holy, right, good, but upon apostolic examination, they are delighting in evil and rejecting the truth.

Corinthian Love: Delighting in Evil and Rejoicing in Falsehood.

In some chapters earlier, Paul sharply rebukes the church for tolerating the sexual immorality of a particular member of their church. Paul says that they had become arrogant and boastful about this matter. At first this seems odd that a church would boast in the clear violation of Scripture in their midst. But upon further examination, it is easy to see how the church settled for pseudo-love believed to be biblical. A love that

•Celebrates individual expression, no matter what it is.
•Embraces and does not challenge wrong living
•Embraces and does not challenge wrong thinking
•Is non-judgmental
•Is non-confrontational
•Is intolerant of intolerance

This is a notion of love prevelent today. It’s a love that labels Jerome Pinn “unloving" and "intolerant”:

“Graduate student Jerome Pinn checked into his dormitory at the University of Michigan to discover that the walls of his new room were covered with posters of nude men and that his new roommate was an active homosexual who expected to have partners in the room. Pinn approached the Michigan housing office requesting that he be transferred to another room. Listen to Pinn's own description of what followed: "They were outraged by this [request]. They asked me what was wrong with me--what my problem was. I said that I had a religious and moral objection to homosexual conduct. They were surprised; they couldn't believe it. Finally, they assigned me to another room, but they warned me that if I told anyone of the reason, I would face university charges of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation." Click Here

The Intolerable Compliment: Loving People Enough to Confront

Paul pays the Corinthians the Intolerable Compliment. For Paul,

•Love doesn’t celebrate individual expression no matter what
•Love challenges wrong living
•Love challenges wrong thinking
•Love is compelled to make judgments about moral issues
•Love is compelled to confront.

C.S. Lewis coined this the Intolerable Compliment. He explains:

“When people talk about the goodness of God these days, they almost exclusively mean his love. And by love, we almost always mean his kindness – the desire to see others than the self happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, no so much a Father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves,’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’”

Later on he would say that kindness, on its own, is somewhat indifferent about whether the object loved is good or evil. As if to say, “if embracing evil and rejoicing in false hood makes you happy, then embrace it.” Love peers beyond this false happiness and sees that if evil and falsehood are embraced, it will lead a person to their utter misery. Love confronts with a person’s well-being in mind.

Lewis would illustrate this facet of God for us by using the illustration of how an artist feels for an artifact:

An artist working on a sketch merely to please a child is content to leave it as it is, even though it isn’t exactly how he wants it. An artist working on his magnum opus will take endless trouble - and give endless trouble to the picture if it were alive. “One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only the picture made for the child (a stick figure). In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but less love.

Loving People to Life

We are called to pay the intolerable compliment to one another – we love them so much that we will confront when necessary.

Proverbs 27:5 - 6 Open rebuke is better than secret love. 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

Psalm 141:5 Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon the head; Do not let my head refuse it, For still my prayer is against their wicked deeds.

To ensure that we’re not loving people to death by an unrestrained regard for truth and justice, we must answer these questions:

•Do I receive the intolerable complement when made by others. “I can give it, but not receive it?”
•Do I put much prayer and thought before confrontation?
•Do I know the person well enough?
•Do I have enough information?
•I’m I tethering truth with love and humility?
•I’m I being Punitive or Restorative?
•I’m I willing to go through the complete process of restoration?

Loving People to Life by Death

To love people to life, we are called to die. We are called to lay down our lives in paying the intolerable compliment. Sure, we’re not called to be a doormat, but sometimes we’re called to be a stepping stone for others. There’s nothing more difficult, nor more loving then bearing with someone’s dysfunction, sin, and character flaws as they make movements of progress, and relapse, and movements of progress, and relapses. But that’s precisely 1 Corinthian 13 love.

The Grammar of Love (1 Cor 13: 4&5 - Small Group Study)

by JM

“ 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5).

To ignore basic grammar in speech or print is a recipe for serious miscommunications. If you start treating verbs as nouns, and nouns as adjective, you remove basic building blocks of language, universally accepted norms (at least universal within a particular language) that enable on mind to successfully interact with another.

I would insist that something like this is true of Love. There is a basic grammar of love; basic building blocks that enable one soul to successfully love another. Some of these are laid out in 1 Cor. 13: 5 & 6.

Before looking over the particulars of this passage, there are three basics of love that are suggested by a cursory reading:

1. Love is Verbal

“I want to point out something to you that you wouldn't know unless you were aware of the Greek. When you look at verses 4 to 7 in the English, it says: "Love is patient, love is kind, love is this, love is not that, and so forth." In the English, love is described with adjectives. But in the Greek, each of these descriptions of love is a verb...and verbs describe action. So, love is not something you describe with adjectives; love is something you describe with verbs. Love is only love when it acts” (John MacArthur)

2. Love is Relational

“Love is patience, love is kind, does not envy, does not boast… - Verbs that make sense only given a subject and an object.

3. Love is Oppositional

Again, “Love is patience, kind…” - Concepts that presuppose opposition or some form of resistance. Patience, of course is a virtue that assumes one coping with the delay or incompetence of another.

All this to say that 1 Cor. 13 isn’t written to instruct you so much what kind of feelings you can conjure up, or on how to act towards those that you find lovely and amiable, it’s written to us about how we are to act towards those who are quite irritating. This is merely a restatement of what Jesus had said a few decades before.

Matthew 5:44-48 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -

I detect three different kinds of challenging relationship

*One Way Relationships
*Top-Down or Bottom-Up Relationships
*Criss-Cross Relationships

I. One Way Relationships

What do One-Way relationships look like? A relationship in which people give very little and require much.

How does Love Respond to One Way Relationships?

“Love is patient, love is kind.”

Patience: Love Puts Up With A lot

A good natured tolerance of delay or incompetence of a person; bearing of provocation, annoyance, or pain without complaint or loss of temper…"It is the word which is used of the man who is wronged and who has it easily in his power to avenge himself but will never do it."

“A pearl is a garment of patience enclosed in annoyance.”

Kindness: Love Gives A Lot

II. Bottom-Up /Top-Down Relationships

How Does Love Act When I’m a Have-Not: When I’m on the Bottom looking Up

“It does not envy”

Envy Defined: Envy is a painful and resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another…accompanied by a strong desire to possess the same advantage. Envy wants to have what someone else possesses. Why? They don’t deserve it, but you do. The root word for envy, in the Greek, means "to boil." It refers to an inner boiling,seething, or steaming over something somebody else has.

Example:

1 Samuel 18:6-11 6 It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. 7 The women sang as they played, and said, "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands." 8 Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" 9 Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on. 10 Now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house, while David was playing the harp with his hand, as usual; and a spear was in Saul's hand. 11 Saul hurled the spear for he thought, "I will pin David to the wall." But David escaped from his presence twice.

How Does Love I Act When I’m a Have? When I’m on the Top looking Down

“it does not boast”

Boasting Defined: The root word means “windbag.” Boastfulness is the empty verbalizing of accomplishments for the praise and adulation of others.

“Empty Trucks Make the Most Noise”

Envy and Boasting are forms of Pride

“it is not proud”

In his Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis contended that we can even be proud of our humility. Pride is a telescope turned the wrong way. It magnifies self and makes the heavens small.

III. Criss-Cross Relationships

What are Criss-Cross Relationships? All relationships include conflict over superficial irritations and not so superficial values. A Criss-Cross Relationship are those associations in which there is abnormal conflict with idiosyncrasies and values. 1 Cor. 13 Love will force you to wrestle with these two questions:

Do I Easily Offend: Am I Insensitive to other’s Sensitivities?

“It is not rude (inconsiderate) , it is not self-seeking,”

Am I Easily Offended: Am I Oversensitive to My Own Sensitivities?

“it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Tempering Conflict: Living out Romans 14:1-19

The Primacy of Love: Having a Love-Sided Community (1 Cor. 13 -Small Group Study- Wk 2)

by JM

I think that it is healthy periodically to ask yourself the following questions:

(1) What are my greatest talents?
(2) What am I weak at when it comes to relationships?
(3) How can I take my greatest talents and strenghten my relationships?

In turning to 1 Corinthians 13, it is clear that the church Paul addressed was tremendously talented while at the same time relationally dysfunctional. They were unable, or better yet, unwilling to build a bridge between spiritual gifts and spiritual community. So long as a person was functioning with frequency and intensity in their spiritual gift, cultivating godly relationships seemed unimportant. In fact, whenever the two were opposed (gift vs. bother or sister), the gift always won. With this philosophy of radical individualism, the result was a church content in being contentions and chaotic. It appears that they prided themselves in the contention and chaos, for that was thought to display to the world their ultimate value of individualistic expression, even when it meant corporate upheaval. For the Corinthians, Gifts were far greater than Love.

A Lop-Sided Church: A Gift-Sided Church

The unbalanced is striking: Here we have an immensely gifted and talented church who appears to lack in no spiritual gift. Here we have a unique church, in that we have no other example in the NT of a church operating with the fullness and intensity of the spiritual gifts than they. However, despite all the spiritual gifts, there was very little spiritual fruit; much charismata, little character

Wrong Measurements of Spirituality

The Corinthian Church prided themselves as having attained spiritual maturity. Their justification was grounded in the sheer enormity and expression of supernatural phenomena in their congregation. Their logic followed this course: If the presence and practice of spiritual gifts is the measure of spiritual maturity, and there are no other churches that function with the fullness and intensity of the gifts, then there’s no church as mature as the Corinthian church. To get a glimpse of this hubris, check out 1 Cor. 4:1-16.

Wrong Expressions of Spirituality

What did the typical Corinthian church service look like? I imagine it would make our Pentecostal brothers and sisters look Baptist in comparison. I envision tongue talking matches (or clashes), prophecy show downs, and “I have greater faith than you” displays('Oh, you moved a mole hill, we’ll I moved a mountain'). Regardless of the apparent exercise in madness, there was method behind it all. It was all quite reasoned out. If the intensity and quantity of your spiritual gift is the fundamental sign of spiritual maturity, then each service I must give full vent and expression to my gift - I'm displaying to myself and others the degree to which I’ve arrived. To refrain is to be unspiritual.

Bringing Balance: The Love-Sided Church

1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:3 31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

In this foray of poetic expression, I believe Paul to be saying that a spiritual person will display his maturity primarily in godly character, and in particular in a loving character. Love cannot or should not be classed with charismata (‘just another spiritual gift among others’). It is not one gift among many, it is the matrix in which all gifts are to be expressed and orchestrated; an all-embracing style of life that utterly transcends in importance the claims of this or that spiritual gift.

The irony of this passage is as striking as the chaos in the church: Paul is here declaring that the primary evidence of the Spirit working in one’s life is whether 1 Cor. 13 love is in operation in one’s life. As applied to the Corinthians, here we have the self-professed spiritually mature church (allegedly outranking all churches in their spiritual progress), lacking the primary evidence of the Spirit - Love. They have all the Gifts of the Spirit, and little of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Illustrating Love’s Primacy

With the opening volley of love, there’s a powerful image that is suggested.

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

A spiritual gift (be it tongues or prophecy…) is to love what cymbals are to sheet music in an orchestra (though of course full-blown orchestras were non-existent). Imagine a full-fledged orchestra. Cymbals and gongs are the kinds of things that are expressed only a few times compared to other instruments; expressions that are directed by the sheet music. We’ve seen the images the few cymbalists who are intently focused in on the sheet music, turning page after page with little activity of their own, awaiting for the crescendo and climax of the piece. And finally, the music is building up and their grand moment has arrived. In a moment that arrests the audience, with all instruments are at their peak, the cymbals and gongs are unleashed and as quickly terminated in a breath- taking musical tour de force. Notice the following things:

• The expressions of the cymbals are relatively infrequent.
• The expressions of the cymbals are strategic and timely.
• The expressions of the cymbals are subordinate (they play a supportive role) – they accentuate other instruments and/or the whole symphony
• The expressions of the cymbals are not-lime light instruments – not like the piano; or the violin.
• The expressions of the cymbals reach their potential due to their relationship to the sheet music, which determines their relationship to other instruments.

I would suggest that Paul is saying that this is the kind of relationship that should exist between Love and Spiritual Gifts. Love is incomparable in its importance, and should serve to dictate how gifts are expressed. The analogy is suggestive.

•The expressions of gifts are to relatively infrequent.
• The expressions of gifts are strategic and timely.
• The expressions of gifts are subordinate (they play a supportive role) – the accentuate other instruments and/or the whole symphony.
• The expressions of the gifts are never to be lime light gifts
• The expressions of the gifts reach their potential due to their relationship to love – They are spoiled and profit nothing if they deviate from love.

Introspection - Are We Lop-sided People?

Signs that you are gift-sided: You equate spiritual maturity with spiritual activity. It is enough in your mind that you are doing; that you’re active; that you’re in movement.

Signs that you are love-sided:

•You realize Most gifts are easier to perfect than the character needed to drive them: Anyone can brandish a knife and harm, but it’s only the surgeon that can cut to heal; anyone can brandish a tongue or prophecy, but can they do it out of love.

• You realize that spiritual maturity involves movement, but you realize that there’s something fundamentally more important and more difficult to get right than movement or activity = motive. (movement w/o right motive = nothing). In fact, right motive will inform the specific way you ought to act or express your gift.

• You will find yourself asking these questions:

o I’m I expressing my gift?
o Why am I expressing my gift? Am I expressing it to primarily build others or myself?
o Who do I express my gift to? Am I consciously trying to build others.
o How do I express my gift? Do I express my gift in a way to divert as much attention from myself as it possible?
o When I’m to express my gift? Am I able to refrain from expressing it so as to bring the greatest amount of blessings to others?

For two great messages helping to understand the context of 1 Cor. 13, listen to C.J. Mahaney's two outstanding messages:

Deflating the Puffed Up Church - 1 Corinthians 4

Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Next Weeks Memorization Verses: 1 Cor. 13:4 & 5.

Counter Cultural Love: Introduction to 1 Corinthians 13 - Week 1 (Outline of Small Group Study)

Pop-Culture on Love

by JM

One need only survey greatest hits to see that the American Culture has a love/'hate' affair with love.

First, you have pro-love songs vicariously sung by all love-struck lovers to each other:

I Will Always Love You/ Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston; Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer; The Power of Love by Celine Dion; Vision of Love by Mariah Carey; Endless Love by Lionel Riche and Diana Ross; All You Need is Love by John Lennon; Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by the Ohio Express.

When the couple breaks up, with ease they change their tune: shifting from singing the praises of love, to pronouncing curses on it. For Example:

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar; Whats Love Got to Do With It by Tina Turner; Since You’ve Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson; Cry Me a River by Justin Timberlake; Don’t Wanna Fall in Love by Green Day; Love Will Tear Us Apart by Jose Gonzales

I could only imagine what a alien race oblivious to “love” would make of such shifting definitions. They might make the following conclusions:

Combine Riche & Ross with Gonzales: Endless Love + Love Will Tear Us Apart = Endless Tearing. Sounds painful.

Combine Houston and Clarkson: I Will Always Love You + Since You’ve Been Gone ('I can finally breath for the first time') = Love is an Allergy. We Get Asthma Everytime There’s Contact.

Combine Palmer and Green Day: Addicted to Love + Don’t Wanna Fall In Love = An addiction akin to Meth or Crank.

Combine Dion and Benatar: The Power of Love + Love is a BattleField = A scene from World War II – Saving Private Ryan from Dion and Benatar

Culture on Love

The kind of confusion trivially and humorously illustrated through pop-culture is illustrative of a fundamental misunderstanding and dilution of Love as originally intended. Here are some cultural perversions of Love:

1. Eroticism: How much sensual pleasure will I get?

Article - The New York Times: Children, Media, and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages

Article - The Baptist Press: FIRST-PERSON: Troubling stats about teen sex –

2. Conditional Covenant Making: How can I guard my interests in this relationship?

Divorce Statistics: Click Here

Causes for Divorce:

Extra-marital affairs - 27% (29%);
Family strains - 18% (11%);
Emotional/physical abuse - 17% (10%);
Mid-life crisis - 13% (not in 2003 survey);
Addictions, e.g. alcoholism and gambling - 6% (5%);
Workaholism - 6% (5%)

3. Narcissism: How can I mask self-love with my love for others?

Being Kind to others to ensure Kindness in return
When Kindness isn’t returned, I cease to be kind

4. Minimalism: What’s the least amount I can get away with giving?

5. Tolerance: What values will I comprise to ensure people love me?

Counter-Cultural Love

Paul’s Treatise on Love in 1 Cor. 13 was penned as a corrective to polluted notions of Love imported from their culture; a culture not much different from ours, and therefore a chapter that will do much to correct our own faulty notions of love. We’ll divide this correction in the following way.

1. The Primacy of Love (Vss.1- 3): The Measure of True Spirituality.

2. The Grammar of Love (Vss.4&5): Love is a Verb which has an Object and a Subject.

3. The Boundaries of Love (Vss.6&7): Love is Not a Doormat, but it may be a Stepping Stone.

4. The Expressions of Love (Vss.8–12): Spiritual Gifts are Love’s Temporary & Inadequate Expression

5. The Cultivation of Love (Vss. 13): Towards a Trinitarian Love (faith hope and love)

6. The Frontier of Love: Group Outreach

Incarnating Love:Three Challenges To Our Group

Memorizing 1 Corinthians 13 – Verses 1-3 this week

How To Memorize Scripture:Click Here

Weekly Campaigns of Love in the Workplace

One Group Outreach