1 Corinthians 13:1 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.
Today’s verse comes from what is often referred to as the “love chapter” because it is an entire passage that details everything love is and should be. Paul wrote it to the Corinthian church, a group of believers who highly valued all of the spiritual gifts and put great emphasis on them. Gifts themselves are great and have value in the church, but the Corinthians lacked a sense of unity and fellowship, focusing more on the gifts and not on one another.
The gift of tongues was being interpreted by the Corinthians as highly valued and “proof” of highly spiritual people. They were viewing the act as being greater than other gifts, causing division between members. They were erroneously believing that those who spoke in tongues were more spiritual than those who had what they considered to be inferior gifts. It is that belief that Paul was addressing in verse 13:1.
Even the God-given ability to speak in a language one doesn’t know became nothing more than useless noise if it was not done with the right motive – love. The specific word used here for love is once more agape, meaning a self-sacrificing and godly love. Whatever gift they were blessed with amounted to nothing without love for one another.
When Paul mentioned the tongues of men he was referring to the languages spoken by people of that time. It would be the same as one of us suddenly sharing God’s Word in Mandarin when we had only ever spoken in English. It has nothing to do with how spiritual you may be, only how open to allowing the Holy Spirit to use you and obedient you are to love those who would be the recipients of the message you were given.
He also went on to mention the tongues of angels. This is a bit harder to define, as we don’t know if Paul was referring to a specific language of heaven or if it was a figure of speech used to make his point that even something as spiritual as a heavenly language amounted to nothing without love.
Whatever we do, whether using spiritual gifts or simply fellowshipping with others, love needs to be at the core. Everything should be based upon loving one another with a Godly, self-sacrificial agape love or our efforts are nothing more than a waste.
Prayer: Lord, Let everything I do be done with Godly love for others. I don’t want my actions to be wasted because I do them selfishly. Amen
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