The Most Excellent Way

 DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY

1 Cor 12:31-13:3

31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 13:1 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. 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.

NIV

We just had to combine the last verse of chapter twelve with the beginning verse of chapter thirteen. However, Paul did not write in chapters, but a whole letter, perhaps with a few new paragraphs, but then they did not even have all the grammatical rules of English that we have today. In fact, our Grammarly software suggests errors in some of the verses. What we have here to deal with is we should eagerly desire the more excellent gifts, but which gifts are they? We are going to find out as we continue, but we should camp out here on the most excellent way which is doing all these things, having any of the gifts while in the course of love. Paul is not saying that if he speaks in tongues as he doesn’t but that whenever he speaks in the tongues of men and of angels and he does without having love in his heart, first for God and second, for all people, it is only making a lot of noise, meaning gonging. Even when the gift of prophecy which we now know includes being able to fathom or absolutely know all the mysteries and all knowledge is manifested and we do not have love in our hearts we gain absolutely nothing. Even the gift of faith is meaningless unless we have love in our hearts. What good is it to be able to move mountains if it is not for the common good, which means having love for all others that are that common good? Although giving is one of the gifts discussed elsewhere, Paul is making the point that we might look good in the eyes of other men if we were to either give all our possessions to the poor or allow ourselves to be persecuted. We do all that without love in our hearts we gain nothing. We are going to get to this famous love passage that is recited at many weddings, which is used to demonstrate how a husband and wife should love each other, but it is far more reaching than just in a marriage, although there is much to be said about how a marriage should be based in love. This love is about how the whole church, or we should say, the whole body of Christ should have toward one another. If we were to take this at face value, anything we do as believers gains us nothing if we are not doing whatever with love in our hearts. This is to say we should not do anything for self-gratification, or seek the praise of people, boasting about all that we do, for that is not having love in our hearts for others, but only for ourselves. There is no question that love is the most excellent way.