Love Trumps Everything Else
SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 13 
Read the passage
BIO: My name is Larry Kreider. I am an elder at FPCO and coordinator of the BASICS Sunday School Class as well as one of the teachers. I am the President of The Gathering/USA. My son, Brett, and his family are also members at FPCO. My daughter, Erica, and her family live in Morgantown, West Virginia, where they are in the process of helping launch a Children’s Ranch for troubled kids.
KEY VERSE: 1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
CENTRAL TRUTH: Spiritual vitality is not reflected by experiencing your spiritual gifts, and spiritual power doesn’t come from having world-class faith. Love is the key that unlocks the door to significant effectiveness.
DEVOTIONAL: Love Trumps Everything Else
When my wife, Susan, and I lived in Beirut, Lebanon, we built a relationship with a Palestinian refugee who was the concierge of our apartment building. One day he was missing from his position and I found out that he was arrested for not having proper papers for employment. I went through a difficult and time-consuming process to locate him and though I was unsuccessful, he later heard of my efforts. Upon returning to our apartment he said, “Islam has 99 names for God, but love is not one of them.” He was referring to sacrificial love. As a result, he became a follower of Christ.
I Corinthians 13 may be the chapter most often read in public and the least understood. There are three movements in this chapter that reveal love’s potency.
The first movement is the value of love, 13:1-3. People in Corinth placed a high value on linguistic ability and wisdom. Paul is not anti-knowledge. He knows knowledge is impressive but lives are not changed by Christian noise, no matter how cogent. They are transformed by love that defies reason.
The second movement is the virtue of love, 13:4-7. It’s like Paul is painting a picture of what love looks like. It is patient, kind, not jealous, doesn’t brag, is not arrogant, nor rude, nor self-seeking. Hmmm….. sounds like a portrait of Jesus. If people want to know WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) just send them to this chapter.
The third movement is the victory of love, 13:8-13. Spiritual gifts are like the sand in an hour-glass . . . eventually they will run out, they are temporary. They are effective for a season to point people to Christ, but in the end only love lasts for an eternity. Sadly, this is the message on a tombstone in England regarding a man who didn’t get the most important message. “Here lies a miser who lived for himself and cared for nothing but gathering wealth. Now where he is and how he fares, nobody knows and nobody cares.”
QUESTION 1: Can you think of other places in Scripture that tell the story of love as reflected in I Corinthians 13?
QUESTION 2: If love is the greatest characteristic of all, why is it the hardest to embrace?
QUESTION 3: How do you respond to a person who is totally loving but is caught up in Biblical error, i.e. the cults?
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