Sunday School Lesson

1. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Understanding Love
April 22, 2018
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
What’s the number one thing?
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The Glory of God!
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1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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2. April Memory Verse
1 John 4:7-8 NASB
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves
is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God,
for God is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Understanding Love
Ray Stedman 1917-1992
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4939299503409857&pid=1.7
The Bible Knowledge Commentary:
An Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary Faculty.
Jon Courson’s Application Commentary
New Testament Volume 1
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3. Suppose, living centuries ago in Israel, you journey to Jerusalem in order to
worship in the Temple.
Upon your arrival, you ask the whereabouts of the high priest and are told he's
ministering in the holy place—the area in the Temple containing the golden
candlestick, table of showbread, and the ark of the covenant.
"How do you know he's in there?" you ask.
"Listen carefully," you're told.
As you do, you hear the unmistakable sound of bells ringing inside the holy
place.
The Book of Exodus tells us that golden bells hung from the hem of the high
priest's robe.
Exodus 28:33-35 NASB
33 You shall make on its hem pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet
material, all around on its hem, and bells of gold between them all around: 34 a
golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, all around
on the hem of the robe. 35 It shall be on Aaron when he ministers; and its tinkling
shall be heard when he enters and leaves the holy place before the Lord, so that
he will not die.
We know from Alfred Edersheim and other Bible scholars that these bells were
made in such a way that they rang in harmony.

4. When we talk about our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, people sometimes ask
how we know He's alive, how we know He's truly in Heaven interceding on our
behalf.
We should be able to say to them, "Listen carefully, and you will hear the
harmonious ringing of the bells as He works through His body, the church.”
(unity/love)
The golden bells in Biblical typology are a picture of the manifestations, the gifts
of the Spirit (fruit of the Spirit).
As people see the working of the Holy Spirit through words of wisdom,
knowledge, and prophecy; through gifts of healing, faith and miracles; through
tongues and interpretation—as they begin to see the reality of the Spirit of Jesus
sounding forth through His body, they will know that He is indeed alive.

5. According to Exodus 39:25, between each of the bells on the high priest's robe
was a pomegranate - a fruit uniquely related to the Promised Land.
When the spies returned from the Promised Land, they came carrying grapes
and pomegranates as a sign of the land's productivity (Numbers 13:23).
In the Song of Solomon, the pomegranate speaks of peace and certainty,
beauty and romance (4:3; 6:7).
Joel refers to the pomegranate in connection with joy (Joel 1:12).
The New Testament equivalent is the fruit of the Spirit, which is love—defined as
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-
control.
Without the pomegranate between the bells on the robe of the high priest, there
would be nothing but clanging.

6. This was the case in the church at Corinth.
Although Paul says they possessed every gift of the Spirit, they lacked the fruit of
the Spirit.
This led to all kinds of noise, irritation, and confusion.
This is why, between his discussion of the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit in
chapters 12 and 14, here in chapter 13, Paul inserts a pomegranate—the fruit of
love.
1 Corinthians 13:1 NASB
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have
become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
William Barclay says:
A characteristic of heathen worship, especially the worship of Dionysus and
Cybele, was the clanging of cymbals and the braying of trumpets.
Even the gift of tongues was no better than the uproar of heathen worship if love
was absent and if void of love it might be momentarily electrifying like a clash of
gong or cymbal but then vanished just as quickly.
Love on the other hand produces eternal effects (v. 13).
1 Corinthians 13:2 NASB
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if
I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

7. Every gift is linked in some way to building up the church to maturity—some
(prophecy, knowledge, tongues) functioning in the early years of the Church
Age and others continuing on till the church is perfected.
When that perfection is achieved, the gifts will have served their purposes and
will be rendered obsolete.
But this will not happen to love.
1 Corinthians 13:3-5 NASB
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to
be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not
arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Some translations say “is not easily provoked” in 13:5c.
The word "easily" does not appear in any of the Greek manuscripts.
Thus, love is simply not provoked.
Phileo, eros and storgi forms of love can become irritated, provoked,
aggravated but not agape love.
Some have seen in verses 4-6 the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23); others
have seen here a description of Christ Himself.
Both perspectives are different sides of the same coin, both are applicable.

8. According to Ephesians 4:11-16, the gifts were to be used to bring the church
from a state of infancy to adulthood.
The word translated "mature" in that passage (Ephesians 4:13) is the word
translated "perfection" (teleion) in 1 Corinthians 13:10.
In the Ephesians passage, maturity is defined as "attaining to the whole measure
of the fullness of Christ."
Such a state will obviously not exist until Christ’s second coming.
"If you abide in Me," Jesus said, "you shall bring forth much fruit" (see John 15:5).
What fruit?
Love!
He told us we're branches, and that He is the Vine.
What do branches do?
Just hang in there, close to the Vine.
Therefore, as I stay connected to the Vine by getting to know Him and enjoying
Him, the fruit will come.
Fruit comes when you continue doing just what you're doing now—spending
time with Him, hanging in there week after week, month after month, year after
year.

9. Slowly, but surely, as you stay connected to Jesus, more and more of His agape
love will seep through you. You watch; you wait; you'll see.
1 Corinthians 13:8 NASB
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if
there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
There are three aspects of love which Paul considers in this brief chapter:
First, the preeminence of love over everything else; then the practice of love (in
a very forthright and helpful way); and then the permanence of love, the
enduring quality of it.
We should remember that this chapter on love, though it is often read separately
from the rest of the content, really fits beautifully with what the apostle has been
talking about in the previous section.
Paul speaks about the preeminence of love, how it is of more value than
everything else; and he also talks about the practice of love, how it comes out in
practical ways.
Now, in Verse 8, we have Paul's amplifying of the persistence of love, the
permanence of it.
It is all put in the opening words of Verse 8.
1 Corinthians 13:8a NASB
8a Love never fails;
The various versions translate that in many ways. The reason is that the apostle
has employed a very unusual Greek word here that is translated "ends" in the
RSV.
It really means, "to fall."
It says love never "falls."

10. Now that sounds strange to our ears, but it is meant in the sense that love never
falls away and disappears; it never quits; it is never used up; love keeps on
coming; the more you use it the more there is.
That is the point Paul is making here.
Many of you have discovered this.
You begin to exercise this kind of love and you find yourself enabled to exercise
it even more all the time; the more you give it away the more you seem to have.
Love is like bailing out a boat with a hole in it -- the more water you throw out,
the more there is; it just keeps coming in all the time.
That is the thought behind this, "love never quits"; it never stops coming on.
Love will not quit, despite all the obstacles that stand in the way.
Love refuses to give heed to what would turn off anything less, but keeps right
on.
God's love is like that.
This is surely what Paul is describing here as he contrasts this quality of love with
the things that will not last, the things that do quit, the things that pass away, in
Verse 8.
1 Corinthians 13:8 RSV
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will
cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Obviously, he is comparing this now to the spiritual gifts.
This is not knowledge in general or prophecy in general; this is the specific "gift
of knowledge," the "gift of prophecy," the "gift of tongues" that he is talking
about.
These were the three favorite gifts at Corinth.
They were making much of them in the church there, as many in the church
today make much of them.
Paul was telling them that, important and God-given as these gifts are, they
were never intended to last in contrast to love.

11. Love never quits.
1 Corinthians13:9-10 NASB
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes,
the partial will be done away.
The gift of tongues will cease and the gifts of prophesying and knowledge, will
fade away gradually.
They are gradually being replaced by something else, which he calls the
"perfect" thing.
We see how clear this is in Verses 9 and 10.
1 Corinthians 13:9-10 RSV
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the
perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
Clearly this is a gradual process.
Now, the question that it raises in our minds, of course, is, "What is this perfect
thing which, gradually increasing in our life, replaces our concern about gifts?"
It is interesting to see the many guesses the commentaries make about this.

12. Some of them suggest that the "perfect" thing here is the written Word of God.
In the 1st century, they did not have the New Testament as we have it.
They relied upon the teaching of prophets, evangelists, apostles and others who
spoke bits and pieces of the mind of God, but as the complete, written account
of that mind of God took shape and form in the New Testament, all the need for
these gifts would pass away.
It is the claim of those who teach this that as the Word of God, as we think of it,
came into being in the written New Testament, these gifts began to fade, so that
all the gifts of prophesying and of tongues and of knowledge have all long since
ceased and we are now shut up to the Word of God.
There are elements of truth in that, but that is not what this is referring to at all;
that is to totally ignore the context in which this word "perfect" appears.
Others have suggested that what Paul is talking about is Heaven.
Heaven is the perfect place.
Life is imperfect, and one of these days we will all fold our earthly tents, the
wheels of earthly life will cease their turning, and we will go to Heaven and then
the "perfect" comes.
There are also strong elements of truth in that.
In fact, Paul is going to return to that theme a little bit later in the paragraph.
But, again, that is not what he means by the word "perfect" here at all.
If we take the passage in its full context, in relationship to all that he has said
here and in the surrounding passages, it is clear that the word "perfect" refers to
love.
Love is that "perfect" thing, which, as it grows in our life, replaces our need for
and concern with the gifts of the Spirit. We find ourselves growing up into that to
which the gifts are designed to lead us, so, when the end begins to be
accomplished, the means to that end are no longer as fully required.

13. 1 Corinthians 13:11 NASB
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a
child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things (matured).
Back in verse 6, Paul says that love rejoices with the truth.
It is very difficult to combine love and truth but there is an intriguing passage in
the letter to the Ephesians that addresses this combination of truth and love.
Ephesians 4:15 NASB
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him Who is
the head, even Christ,
There is a connection between the Ephesians 4 passage and our text today.
Ephesians 4:14a, 15 NASB
14a As a result, we are no longer to be children,
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up (mature) in all aspects into
Him Who is the head, even Christ,

14. This speaking the truth in love constitutes the simplest, briefest, and yet the most
profound definition of Christian maturity.
We should seek to measure ourselves against this, and measure others as to
whether they are mature or not in the degree to which we manifest this quality.
Now it is hard to combine those two.
It is easy to speak the truth sometimes, to be blunt and caustic and even
embittered, and you can speak truth, but there is no love in it.
Or you can be loving, as we think of it, and refuse to hurt another and never tell
him anything that is unpleasant or distasteful.
But that is a quality that really reveals a lack of courage; it is a form of
deception. (Preaching only love)
It is the man or woman who can learn to speak the truth in love who is growing
up in Christ.
That is what this chapter is describing for us.
Paul says:
1 Corinthians 13:11a RSV
11a When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like
a child;
There is nothing wrong with that.
Children are supposed to act like children; everybody expects them to, and it
would be folly and a shame if they did not.
Paul also says:
1 Corinthians 13:11b RSV
11b but, when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
Why? Well, because he had become a man.
That is the end toward which a child always moves -- maturity -- and therefore
these things were no longer needed.

15. Now, what Paul is saying, of course, to these Corinthians (and to us), is that the
mark of maturity is the ability to love, to love the unlovely, the selfish, the
distasteful, the ungrateful, and to not let that change your attitude or your
actions toward them but to keep on working fully for their best interests (agape
love).
The gifts were designed to lead to love.
The quality of Christianity lies in its ability to love, to love the hurting, the weak
and the foolish.
Love then is the "perfect" thing, and, Paul says, one day it will be perfectly ours.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 NASB
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but
then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope,
love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
A city like Corinth, famous for its bronze mirrors, would have particularly
appreciated Paul's final illustration.
The perfection and imperfection mentioned in verse 10 were deftly likened to
the contrasting images obtained by the indirect reflection of one's face viewed
in a bronze mirror and the same face when viewed directly.
Such, Paul said, was the contrast between the imperfect time in which he then
wrote and the perfect time which awaited him and the church when the partial
reflection of the present would give way to the splendor of perfect vision.
Then Paul would see God (1 John 3:2) as God now saw Paul.

16. Clearly here he is anticipating the end of life, the dawning of a new day when
the morning will break and every shadow will flee away; all the imperfection of
life will come to an end, and love will stand face to face with love.
Now, he says, it is like looking in a mirror dimly.
He is talking about the way we are able to love.
These ancient mirrors were not like the silvered glass ones we have today that
give a clear and beautiful image, as they did not understand that process then.
Their mirrors were simply highly polished metal, so that, when you looked in
them, all you got was a rather indistinct, blurred image.
This is a beautiful symbol for life: Paul says that is the way we love today.
We sometimes try to visualize the face of Jesus, but it is instructive that the Spirit
of God has never given us a physical description of Him.
Some folks do not like pictures of Jesus because they distract from what the
Spirit is trying to impart, which is the true beauty of His being, His life, His
character.
Others may be helped by pictures and they cannot be faulted for that.
Paul says our efforts to visualize and to sense the personality and the glory of
Jesus are imperfect now, as we do not see Him very clearly.
But one of these days all those barriers will fade away, the mist will be dissolved,
and we will suddenly find ourselves face to face with the Lord Jesus!

17. The disciples experienced a little of this on the Day of Pentecost.
In the Upper Room, the Lord had said to them, "It is to your advantage that I go
away," (John 16:7 RSV).
They looked at Him with unbelieving eyes.
They must have been thinking in their hearts. "How could that be? To lose You, to
lose our chief treasure is to leave life empty and meaningless, dull and dreary.
We can hardly stand the thought of it. Are You telling us that it is to our advantage
that You go away? How could that be?"
But on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit came to reveal Christ to them, they
understood what He meant because suddenly all the questions they had been
asking, all the doubts they had felt were resolved.
An inner confidence sprang up within them that He is alive, and not only with
them - inside of them!
They understood what He had said; words that they had been puzzling over, that
had raised endless doubts and misconceptions in their minds, were suddenly
clear and striking and startling.
Now, that was just a foretaste of what is going to happen on the day when we
stand in the presence of Jesus.
Paul says that will happen with our knowledge as well.
We try to grasp the way God works in history.
We try to understand what He is doing with the events that fill our newspapers.
We ask ourselves, not what economic impact a certain event will have, but,
"Why did God allow it to happen?"
As we face those questions, we find ourselves able to see only very dimly, only
to get blurred and incomplete images of what God is doing; little glimpses,
fragments of insight perhaps, but nothing very clear.
But, one of these days, Paul says, we shall understand; we shall know Him as fully
as He now knows us.
All our questions will be answered; all our problems will be resolved.

18. So, in his final summary, Paul gathers it all up in the things that abide.
1 Corinthians 13:13 RSV
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Faith abides because faith is a human response to a divine provision.
Faith is doing something with what God has given you, and that is going to go on
through all eternity.
We lack everything; we human beings have nothing in ourselves.
We are constantly taking wisdom, power, instruction and ability from the hand of
God.
Everyone is, whether he knows it or not.
There is no ability to function as a human being without the gift of God to you
first.
Faith is a simple, deliberate response to the provision of God, therefore it abides,
because we will go on doing that throughout eternity.
Hope abides because hope is the expectation of yet more to come.
There is a phrase earlier in this letter where Paul speaks of "the things God has
prepared for those who love Him," (1 Corinthians 2:9b RSV).

19. We are beginning to dabble in the shallows of that now; we have found a few of
those things already, but that is an infinite number, and finiteness can never
encompass infinity.
God, therefore, is going to keep on opening our eyes to new vistas, opening our
spirits to new opportunities, to new adventures of faith.
It will never grow old; it will never get less; it will go on forever and ever because
He is infinite.
Hope, therefore, abides.
But love abides too, and the reason love is the greatest is because God is love.
God is not faith; God is not hope; God is love!
Therefore, to learn to love is to achieve the absolute, paramount value of the
entire universe -- to become like God.
That is what it is all about, isn't it?
The lie of the devil in the Garden of Eden was, if you disobey God you will be like
God; you will learn how to have a fulfilled life.
That lie, and its sad results are visible all around us, in our own lives and in the
world today.
But the Word of God says to trust Him, to follow Him.
To use what He gives you is one day to discover that the clouds pass away, the
mists all melt and the morning breaks, the shadows flee, and you are face to
face with Him and you are like Him.
When we see Him "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," (1 John
3:2).
Therefore, love abides -- and "the greatest of these is love."
Paul really concludes this section with the opening words of Chapter 14.
1 Corinthians 14:1a RSV
1a Make love your aim,

20. The word is pursue it; set your heart on it; make it your chief goal; work at it; think
about it; aim toward it; follow it; pursue it.
That is the idea; that is what life is all about.
To become a loving, compassionate, patient, kind, truthful person that brings
glory to God is the reason we exist.
Everything else must either minister to us to that end or be regarded as useless
and wasted time.
May God help us to hold this clearly in our minds and understand the reality of
these words, "the greatest of these is love."
Prayer
Lord, we feel so incapable of manifesting this quality of life, and yet your Word
assures us that this is what was intended. We do not have this ability in ourselves,
but we have it supplied to us in unending quantity if we but choose to use it.
Help us to make that our goal. Beginning the rest of today, and all of next week,
and for the rest of our lives, we will "owe no man anything, but to love one
another."
In Jesus' name, Amen.

21. Sunday
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2 Corinthians 1:3-14
Enjoying God’s Comfort
April 29, 2018
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
The Plan of Hope & Salvation
John 3:16 NASB
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 14:6 NASB
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father but through me.”
Romans 3:23 NASB
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23a NASB
23a For the wages of sin is death,
• Death in this life (the first death) is 100%.
• Even Jesus, the one who doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to pay the
penalty for our sins.
• The death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the second death explained in
Revelation 21:8.
Revelation 21:8 NASB
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

22. Romans 6:23b NASB
23b but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 5:8 NASB
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.
Revelation 21:7 NASB
7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be
My son.”
• Romans 10:9-10 explains to us how to be overcomers.
Romans 10:9-10 NASB
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person
believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in
salvation.
Romans 10:13 NASB
13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Have questions or would like to know more?
Please, contact First Baptist Church Jackson at 601-949-1900 or
http://firstbaptistjackson.org/contact/