November 26 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

1 Corinthians 13:

¹Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
²And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
³And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
⁴Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
⁵Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
⁶Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
⁷Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
⁸Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
⁹For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
¹⁰But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
¹¹When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
¹²For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
¹³And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Devotional:

The word love has been largely stripped of its meaning. It has become synonymous with concepts as diverse as sex or benevolence or lack of hostility. So it is good to read 1 Corinthians 13 often and to sharpen our understanding of love in its most profound sense. Living, as we do, in an atmosphere of such weakened concepts, it is indeed necessary actually to reconstruct our own understanding of the meaning of love as well as of other words. Let us delve into its wealth as Scripture uses it to describe God's relationship toward His people and the relationship He would have us sustain toward Him and toward one another.

The contemporary Christian public has been made familiar with the three words for love available to the Greeks: phileo, eros and agape, Phileo means to have a benevolent feeling, a feeling of goodwill. We meet it in the word Philadelphia, which means 'brotherly love.' Eros refers to sexual love and we recognize it in our word erotic. Agape is the deeper, stronger word which Christian writers found best suitable to take over and adapt to their own use.

Agape is the word which is used most commonly in the New Testament. It refers to God's love for His people, their love for Him, and their love for one another. From its usage we understand how our God regards us and how He enables us to regard one another.

Masumi Toyotome speaks of three kinds of love from a different perspective.* First there is the "if kind of love, which is given provided the recipient measures up to certain standards. Then there is the "because" kind of love, which is given as a result of what its object has done or looks like, or how its object makes the lover feel. And third, there is the "in spite of" love! This is the love which issues from a heart because of the nature of that heart, the love that is poured out, not if it is deserved, or because it is deserved. This is the love which the one who knows he is an unlovely sinner longs for!

This is the love of God the Father! Let us pray that He will in His grace channel this love through us to our spouse and to our children and to all the world around! This is the love of 1 Corinthians 13.

* Toyotome, Masumi. Three Kinds of Love. Inter-Varsity Press, 1970.