Today's reading: Exodus 7; 1 Corinthians 13
Fun fact: This was one of the first passages of Scripture I ever translated.
If I remember right, I was a couple chapters into my project to translate Galatians and Megan and I got in a big fight about something, and translating this passage was how I tried to clear my mind a bit and get myself to a place where I was more focused on loving her than on being right or protecting my pride.
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body, that I might boast, but do not have love, I accomplish nothing.
4Love is patient and kind. Love is not envious, does not boast and is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs suffered, 6it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all.
8Love never ends, but as for prophecies, they will be brought to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will be brought to an end. 9For we know in part, and we prophecy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be brought to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I put an end to childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
13So now these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13 (JBT)
The thing that struck me today as I was reading this passage though is the diversity we have in love.
It seems like a lot of people have this thought that Heaven will be pretty boring because we will all get our white robes and harps, and we’ll just stand around, everybody kind of the same, with a lot of what makes people interesting or unique stripped away.
But one of the things Paul is implicitly pointing out in this chapter is that God has created us with a great diversity of drive, inclination, interest, etc. If that wasn’t the case, Paul could call the Corinthians out for their misuse of the gift of tongues and move on, but he doesn’t. Some people will be inclined to glorify themselves with the tongues of men and of angels, but they need to learn to temper that with love. Others are excited about knowledge and want to learn for the sake of learning, and they too need that tempered by love. Others are gifted to be insanely generous and self-sacrificial, but even that, if not tempered by love, is ultimately worthless.
The more we allow who God designed us to be to be refined and tempered by God’s love, its not that it erodes individuality, but that it allows it to be seen and experienced that much more fully.
God didn’t create a few billion copies of the same template just changing the hair and skin color as He went, and it’s only the Fall or our sin that makes us different. He has individually designed, created, and gifted each person who has ever existed. We are created in His image, and we are each created uniquely, but it is only in learning to walk more fully in His love that the individuality God crafted into us can truly come into focus and be the light and blessing to the world that He intended.
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