Having persuaded this church to recognize the facts that they have allowed distinctions and divisions to creep in and become established, with this critique extended to the entirety of the church, as all (whether perceived as being high or low within the church ) would have to tacitly agree to participate in such arrangements, Paul promptly dissuades them from any sense that this is appropriate by delivering the words “But you should be eager for the greater gifts” (12:31a). Before continuing on to what comes next, we must observe the reminder to keep ourselves in the proper mindset if we want to be able to properly discern Paul’s message and his intent. Yes, we are presuming and surmising, and hopefully making educated guesses in the process. Yes, we will fail to grasp details and perhaps even miss major points. However, by attempting to immerse ourselves in the culture, and by attempting to situate ourselves within a church community of first century hearers in the city of Corinth that is a part of and is shaped by the Greco-Roman world, rather than as private twenty-first century readers that occupy a world that is, for the most part, vastly different from the world occupied by Jesus, Paul, and the members of the Corinthian church, we give ourselves a greater chance of success in determining the problem, the message, and Paul’s intentions associated with the delivery of the message that his letter to this church communicates.
It is upon this declaration that Paul enters into what is thought of as his great soliloquy upon love. While beautiful in and of itself, it cannot and should not be considered apart from what comes before and after, or apart from a consideration of Paul’s somewhat contentious communication to this church. When Paul insists that “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious” (13:4a), it is incumbent upon us to hear these words as though we were among Paul’s original hearers. If we do so, we do so with a knowledge that we are missing the mark in the exercise of spiritual gifts, and that what we are attempting to call love is nothing more than our individual and selfish pursuit of honor and its attendant of a better position at the table, that all may bask in our glorious spirituality and ultimately come into submission to our hard-earned spiritual authority. Re-calling our attention to the possibility that this is being read at the symposium, Paul goes on to write “Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful” (13:5).
When we hear the words of the “chapter of love,” we do so according to the tone of the letter as a whole. We would agree that there is much instruction taking place throughout the letter, and we can also agree that much of the instruction is in the form of correction. The correction, of course, implies that there are problems that need to be corrected, indicating a need to alter an existing course of action or accepted situation. So as Paul writes about the nature of love, which must be tied to the correction that is on offer from him, he is not simply espousing a set of free-floating ideals to be met, or thinking of words that will eventually come to be read at weddings (though there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with this), but pointing out to his audience where it is that they are falling short of the ideal that is tied to their confession of Jesus as Lord.
At the same time, we are not to hear these words first as that which we are to achieve as individuals, but they are first to be heard within the context of the community that is to be defined by love. As they are heard and understood communally, in relation to the kingdom of God, they are then put in practice on an individual basis, by those who desire to participate in this community. When we hear about love being patient and kind, we know that patience and kindness was not being exercised towards all in this church in a uniform way. Thus when Paul tells them that love does not brag, is not puffed up, is not rude, self serving, easily angered or resentful, we can confidently assert that there was a great deal of bragging, puffery, rudeness, self-service, anger, and resentment at work in this church. Presumably, this was being put on display through direct actions, while the separating and dividing actions that were part and parcel of the meals and therefore the life of the church were probably engendering anger and resentment from those on the receiving end of the hurtful and deleterious behavior that truly had no place amongst those called to represent the kingdom of heaven.
In a similar vein we hear that love “is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth” (13:6). While this phrase, as others, can certainly make an independent stand, and we can agree that we are not to be glad about injustice while also concurring that the truth is something in which we should rejoice, this, like everything else in this letter (and in the whole of the Bible) demands to be first understood within its context before pulling it out to make in an isolated aphorism. If Paul is instructing this group of people that love is not glad about injustice, then we must presume that there was a certain gladness about injustice. It is probably not the case that Paul is here thinking about injustices being perpetrated outside the church (though that can be a proper extension once we rightly consider this statement in context and learn what it means for the church as a body), but rather, the injustice that is being perpetrated inside the church, as the rampant injustices of the world outside the church infiltrate the body of Christ and find themselves on display at the church meal that is supposed to be evocative of the Passover and its liberation of the people of God, of the messianic banquet and the liberating rule of God in the world, and especially at the Lord’s Supper portion of the meal that was to serve as the very explicit reminder that God’s rule is currently taking place through the Lordship of Jesus and that those that come to the Lord’s Supper, to take the bread and the cup, are agreeing to submit to that Lordship and to participate in the advance of that kingdom.
That kingdom has as its mission statement (though these would have been circulating in oral form at the time of the writing of the letter to Corinth) words such as “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19), along with words like “For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I was naked and you gave Me clothing, I was sick and you took care of Me, I was in prison and you visited Me… I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me” (Matthew 25:35-36,40b).
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