“I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31).
If you have trusted in Christ, then you are a part of his Body. Like our physical bodies, this Body has many parts, but all function together, each doing its job. If one member suffers, all suffer together. This is easy to understand when we think of times we have experienced pain. If there is pain anywhere in your body, then it affects your whole body. Whether it’s a sore throat, a tooth ache, or a twisted ankle, pain in one part affects the whole. Conversely, when the body is healthy and all parts are working together, amazing things can be done and accomplished. Think of athletic prowess, or tests of endurance, or scientific discoveries which are made, all using body and mind to achieve something great.
As the Body of Christ, this is the way we were designed to function – interconnected with others for a greater purpose as we walk through this life – rejoicing when others rejoice and weeping when others weep. Within this Body, certain roles/functions/gifts have been given, according to 1 Corinthians 12:28: apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, helping, tongues.
After listing all these roles/gifts within the body, the Apostle Paul says that he would tell us about an even more excellent way of being than all these things represented. He then goes on in 1Corinthians 13 to give arguably the best and most beautiful definition of love that has ever been penned. He places love at the center, in the seat of honor. He says, in fact, that if we have any of these other gifts or abilities, or faith to remove mountains, but do not have love, the gifts, abilities, and faith are worthless.
The gifts and roles are given to build up and encourage the Body, and, it would seem, to reveal more of the mysteries of God to us. But as important as these are, it’s when we demonstrate love that we are the most like God, since love is his very nature. When we “live out love,” the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13, we are operating in that essence.
Love is the more excellent way.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When 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 gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
(1 Corinthians 13)
Life By The Way 