Love

You often hear the passage below read at weddings in Christian churches. Regardless of your beliefs, it is one of the most profound writings ever on the subject of love.

I have some comments, but I want you to think on the original words more than mine. Ponder on whether you believe these words to be true and, if so or if not, why. Is there anything you would add or take away?

To start, this is the New Living Translation. Different translations, while similar, can give slightly different impressions. This is the one I liked the most.

The word love here is the Greek word agapé. They have four words for love, just like the Inuit have many words for snow. This is not an erotic kind of love, however, if you really are “in love” with somebody and agapé isn’t blended in generously, you are not receiving love at its fullest. It makes a fairytale love complete. I'm not going to give a definition of what agapé means. I think the text covers it adequately.

This text not only tells you what love is, it tells you what it isn’t. That way you can know when it is real and when somebody is just pretending to love you.

The part about a poor mirror is often translated “through a glass darkly,” referring to a mirror. When I was in the British Museum, I was surprised to see that the mirrors of the first couple of centuries were not made of glass, but brass. As you know, brass tarnishes and turns black. Could this be what they mean by “through a glass darkly”?

I have asked myself this question about verse 13. Why is love greater than faith or hope? Here is the best I can come up with.

I can have faith that when I flick the light switch, it will come on. The reality is that there may be a time when it doesn’t. Sometimes your faith in something fails.

I may hope that a certain hockey team will win the Stanley Cup. For all of you Leaf fans out there, you can understand that your hope may be dashed quite easily.

But love is always there. Why? Love does not depend on anything external. It just is. It can be there no matter what.

Do you have a better answer? Please add a comment.


1 Corinthians 13
1. If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth, but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody.
3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud
5 or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
6 It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear.
9 Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little!
10 But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.
11 It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.
13 There are three things that will endure – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.