Verse 13
"Now" resumes Paul’s original thought about the supremacy of love. It does not carry on the contrast between what is now and what will be later. In contrast to what will pass away-namely, knowledge, tongues, and prophecy-faith, hope, and love will endure (cf. Romans 5:1-5; Galatians 5:5-6; Ephesians 4:2-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:8; Hebrews 6:10-12; Hebrews 10:22-24; 1 Peter 1:3-8; 1 Peter 1:21-22). Faith here is not the gift of faith (1 Corinthians 13:2; cf. 1 Corinthians 12:9) but the trust in God that characterizes all His children.
Among the enduring virtues love is the greatest because it will only increase when we see the Lord rather than decreasing in us, as faith and hope will. In the future we will continue to trust God and hope in Him, but the reality of His presence will make it easier for us to do so then than it is now.
Apparently Paul introduced faith and hope at this point to show that love is not only superior to the gifts, but it is superior even to other great virtues. Faith and hope are gifts, and they are also Christian virtues of the same type as love. Yet love even outstrips the other major Christian virtues because it will outlast them.
"Love is a property of God himself. . . . But God does not himself trust (in the sense of placing his whole confidence in and committing himself to some other being); if he did, he would not be God. . . . If God hoped he would not be God. But if God did not love he would not be God. Love is an activity, the essential activity, of God himself, and when men love either him or their fellow-men they are doing (however imperfectly) what God does." [Note: Barrett, p. 311.]
The point of this beautiful classic exposition of love is this. We should value and give attention to the cultivation and practice of love even more than to that of the spiritual gifts (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:31). The gifts, as important as they are, are only partial and temporary. As love is the greatest of the virtues that will endure forever, so the gift of tongues is the least of the gifts. It will last only a short time.
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