“Love is patient, love is kind” is read at weddings. Paul wrote it to a church that was tearing itself apart

The most famous passage on love in the Bible was written to people who were fighting.

1 Corinthians 13 is read at weddings around the world, including countless Ghanaian and Nigerian church weddings every Saturday. “Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.” But the apostle Paul did not write it for a couple. He wrote it to a church in the Greek city of Corinth that was divided, proud and competitive.

The church at Corinth

Corinth was a wealthy, busy port city. The church Paul had planted there was full of problems. Members split into factions around different leaders. Some tolerated serious immorality. Wealthier members ate and drank at the Lord’s Supper while poorer members went hungry. And many were proud of their spiritual gifts, especially speaking in tongues, treating them as signs of status.

Chapter 12 describes the church as a body with many parts, each needed. Chapter 14 gives rules for using gifts in worship. Chapter 13 sits between them, and it explains what should govern everything else.

Gifts without love

Paul begins with the very things the Corinthians prized: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Prophecy, knowledge, faith that moves mountains, even giving away everything and dying as a martyr: without love, Paul says, they are worth nothing.

What love does

The famous middle section describes love by its actions. It is patient and kind. It does not envy, boast or behave rudely. It does not insist on its own way, is not easily provoked, and keeps no record of wrongs. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears, believes, hopes and endures all things.

Each line answered a problem in Corinth. Envy and boasting matched the competition over gifts. Rudeness matched the behaviour at the Lord’s Supper. Insisting on one’s own way matched the factions.

What lasts

Paul ends by looking to the future. Prophecies will end, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.” Three things remain: faith, hope and love. “But the greatest of these is charity.”

For this week

Replace the word “love” in verses 4 to 7 with your own name and read it aloud. Where the sentence stops sounding true, that is where to pray.

A prayer

Lord, whatever gifts you have given me, do not let me use them without love. Make me patient and kind at home, at work and in church. Teach me to keep no record of wrongs. Amen.

Couples promise these words to each other at the altar. Paul first sent them to a congregation that needed to learn how to share a meal.