In the language Paul spoke, there were three words for love. Eros, used by the secular Greeks, is the lowest word for love. We get our word “erotic” from that word, and it means “sensual” or “sexual.”
Filos speaks of filial love, meaning the love of the family. The name of the city Philadelphia means “brotherly love.” It is a combination of the word filos and the word adelfos, “brother.”
Agape is the highest form of love. It is the kind of love God expressed in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Agape seems to be spontaneous, unrequited love, which means it is not necessarily paid back. It is the kind of love that flows out without expecting return, in a sense.
The apostle John writing his epistle puts it well when he said, “We love Him because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). The apostle Paul picks this up in Romans 5:7-8: “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
We come now in our study of I Corinthians to chapter 13, Paul’s discourse on love. About this chapter one writer says:
This chapter has been in all ages the object of the special admiration of the Church. Would it had been received in all ages the loftier and more valuable admiration which would have been expressed by the acceptance of its lessons! It is a glorious hymn . . . in honor of Christian love, in which St. Paul rises on the wings of inspiration to the most sunlit heights of Christian eloquence.
Now let us consider I Corinthians 13:1-13 for my message THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY.
1 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.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
This holy hymn quiets our hearts and makes us feel like Moses at the burning bush, when the Lord told him, “Take off your shoes, because you are standing on holy ground” (see Exodus 3:5).
I have spent hours in meditation on t...
