Love and the Practical Graces

Overview

The city of Corinth was a place of commerce. Nobody went there except to be successful. It was built from scratch just a few decades before Paul’s letter was written. There were not old families and traditions. This was a place that attracted an unusually resourceful, an unusually talented, an unusually ambitious, an unusually intense kind of person.

And right into this culture, Paul says, “I don’t care how rich or talented you are. If you’re irritable and impatient and selfish and self-centered and self-pitying and driven and anxious, you have nothing. Don’t say, ‘I just have a few personal issues to deal with.’ You have nothing. You are nothing.” Paul says character is everything. And so what is inner love and joy? What is the inner supernatural change in character that God can bring?

In 1 Corinthians 13, we see 1) two things that heart character is not, and 2) one thing that it is.