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The New Testament > 1 Corinthians > Chapter 13

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• See Elder Eyring's 1989 BYU fireside address Coming unto Christ. Elder Eyring tells how as a boy 1 Corinthians chapter 13 caused him to have a wonderful feeling and made him long for a wonderful life. Further, reading it he felt that he could have this life with his family in the future--something "beyond even the best and kindest world I had known as a boy."

The New Testament > 1 Corinthians > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 8

• Why does Paul say that knowledge shall vanish away? Why is knowledge more fleeting than charity?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

Verse 8

Failing prophecies. Paul tells us here that prophecies fail. What does this mean? One way to read this is that some prophecies from God fail. Such an interpretation may at first seem surprising. Certainly though, there are many examples of prophecies failing in the Old Testament. The book of Jonah is an excellent example. The entire book is related to this question of a failing prophecy. Interestingly, it suggest that charity is the cause of the failure of that prophecy (see most explicitly Jonah 4:2). In Jonah, broadly summarizing, the prophet raises a complaint that his prophecy is doomed to failure (that, in fact, this is the reason he flees at the call) because of the love of God for the people of Ninevah. In other words, the infinitude of God's everlasting love marks the finitude of prophecy (finitude/infinitude arise mutually). Prophecy might be understood to be the corruptible body of the incorruptible love of God. All of this might help to understand what Paul is saying here: it is the incorruptible love of God that marks the corruptibility of prophecy. (The consequences of this point for a book like Revelation are vast.)

Since this verse dwells also on the place of tongues and knowledge, these two are apparently also struck with finitude by the infinite love of God. However, these two are questions of further complexity (or perhaps, further simplicity) in light of Paul's continued discussion of tongues (to which knowledge might broadly be compared existentially: both are relations directly with God that apparently ignore other relations) in 1 Cor 14. Whereas prophecy is explicitly a question of one's charity towards others, tongues and knowledge are a question of one's love (charity) for God directly. This complication does not undo the possibility of reading the finitude of knowledge and tongues, but clarifies how it might be read.

Verse 9

In part. Paul's phrasing here suggests that knowledge itself is fragmented (although, see 1 Cor 13:12), as is prophecy. This might be read as carefully tied to the discussion to follow beginning with 1 Cor 14:1.

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The New Testament > 1 Corinthians > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 13

• Verse 12 tells us that now we see as though we are looking through an obscure mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part but then we shall know even as we are known. The verse suggests a large difference between what we understand now and what we will understand then (presumably after the resurrection). But how do we explain the next verse where it says that faith abideth? In an environment where we know even as we are known, when we will see face to face (compared to looking through an obscure mirror), what room is their for faith?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

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