The Encourager
“The More Excellent Way - by Jeff Curtis”
The More Excellent Way
By Jeff Curtis
After pointing to a “more excellent way” in 1Corinthians 12:31, the Apostle Paul began one of the most elegant and profound sections in the Bible. He had been discussing the different types of miraculous gifts. Worldly-minded competition for the more visible gifts had caused a disruption in the church, and Paul was emphasizing the contribution that spiritual gifts ought to make to the unity of the body. For the moment, he laid aside the spectacular gifts known to the Corinthians and spoke about love, a trait that required no supernatural endowment from the Holy Spirit. The love that he wrote about is not just a warm feeling that comes and goes in a moment. It’s a settled disposition that begins with decisions and ends with actions.
This greatest statement the Bible has to offer about the supremacy of love in the Christian life is no digression from Paul’s discussion of unity and diversity in the body. People think they are being profound to claim that, when peace and love rule in a church, the sum is greater than the parts. It is more accurate to say that the gifts of each are enhanced when individual Christians love and support one another. Individuals have more to contribute to the whole when they give and receive support from fellow believers, but the whole can never be greater than the sum of its parts.
The testimony of Paul to the supremacy of love finds plenty of support throughout the Scriptures. When asked to identify the greatest of the commands in the law of Moses, Jesus gave an immediate response. While the Jewish ancient Jewish scholars have identified a total of 613 commands in the Law, Jesus summarized them in two:
He said, ““The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Love is the constraining force that motivates Christians to tell others about God’s grace and the salvation from sin that is available to all because it was purchased by the blood of the Lamb. “For the love of Christ urges us on,” Paul wrote in his later letter to the Corinthians, “because we are convinced that one has died for all, therefore all have died” (2Corinthians 5:14; NRSV).
Words like “love,” “faith,” “grace” identify bedrock principles for those who confess Jesus as Christ. In political realms, key words might be “patriotism,” “freedom,” and “family.” The problem with such words is that they become so flexible that they have no concrete meaning. When a word encompasses too much, it begins to mean nothing at all.
In its long history, Christ’s church has been absorbed with defining such ideals as love, faith and grace. To define a word is to limit it and assert that not everything qualifies to be known by that term. No one can be guided by principles without a level if understanding about those principles. The author of Hebrews used examples to put “faith” into words (Hebrews 11:1). Christians can be grateful to Paul for moving “love” from the level of the abstract to the concrete realm of behavior in 1Corinthians 13.
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