Lessons #471 and 472
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Permanence of Love (1 Cor 13:8-13)
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Recall that the message of this section of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 that we stated in our last study is: The permanency of love is the primary reason for its supremacy over gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge and over faith and hope. In the introduction of this section, we stated that the apostle was concerned with permanency of love that he communicated by providing three reasons for the supremacy of love over prophecy, tongues, and knowledge that we considered in our last study. Furthermore, we stated that the apostle made two comparisons. The first is between childhood and adulthood. The second is between the time of “the perfect” and “now”. Both comparisons, he discussed in verses 11 to 12. We begin today in our study with the comparisons the apostle gave in the passage we are examining.
The first comparison the apostle gave as we have stated involves childhood and adulthood although he used himself in the comparison. Consequently, the apostle presented three communication related activities of childhood that formed the basis for his comparison between childhood and adulthood. The first activity the apostle mentioned concerns verbal communication as we read in the clause of 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child.
The word “child” is translated from a Greek word (nēpios) that in general Greek usage means “immature,” “foolish” and refers to beings ranging from fetal status to puberty. However, in Greek NT, it is used firstly in a literal sense of a very young child hence means “child, infant” as it is used to describe those God had ordained to praise Him as stated in Matthew 21:16:
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”
Secondly, it is used figuratively to describe an immature Christian in Ephesians 4:14:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
The word may be used to describe one who is unspoiled by learning hence means “child-like, innocent” as it is used in the description of the disciples by the Lord as recorded in Luke 10:21:
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
The word may refer to one who is not yet of legal age hence means “minor, not yet of age”, as it is used to describe a child as not being different from a slave as it pertains to the estate of the father as we read in Galatians 4:1:
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, the word is used in the sense of “a very young child.”
It is true that literally the Greek word the apostle used in 1 Corinthians 13:11 refers to “a very young child,” it seems that he was thinking more about the immaturity of a child than the age of a child. We say this because there is another Greek word (paidion) that means “a child” in the sense of a child below the age of puberty, so could also mean “a very young child” but the apostle did not use it. It is not like the apostle does not know about this word for he used it later in encouraging believers to avoid thinking like children in the spiritual life but only think like them when it involves evil as we read in 1 Corinthians 14:20:
Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.
However, the word the apostle used in 1 Corinthians 13:11 for a child is one that is used in general Greek for immaturity or foolishness. Thus, the word is translated “infant” in the passage we cited previously and will cite later, that is, Ephesians 4:14:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
The word “infants” used here is concerned with immaturity because infants are easily deceived but not so with the one that is matured hence the apostle indicated that spiritual maturity should be our goal as believers in Ephesians 4:13:
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Anyhow, the point we are stressing is that the apostle used the Greek word translated “child” in 1 Corinthians 13:11 because his focus is not so much on age as it is on maturity of a child. In other words, when the apostle states When I was a child he meant when he was immature as a human being. The immaturity of a child manifests itself in the child’s speech. Thus, the apostle begins to describe what characterize a child that indicates lack of maturity.
The apostle indicates that an immature child could be recognized by the child’s speech as in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 13:11 I talked like a child. The word “talked” is translated from a Greek word (laleō) that may mean “to make a sound” by inanimate objects, as it is used for the blood of Jesus Christ that speaks more effectively than that of Abel in Hebrews 12:24:
to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Literal blood does not speak, so that the sense here is that blood communicates or makes a sound. Of course, the human author of Hebrews indicates that the death of Christ communicates truth that is more effective than the death of Abel. The word may mean “to speak” with various nuances but let us consider few of these. To speak may mean “to express oneself” as that is the sense of the word in the instruction of 1 Corinthians 14:34:
women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.
The standard Greek English lexicon of BDAG suggests that the sentence They are not allowed to speak may be translated they are not permitted to express themselves. To speak in some context may mean “to preach” as the word is used by Apostle Paul in describing the effort of the Jews to keep him and others from preaching the gospel to the Gentiles as he stated in 1 Thessalonians 2:16:
in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.
Speaking to the Gentiles is not merely chattering with them but presenting the gospel to them so it may mean “to preach.” In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, it is used with the sense of “to express in speech,” that is, “to speak.”
Speaking is that which results from two related activities the apostle described in the verse we a considering. These two related activities are given in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 13:11 I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
The word “thought” is translated from a Greek word (phroneō) that may mean “to have an opinion with regard to something” and so “to think, form/hold an opinion, judge” as the word is used by Apostle Paul in encouraging mature believers regarding the view they should have, not thinking they have arrived spiritually but forgetting the past to press forward in the spiritual race as we read Philippians 3:15:
All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
The word may mean “to give careful consideration to something,” hence “to set one’s mind on, be intent on something” as it is used to instruct believers to be heavenly minded in Colossians 3:2:
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
The word may mean “to develop an attitude based on careful thought” as Apostle Paul used it in instructing believers to have the attitude of Jesus’ Christ reflected in His humility in that He willingly humbled Himself to benefit us as we read in Philippians 2:5:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, the word has the sense of “to think,” that is, to dispose the mind in a certain way or to have an opinion about something.
The word “reasoned” in sentence of 1 Corinthians 13:11 I reasoned like a child is translated from a Greek word (logizomai) that may mean “to determine by mathematical process” and so may mean “to count, take into account” as the word is used to describe a blessed individual as one that God does not hold the individual’s sin against the person as per the quotation of from the OT Scripture by Apostle Paul that is recorded in Romans 4:8:
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
Under the concept of determining by mathematical process is the meaning of “to evaluate, estimate, look upon as, consider” as a result of a calculation. It is in the sense of “to consider” that Apostle Paul used it in his quotation from OT Scripture in support of his teaching that the love of God for us cannot be changed as we read in Romans 8:36:
As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
The word may mean “to hold a view about something,” that is, “to think, believe, be of the opinion” as the apostle used it to describe himself to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11:5:
But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.”
The word may mean “to give careful thought to a matter” and so may mean “to consider, to ponder, think about, let one’s mind dwell on something” as the apostle used it to caution those who are superficial in spiritual matters to recognize that he and his apostolic team belong to Christ as we read in 2 Corinthians 10:7:
You are looking only on the surface of things. If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as he.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, it has the sense of “to reason/think,” that is, “to use or exercise the mind or one’s power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, or arrive at a solution or judgments.”
The two activities of the mind the apostle mentioned about a child are related. This we can see by the fact that the two Greek words translated “thought” and “reasoned” have the meaning “to think.” Both words may mean “to regard.” Thus, the apostle used the first Greek word with the meaning “to regard” in stating the preference believers may have regarding the day of worship as we read in Romans 14:6:
He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
The second Greek word is used with the same meaning of “to regard” by Apostle Paul to describe how something may be unclean or unclean to someone because of the person’s evaluation as we read in Romans 14:14:
As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
Hence, even from the Greek we can see that the two Greek words the apostle used may in some situations be synonymous with each other. The Webster dictionary states that the word “think” and “reason” are synonymous to each other but gives a slight distinction between the word “think” and the word “reason.” It says that “think is general and may apply to any mental activity, but used alone often suggests attainment of clear ideas or conclusions” while “reason stresses consecutive logical thinking.” The UBS handbook differentiates the two by stating that the first Greek word refers to opinion, judgment, or attitude rather than emotion, and the second refers to logical processes.
The apostle indicated that he used to think and reason as a child when he was a child but what does he really mean by such an assertion? He probably meant that his thoughts and reason were then limited by the nature of a child. There are at least two things that characterize any child. First, is the lack of sense of what are the moral standards acceptable by a society. This means that a child would say or do things that come to their minds without filtering their thoughts through moral standards to determine the appropriateness or the acceptability of what they say in keeping with the acceptable standard of a society and certainly not in keeping with the Scripture. Most parents have tried to put their hands over their children’s mouths or tried to stop them from talking because they were saying something that they should not or many parents have been embarrassed because of their children’s conduct. The point is that a child lacks the sense of what is morally acceptable by the child’s society. It is for this reason we are informed we could tell about the character of a child by how the child acts as we read in Proverbs 20:11:
Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right.
A child who behaves in a manner that is acceptable is usually because that child has been taught some basic truths or principles by the parents. Second, a child is characterized by foolishness in the sense of lack of thought. This foolishness is removed by discipline that involves both instruction and punishment as we read in Proverbs 22:15:
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
These two characteristics we mentioned imply that a child’s thought and reasoning are limited by the knowledge that child possesses. Hence, to reason or to think like a child implies reasoning or thinking based on a very limited understanding of essential truths. This being the case, the apostle meant that when he was a child his thinking or reasoning ability was limited by his knowledge base so that he spoke and acted foolishly.
Things changed for the apostle once he matured as a human being. It is this that he stated in the clause of 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
The word “became” is translated from a Greek word (ginomai) that may mean “to be” although it is different from another Greek word (eimi) that may also mean “to be” in that our Greek word emphasizes that of being what one was not before. That aside, our Greek word has several meanings. For example, it may mean “to come into existence” so may have the sense of “to perform” as it is used for the description of the miracles of the apostles in Acts 5:12:
The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.
The word may mean “to become something” as Apostle Paul used it in cautioning believers not to become stumbling block to others in their use of their freedom in Christ in 1 Corinthians 8:9:
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.
The word may mean “to occur as process or result” hence may mean “to take place, to happen.” It is in this sense of something occurring because of another thing that the word is used by Apostle Paul regarding the commendation the Lord will give in the future as stated in 1 Corinthians 4:5:
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.
The sentence each will receive his praise from God is literally praise will come to each one from God. It is with the meaning “to happen” that Apostle Paul used the word to describe his sufferings as stated in 2 Timothy 3:11:
persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, the general sense of the word is “to become,” that is, to enter a certain state that one was not before. The Greek used a perfect tense that implies that the apostle had entered a state that cannot be changed. He could not revert back to being a child. The state entered that the apostle was not previously is described with the word “man” in 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I became a man.
The word “man” is translated from a Greek word (anēr) that may mean “an adult male” in contrast to a woman as in the description of believers of both genders that were persecuted by Paul before his conversion, as we read in Acts 8:3:
But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
In some context, the word means “husband” as in describing the status of a woman when her husband dies, according to Romans 7:2:
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
The word in some context conveys the sense of maturity as implied in its use by Apostle Paul to describe a goal believers should aim in a passage we cited previously, that is, Ephesians 4:13:
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
The verbal phrase become mature of the NIV is literally to a mature man. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 13:11, the word means “man” in the sense of “an adult human male in contrast to a boy.” However, there is the implication that adulthood carries with it the sense of maturity.
In any case, the apostle indicated that what characterized him as a man is that of setting aside the things of childhood as in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 13:11 I put childish ways behind me. Literally, the Greek reads I put an end to the things of the child. The expression “put an end” of the literal translation or “put…behind me” of the NIV is translated from the same Greek word (katargeō) used in verses 8 and 10 that we indicate has the mean “to end.” In verse 11, the nuance of the word is that of “to set aside” since when something ends there is the implication that the thing is no longer in existence. It is doubtful that the apostle had in mind that the “things of the child” are ended in a way that they no longer exist implying they have been permanently eradicated. We say this because of what the apostle could have meant in the phrase childish ways of the NIV or literally the things of the child. As we have stated, when something ends that thing no longer exists so if a person puts to an end the individual’s childish way, the person would no longer be capable of them. If the childish ways involve, for example, sin, to put an end to them would imply that a person has attained perfection which is not possible. It is for this reason that we indicate that it is better to use the phrase “set aside.” Of course, the apostle used the perfect tense in the Greek implying that he was done with the things of a child in the sense that he would no longer return to them as a way of functioning
Let me elaborate the point that our Greek word that we stated meant “to end” in verses 8 and 10 is better taken in the sense of “to set aside” in verse 11. We have noted that one of the things that characterizes children is foolishness. Foolishness is not something that is permanently ended because one has become an adult. If this was the case, the Lord would not have indicated that the disciples were foolish because they did not believe the OT Scripture about Him as we read in Luke 24:25:
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
Similarly, Apostle Paul would not have described the Galatians as foolish because they thought that spiritual life is due to works instead of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with truth from the word of God as implied in his question to them recorded in Galatians 3:3:
Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?
There is no doubt that foolishness in the sense of lacking good sense or judgment would cause some in Corinth not to understand the nature of spiritual gifts, but the apostle was also concerned with sinful conducts when he used the phrase of 1 Corinthians 13:11 childish ways because his focus is on love that would have prevented the sinful conducts in the local church in Corinth.
What does the apostle mean in the phrase childish ways? Some, based on the fact that the word “talked” used in the verse we are considering is used in verse 20 of the fourteenth chapter of this epistle where the apostle contrasts between thinking like children and adults, interpret the phrase childish ways as reference to “speaking in tongues.” This interpretation could hardly be correct since the apostle is actually focusing on entire spiritual gifts although he selected communication gifts to illustrate his arguments regarding the superiority of love over spiritual gifts. Furthermore, the apostle could not have advocated setting aside spiritual gifts that he had indicated serve the church until the coming of Christ. Childish ways refer primarily to incorrect interpretations of the nature of spiritual gifts. This was not the only thing that the apostle had in mind. There is more, because he used himself as an illustration. Therefore, the phrase childish ways or literally the things of the child also refers to the conducts or behaviors associated with childhood or immature state in the Christian life. Since the apostle is using a metaphor, he was probably thinking of the difference in his conduct as a young Christian to his conduct as a matured believer that would affect how he viewed spiritual gifts at his current state as compared to when he first got saved. Thus, it is possible that when the apostle wrote this phrase childish ways, he could have thought of how he conducted himself early in his Christian life that changed later. For, example, he would have thought of how he dealt with John Mark in not wanting to take him along with him in his second missionary trip as stated in Acts 15:37–39:
37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus.
As Apostle Paul matured in his spiritual life, he had a change of mind about Mark who also would probably have grown up in his spiritual life. We say this because Apostle Paul later wanted him as a member of his team after he had proven himself as we read in 2 Timothy 4:11:
Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.
How are you sure that the Mark here refers to the Mark in Acts 15? You may ask. It is because the Mark the apostle wanted and who later became a member of his apostolic team is described as the cousin of Barnabas in Colossians 4:10:
My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)
The apostle would not have taken Mark if he had not grown up spiritually so that he put aside his childish way of viewing Mark when he disagreed with Barnabas about taking him. The fact that the apostle later took Mark with him would suggest that Barnabas was right, and Apostle Paul was wrong because he acted more as a child than a matured believer who would give a second chance to someone who failed. Whatever that led the apostle to reject taking Mark in the second missionary journey must have been set aside by him when he later sent for him. This, of course, does not mean that the apostle had become perfect in that he was incapable of acting in the same way but that through his spiritual maturity had learned to put things in proper perspective.
We assert that the apostle in using the phrase childish ways or the things of the child is concerned with sinful conducts among the Corinthians because of what he had already written to the Corinthians about their partisanship and jealousy among others as we read in 1 Corinthians 3:1–4:
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
Thus, we may deduce that the apostle is saying that as an adult he put aside the conducts that characterized immature believers.
It is important we apply the clause of 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me since it touches on the matter of spiritual infancy and spiritual maturity. Therefore, I am going to mention four areas that you should set aside childish ways and replace them with ways of spiritual adulthood. The first childish thing that every believer should set aside is satisfaction with only basic doctrines of the Christian faith. You should desire to excel in your understanding of advance doctrine of the Christian faith. Apostle Paul chastised the Corinthians because of their childish ways that kept him from teaching them advance doctrine as he stated in 1 Corinthians 3:2:
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
It is the same childish ways of not wanting or being ready for advance doctrine that the human author chastised the recipients of his epistle in Hebrews 5:12–13:
12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
The rebuke by the human author of Hebrews to the recipients of his epistle implies that childish way includes not understanding teaching about righteousness or about what consistent righteous living is all about. In effect, a believer is still living in childish ways if that individual is inexperienced regarding what God requires because of lack of consistent advance teaching of the Scripture. A question that may arise as how a believer avoids being satisfied with merely basic doctrines of the Christian faith. It begins with a yearning for knowledge of God’s word. It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit through Apostle Peter commands believers to crave for the word of God describe with the metaphor of milk in 1 Peter 2:2:
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
If you desire the word of God, you will seek to be taught the whole realm of truth of the Scripture. You will not settle for anything less than that. Those who settle for anything less are still in their childish ways regarding spiritual matters.
The second childish thing you should replace with spiritual adult ways is wavering about your doctrinal position. A believer is a child in the spiritual life if that person continues to waver in what the individual believes. It is this situation that would be avoided if a believer receives advance doctrines of the Christian faith as given in the Scripture. That if you receive advance teaching of the Scripture, you will become more stable in your spiritual life, is implied by what the apostle stated that should result from the proper exercise of the spiritual gifts of communication of truth to believers as we read in the passage we cited previously, that is, Ephesians 4:14:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
If you are stable in your doctrinal stand, implying you have put away the childish ways of instability due to lack of teaching of God’s word you will also replace childish way of faithlessness with faith. For after all, it is by hearing doctrine that one develops faith as the Holy Spirit tells us through the pen of Apostle Paul in Romans 10:17:
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
By the way, an important benefit of developing faith from the teaching of the word of God is that you will be stable in your exercise of faith in prayer. We know that if we are unstable about our faith that manifests itself in doubts during prayer, we will not receive anything from the Lord as the Holy Spirit tells us through James in James 1:6–8:
6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
Anyhow, the second childish thing that a believer should replace with spiritual adulthood perspective is wavering in one’s belief.
A third childish way that a believer should set aside is being enamored or fascinated with human personality other than the Lord Jesus. Some of you may say to me that you are not enamored by any human being. You may be right but before you pat yourself at the back let me give you a simple test to apply. You should ask yourself if there is any person that you so much admire that you are willing to ignore the word of God in relating to such a person. I find that many of us Christians, especially in this country, admire some influential persons that they seem to give such individuals a pass even when they are behaving contrary to the Scripture. If you are guilty of what I have stated, then you cannot claim not to be enamored by human personality. Of course, you are not alone. You are not the first nor would you probably be last but that does not make it right. It is this being enamored by human personality in the church in Corinth that led to the partisanship among them. Thus, Apostle Paul chastised them for such childish way as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:11–12:
11 My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
The way a believer avoids this childish way of being enamored or fascinated with human personality is to recognize that no human person can be compared to the Lord Jesus. Furthermore, the believer should realize that even those God uses are nothing but instruments of God as the apostle conveyed to the Corinthians in his question of 1 Corinthians 3:5:
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
You should follow this understanding with zeal for the Lord Jesus and spiritual things as implied in the instruction of Romans 12:11:
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
A fourth childish way that a believer should set aside is self-centeredness. It is childish for a believer to be self-centered. It is more in line with being spiritually matured to be concerned with others instead of being self-absorbed. It is for this reason that we have the instruction of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul recorded in Philippians 2:3–4:
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
The expression selfish ambition is translated from a Greek word (eritheia) that outside the NT denotes a self-seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means. However, in the NT, there are many conjectures about its meaning. Nonetheless, the best meaning is “selfish ambition” or “self-seeking to secure preeminence.” Either meaning reveals what is childish in spiritual life. In contrast to it is humility that should characterize spiritually matured person. Of course, an aspect of humility is selflessness that leads to caring for the interests of others. It is not that a mature believer will not be concerned about the person’s interests but not to the extent of ignoring those of others. Anyway, the point is that you should set aside self-centeredness as that is what characterizes childish way in the spiritual life.
Be that as it may, our concern is to understand the point of the apostle in using the metaphor he applied to himself. His point is that there is an immature way of looking at spiritual gifts as compared to a mature way. An immature way is to misinterpret the purpose of spiritual gifts, especially those that are spectacular, such as speaking in tongues. Those who are immature would view some spiritual gifts as concerned with showing off one’s spiritual status or elitism in the spiritual life. In other words, an immature view of spiritual gifts causes the immature to think that the individual has any spiritual gift because of the person’s spiritual maturity or spiritual superiority over others. This person would have forgotten or would not have known that no believer deserves any spiritual gift as the apostle had already communicated to the Corinthians in those series of questions that he posed in a passage we have studied in detail, that is, 1 Corinthians 4:7:
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
It is because of the immature view of spiritual gifts that a person would want to rank spiritual gifts. It is because some, with the gift of speaking in tongues, think that they are superior to other believers that the apostle later ranked the speaking in tongues below the gift of prophecy under certain condition as the apostle stated in 1 Corinthians 14:5:
I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.
An immature view of spiritual gifts would involve not recognizing that the spiritual gifts are given to believers to benefit the church of Christ not an individual. That spiritual gifts are for the benefit of the church and not an individual per say, is conveyed later by the apostle in 1 Corinthians 14:4:
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
An immature view of spiritual gifts involves not understanding that because the church would eventually be removed from this planet consequently every spiritual gift that is intended to mature believers will end. A person is immature who does not seriously think in terms of the coming of the Lord so that the person has a distorted view of the church as far as its permanency on this planet. An immature view of spiritual gifts puts more emphasis on spiritual gifts than on love. Thus, those with immature view of spiritual gifts would act in a manner that indicates they are more impressed with spiritual gifts than the unity that should exist among believers in the church of Christ. An immature believer thinks that the miraculous is more important than consistent living of the Christian life under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the apostle wanted the Corinthians to recognize that a more mature way of viewing spiritual gifts is to understand that its exercise does not put a person in the same spiritual maturity as display of love would. Avoiding childish ways in the spiritual life as it pertains to spiritual gifts require correct perspective on the nature and purpose of spiritual gifts as the apostle has been expounding especially since the twelfth chapter of this first epistle to the Corinthians. In any event, the first comparison the apostle made between childish ways and adulthood is to convey that there is a difference between immature and mature ways of looking at spiritual gifts. This brings us to the second comparison the apostle makes in the passage of 1 Corinthians that we are considering. However, we are out of time so we will examine that in our next study but let me end by reminding you of the message of this section of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 is: The permanency of love is the primary reason for its supremacy over gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge and over faith and hope.
11/25//22