(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
^Love
- If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but don’t have ^love, I have become a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
- And if I have prophecy, and have understood all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but don’t have ^love; I am nothing.
- And if I give all that I possess to feed1“I give… …to feed” Is one word in Greek. It properly refers to giving out food in small portions to feed someone or something. the poor, and if I deliver my body to prison so that I might boast but don’t have ^love; I gain nothing.
- ^Love is patient, it’s kind. ^Love isn’t jealous, ^love doesn’t boast, it isn’t puffed up,
- It doesn’t act indecently, it doesn’t seek things for itself, it isn’t easily angered, it doesn’t take into account a wrong suffered.
- it doesn’t rejoice at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
- It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
- ^Love never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will be abolished;2“they will be abolished” is one Word in Greek, literally meaning to render something as completely without force or power, making it idle and of no effect. Thus, it also means to abolish, because the force has been completely removed. It’s the same word used to refer to knowledge later in the verse. if tongues, they will cease, if knowledge, it will be abolished.3“it will be abolished” is one Word in Greek, literally meaning to render something as completely without force or power, making it idle and of no effect. Thus, it also means to abolish, because the force has been completely removed. It’s the same word used to refer to prophecies earlier in the verse
- For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
- But when the perfect comes, the partial will be abolished.
- When I was a child, I was talking like a child, I was understanding like a child, I was reasoning like a child. When I *became a man I *ceased the childish things.
- For now we see through a mirror4“mirror” The Greek word here refers to a metallic mirror, not a glass one. in puzzling obscurity,5“puzzling obscurity” The Greek word here literally refers to a riddle or enigma which obscures something. but then face to face. I know in part now, but then I will know Him fully, even as I was fully known.
- But now these three things remain: faith, hope, and ^love; and the greatest of these is ^love.
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