>> Jen: Hello, faithful listeners. Good morning and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. Today we're going to talk about the second half of the most famous love chapter in the Bible, First uh, Corinthians 13. So stay tuned for that. I hope you guys are having a fantastic week so far. We're supposed to get some snow, so it's supposed to be a nice
cold day for me today. But, um, I just got my computer up and running and, uh, you know, man, I feel so bad because somebody donated very kindly, a computer to P40 ministries. It was a wonderful gift and it took me a very long time to finally get it. But in my defense, the first two computers I got, both didn't function properly and I had to ship, uh, them back. And I was very upset about that. And they were both Lenovo
computers. And I trusted Lenovo for a while, but now I don't so much because of the two computers I bought that did not function the right way and they also didn't give me any IT help. So that wasn't great. And then they took a whole month to give me my refund back. So after all that happened, I had my husband pick out the computer for me because he's actually kind of knowledgeable on computers, and I should have done that from the beginning instead of just getting whatever computer I wanted.
And, uh, he picked out a nice Dell computer for me, and it's great. I have it up and running. I've had it running since Monday. Zero problems, zero issues. It's a great computer. So thank you so, so much to the person who donated that computer to P40 ministries. I am, um, extremely appreciative. And this also means that I can now get YouTube videos up and running for real. Because my laptop was great and I loved it, but it couldn't process videos, like, at all.
It would just freeze every time I opened up a video editor. So now I can get YouTube videos going. And I am so excited about that. So excited. That being said, make sure to follow the YouTube channel because I do have some videos I am planning on producing for the YouTube channel. For real this time. Let's go ahead and, uh, turn to first uh, 1 Corinthians 13 and we're going to read the rest of the chapter, verses 7 through 13. As usual, I'll be reading from the web.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child.
But now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three. The greatest of these is love. Okay, so Moving into the second half of first uh, 1 Corinthians 13, it starts out in verse seven by saying, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and
endures all things. And on Tuesday we talked about what love really is. Specifically agape, uh, love, which is the kind of love that Paul is talking about here, here. And just as a refresh, agape love is a self sacrificial type of love, but a true self sacrifice. Not like if somebody goes and does something very sacrificial for somebody just to be seen by other people or just to be praised by other people. That's not really what agape love is.
Agape love is more like just enduring really annoying things and being very loving and kind to people who just don't deserve it. That's kind of what agape love boils down to. So what does it say here? Love, agape love bears all things. Now, the word bear here could also be translated as covers. And there's a verse from 1 Peter 4, verse 8 that says above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a
multitude of sins. And Then also Proverbs 10:12 actually says hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs. So what is this concept of love covering sin? Say one of the students came up to me and told me something in confidence and in private about something that they were dealing with. And I just went and told all the other students I would be a terrible youth leader. I wouldn't be covering that person's sin or helping them overcome that
sin. Instead, I would be shaming them. I'd be hurting them and possibly making them hate the church because now they're embarrassed on top of feeling shame of whatever they're struggling with, and they probably feel like the church stabbed them in the back. So in this particular way, we show our love to other people by covering their sins and not
gossiping about them. And honestly, gossip causes so many negative consequences for people, not just for the person who is being gossiped about, but also for the gossiper. Because now you can't be trusted by anybody. Now you are known as a gossip, even if people want to hear the gossip, even if people eat that up, your reputation will be tarnished as a gossiper. So you don't want that reputation first and foremost. But you also don't want to take something what somebody has told you in
secret and just blast it all over the place. Now, of course, don't think that I'm taking this to the extreme in that I'm saying that churches should cover up crimes or something like that. No, absolutely not. If somebody commits a crime, that should absolutely be handled and the police should be called. The church shouldn't just be covering up that sin. And unfortunately, churches do do that. I actually just watch a documentary about the IFB church called Let Us Pray with
an E instead of an A in it. And, uh, it was especially interesting to me because that was the church that I grew up in. It was the IFB denomination. And it brought back, man, a flood of memories. But one of the problems in a few IFB churches is that these pastors, these men, were committing serious crimes, like crimes of rape and incest
of little children. And then when the church would find out about it, they would either sweep it under the rug and do nothing about it, or they would send that pastor to a different IFB church. So that shouldn't be happening. We don't cover up somebody's sin. But when somebody comes to us and needs help, we don't blast their sins all over the church. And that is one way we can show love to them. That is one way that love covers sins. But another way that love covers sins is just by
forgiving people. Think about what Jesus did up on the cross. He covered our sins and paid for them by forgiving us. So we should be also learning as Christians to forgive other people. And that is going to cover the sin. And honestly, all four of these things mentioned in verse seven, that love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love endures all things. All of those things are, uh, what Jesus emulated. So the second one is
love believes all things. Now, this doesn't mean that we believe bad ideology or something like that, and we just believe everybody's word and take everybody's word. This means that when you look at somebody, you don't immediately look at all of the negative things that they do. You search for good aspects about them. And this is especially helpful in a, uh, marriage relationship. I recently read a youversion devotional discussing marriage and something that the author
said really struck me. He said that you need to really reframe how you think about your spouse ahead of time, because if you think just negative things about your spouse, you're more likely to fight with them. But if you think good things about your spouse ahead of time, you're far less likely to get into fights with them. And he had the readers do a little exercise where he said, think up five attributes about your spouse very quickly
and then once you think them up, don't change them. Um, just the first five things off the top of your head. So the first five things I remember thinking about my spouse was that he is as stubborn as a mule, he's smart as a whip, he is strong physically, he is hard headed and he's adorable. So I got about half of them right and the other half I, uh, didn't do so good on. So you're supposed to think good thoughts about your spouse ahead of time so that you're not
just constantly thinking the worst of them. And that will really help your marriage relationship. And that is what love does. It believes things. It chooses to believe in the good aspects of people instead of believing in nothing but negativity. It also hopes all things. So love has hope associated with it. And also it endures all things. And this one is probably the most difficult to endure. People who just don't care about you or who insult you or mistreat you
to endure. Through those circumstances and through those persecutions that people put you through out of love, you will learn how to endure. And this isn't just with people. This is also us learning to love God as well. When we love God we can endure through all kinds of persecutions because of our faith and our love in God. But moving forward, in verse 8 it says, Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will
cease. Because don't forget the Corinthian church really liked the gift of prophecy and also the gift of tongues, because those two gifts were the most showy and the most cool to all of them. But Paul says no, what's really important is love, because love is never ever going to fail. It's never going to cease, rather. But prophecies will be done away with. Languages
will also be done away with. So in other words, when Jesus comes back, He is going to make a new heaven and a new earth, and all of the former things will be gone. So all of the Prophecies will eventually disappear because we won't need prophecies anymore, because we're going to be literally in the presence of Jesus, who gives us those prophecies. We also won't need languages anymore because we're all going to be unified under Jesus. We're all going to be speaking the
same language. So languages and prophecies are going to be done away with, but love will never be done away with. Ah. He also says, where there's knowledge, it will be done away with because we'll have the source of knowledge right there with us. So we won't need to understand and figure out all these mysteries about the Bible and everything. We're going to have the source of knowledge and truth right there with us.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is complete has come, in other words, Jesus, who is the complete picture, right now here on earth, we are doing things with a foggy understanding of everything spiritual. Yes, we have knowledge of things, and God does reveal things to us through prophecies and through the knowledge of the Scriptures and wisdom. But we still can only really understand a fraction of what God has in store for us. So we're looking at things almost as
if we are looking in a mirror. That's like clouded over is what Paul says. We're seeing in a mirror dimly, but soon we will see face to face. Then verse 11 is kind of interesting. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. But now that I have become a man, I put away childish things. Now, this verse has more than one meaning. The most obvious meaning is that people need to grow up and stop acting like children. That's the most obvious
explanation, uh, to this verse. But what does it have to do with love? Because it's all in the context of love. Well, don't forget Paul's talking about the prophecies and the tongues soon being done away with. In other words, the prophecies and the tongues are for the here and now, and soon we will grow out of those things into something
so much better. So Paul's entire argument with this is that we shouldn't, as a church, just be pining away for the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy or any other of the spiritual gifts, the gifts of healing. We shouldn't be pining away for those because those are ... childish things in the grand scheme of what God has in store for us. Because eventually everything is going to be made perfect and we're not going to need healing anymore. We're not going to need knowledge
and wisdom anymore. We're not going to need various tongues and miracles and, uh, prophecies. But the one thing we are going to need for eternity is love. The things that are going to remain when Jesus comes back and does away with all of the old. The three things that will remain are faith, hope, and love. Those three, but the greatest of those is love. And why is love the greatest? Because faith is good. But faith is mostly for us
here. Here on Earth, we have faith in something that we can't see. Eventually, when we're in front of Jesus, yes, we're still going to have faith in Him, but our faith isn't going to matter as much. Exactly. Because Jesus is literally going to be right in front of us. So we're going to have faith in him, but it's not the type of faith we have here on Earth that we're believing in somebody we cannot see, if that makes sense. And then also hope it's going to remain.
But hope also is kind of more for the here and now, because we're hoping for Jesus to return. We're hoping for the promises to be fulfilled and complete. Once we're with Jesus, all of those promises are going to be fulfilled and complete. And we're still going to have hope, obviously, but it's just not going to be the same type of hope. But love will always remain and it will always stay the same. Here on Earth, we learn to love people. And up in heaven, we are going to be
expressing that love very deeply. And God, uh, of course, is always going to be showering that love on us as well. So love is always going to remain. And it is the greatest of those three things. Faith, hope, and love. In fact, it's greater than any spiritual gift we can ever hope to have. Well, faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to become a member and join me over on the Psalms tomorrow. I have a separate
podcast for members only. If you're interested in becoming a member, you can check out the Ko Fi link in the description. But while you're checking out the description, make sure to look at everything else that's going on down there. Because I have the YouTube channel, I have the YouVersion app, where I have a few free Bible studies on there, and I also have the shop and my blog as well, where my sister just put out a very
nice blog post. So make sure to check out everything in the description of, uh, the episode, not just Ko Fi, but friends and faithful listeners. I hope to see you all on Monday. Have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your weekend. Happy listening and God bless.