1 Corinthians 13
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NLT)
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.
3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud
5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!
10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
Paul argues that no matter how breathtaking or spiritual our gifts—speaking in many languages—even the language of angels without love, they are meaningless. Like a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, the impact is nothing but hollow, irritating sound.
What strikes me deeply about this verse is how Paul contrasts spiritual eloquence with the absence of love. Speaking of tongues-even angelic ones means nothing if our words aren’t motivated by genuine love. They become noise: hollow, reactive, and ultimately repulsive. True impact comes not from how impressively we speak, but from whether we speak with love that builds up, soothes, and restores— WITH actions from that heart of love that follow thereafter.
One devotional notes that constant clanging just noise without depth eventually becomes repulsive. Similarly, speech without love is bothersome, not edifying.
Actions truly speak louder than words just like our faith without action is dead.