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All you need is

All you need is

Last updated on: November 14, 2006 at 4:43 pm by Fred Clark

148 Comments

All you need is 2006-11-14T16:43:29-05:00 Fred Clark

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Went to a wedding (nobody you know — at least, I don't think so — that would be something). The New Testament reading was from 1 Corinthians 13, prompting the following thoughts.

1. Reading this passage is one of the things we get right in Christian weddings. Weddings are one of those times when we have company — lots of people come who otherwise probably wouldn't walk through the doors of the church. When you have company at home, you clean things up. You set the table with the good dishes and you hang the good towels in the bathroom. Likewise, when we have company at church, we should read the good stuff for them. And this is the good stuff.

2. The Apostle Paul wrote this. It seems almost out of character. Paul, after all, could be an arrogant, argumentative scold (you can take the boy out of the Pharisees, but you can't always take the Pharisee out of the boy). In the Book of Acts we meet Barnabas, whose name meant "son of encouragement." Barnabas seems to have been just about the kindest, most patient and loving leader of the early church. And even Barnabas couldn't put up with Paul for very long. The substance of their falling-out, we're told, was that Paul, characteristically, refused to give a young disciple a second chance. But that same Paul, that same inflexible fishwife, wrote this. Huh.

3. 1 Corinthians 13 is sometimes called the "love chapter" — which is apt, but always makes me think of Jack Jones singing about an open smile on a friendly shore. The subject of love is, of course, germane to the business of weddings, so it makes sense that this passage should be read so often in that context. But the chapter isn't really about marriage. It's universal. It's not about "this is how you should treat your spouse." It's about "this is how you should treat everyone." It's about "this is how you should be."

4. Having said that, it's still excellent advice for young couples about to be married.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. …"

As such, it's worth noting that this passage has nothing to say about "gender roles." Walk into any so-called "Christian bookstore" and you will find a section dedicated to books on marriage. Nearly all of these books go on, at great length, about the supposed distinct roles of husbands and wives. None of these distinctions is compatible with the universal imperatives of the passage above. These books will argue that manly husbands should always protect and that womanly wives should always trust, but that's not what the passage says. The passage itself will not abide having such notions of gender roles inflicted onto it.

This is bound to be confusing for young evangelical couples. They hear this passage read during their wedding service and then are encouraged to read such books. To avoid such confusion, I would suggest to my evangelical family that we either A) stop reading 1 Corinthians 13 at weddings, or B) stop recommending, reading, writing and publishing such books. I'd prefer the latter, of course, but consistency demands one or the other.

5. At the wedding this weekend, the reading stopped where I stop with the excerpt above, midway through the eighth verse. We often stop there when reading this at weddings and that's a shame. I appreciate that this section seems most explicitly relevant to a couple about to be wed, and that the rest of this chapter seems to shift gears a bit to a discussion of epistemology and even eschatology. But I think the remainder of this short chapter also contains some very important wisdom for people about to make the big leap:

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 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. 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.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There's some fascinating stuff going on in there about the relationship between knowledge and love (note, too, the earlier contrast between "evil" and "the truth"). Perfect knowledge is not an option for us humans, Paul notes. Our knowledge may be more or less mature, but it will always be imperfect — "through a glass, darkly" in Tyndale's lovelier phrase. And there's a world of faith, hope and love packed into this assertion: "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

This also seems to me to be very on-point for young couples about to be married, this business about being "fully known." To be fully known and yet to be fully loved. To know in full and yet to love in full. That, it seems to me, is the stuff of a good marriage. So I wish they wouldn't skip that part.

6. Getting back to Paul and that argument he had with Barnabas, I should mention that Barnabas was right. Paul was wrong. Paul was being impatient and unhopeful. He was too easily angered and was keeping a record of wrongs. He was, eventually, reconciled with the young disciple he had written off. And that young man turned out OK, going on (probably) to write the Gospel of Mark.

Does this make Paul a hypocrite? He clearly failed to live up to the standard he himself sets forth, the standard of perfect, unfailing love. Here I think it's worthwhile again to note the distinction between hypocrisy and akrasia, or simple moral weakness. This is an important distinction, albeit one made more difficult by the fact that "hypocrite" has entered the English language in a way that akrates has not. That word tends to get translated as "incontinent, lacking self-control," but it's literal meaning has more to do with powerlessness. Those of us who are not all-powerful sometimes fail. Such failure does not always, or even usually, entail the insincerity that is the hallmark of hypocrisy. It also does not involve the duplicity of hypocrisy — the notion that standards exist for thee but not for me.

7. I used the word "standard" there twice. This is, I think, the key to this passage. It sets the standard:

If I have not love, I am nothing.

Nothing else matters, Paul says, suddenly. Nothing.

He's 12 chapters into a long letter in which he goes on and on about lots of other things: about divisions and discipline in the church, about his own authority as an apostle (a lot about that), about sex and marriage (he frowns on both but begrudgingly "concedes" them to lesser mortals), about "propriety in worship." And for much of those 12 chapters, frankly, he comes across as an insufferable crank.

But then, abruptly, he catches his breath and writes this: "And now I will show you the most excellent way …" And he goes on from there to say that all that other stuff is nothing, worthless, senseless noise, "if I have not love."

That is the standard. Paul insists that we apply this standard not only to ourselves, but to him and to everything else he said or wrote. Take that insistence seriously, however, and you'll find others accusing you of not taking Paul seriously, which is kind of odd.

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