Read & explore together
Love
In this part of a letter, the writer explains why love matters more than impressive speech, knowledge, faith, sacrifice, or giving. He describes what love is like and shows that love lasts when partial things pass away.
Understanding the passage
The setting of these words
This passage is written as teaching in a letter. The writer speaks about languages, prophecy, knowledge, faith, and giving, then compares them with love. He moves from strong contrasts, to a description of love’s character, and then to the lasting place of love alongside faith and hope.
1 Corinthians 13:1–13Main takeaway
This passage teaches that love gives true value to what we say and do, and it remains greater than temporary things.
Follow the letter’s teaching
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Without love, great abilities mean littleThe passage begins with three striking examples: speaking in great languages, having prophecy and knowledge, and giving away possessions.
Explanation
The passage begins with three striking examples: speaking in great languages, having prophecy and knowledge, and giving away possessions. Each example ends with a serious result: without love, the person is like noisy metal, is nothing, or gains no profit. Impressive acts do not stand on their own. Love gives them their true worth.
02What love is likeThe writer then describes love by its actions and attitudes. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, brag, or act proudly.
Explanation
The writer then describes love by its actions and attitudes. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, brag, or act proudly. It does not behave inappropriately or seek its own way. It is not provoked and does not keep an account of evil. Love is shown in both what it does and what it refuses.
03Love sides with truth and keeps goingLove does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Instead, it rejoices with the truth. Then the description grows broader: love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things.
Explanation
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Instead, it rejoices with the truth. Then the description grows broader: love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. These repeated phrases show steadiness and persistence. The passage presents love as strong and lasting in the way it responds to hardship and truth.
04Love lasts beyond partial thingsNext, the passage contrasts love with prophecy, languages, and knowledge. Love never fails, but these other things are said to cease or be done away with.
Explanation
Next, the passage contrasts love with prophecy, languages, and knowledge. Love never fails, but these other things are said to cease or be done away with. The reason given is that present knowing and prophesying are partial. When what is complete comes, what is partial will no longer remain.
05From partial sight to what remainsTwo pictures explain the difference between now and then. One picture is moving from childhood to adulthood.
Explanation
Two pictures explain the difference between now and then. One picture is moving from childhood to adulthood. The other is seeing dimly in a mirror compared with seeing face to face. The passage ends by naming faith, hope, and love as the three that remain, and says that love is the greatest.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01According to verses 1 to 3, what kinds of impressive things can still be empty without love?
List the examples in each verse and notice the repeated words 'but don’t have love' and the result that follows.
02Which parts of verses 4 to 7 describe what love does, and which parts describe what love refuses to do?
Sort the statements into two groups, such as 'is patient' and 'rejoices with the truth' compared with 'doesn’t envy' and 'takes no account of evil'.
03How do the pictures of childhood and a dim mirror help explain the difference between partial and fuller knowing?
Connect the two images with the words 'we know in part' and 'then I will know fully'.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
1 Corinthians 13:1–13
1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing.
3If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
4Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,
5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;
6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
8Love 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.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
10but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.
11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
12For 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.
13But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.