1 Corinthians 13 shows you biblical charity, a special type of love, and something you might just call the greatest thing in the world.
The modern versions of the Bible, up to and including the ‘new’ King James, remove the word ‘charity’ from 1 Corinthians 13, and replace it with ‘love’. This does much damage to the passage. Your KJV 1611 Authorized Version Holy Bible retains it, and in doing so gives you one of the most powerful pictures of Jesus Christ that exist anywhere in the Bible. People will say they love a certain thing, love a certain person or love something that has happened to them, but the common thread in all 3 of those examples is one based in selfishness to some degree. You love what you have received. But charity, in its purest meaning, is a selfless love that is based in service to someone or something else. Now there’s something else we need to consider. Did you know that Paul mentions charity 9 times in 1 Corinthians 13, that 9 is the number for fruitfulness, and that all these examples of charity are also attributes of Jesus Christ? He is the ‘suffering Servant’ in Isaiah, and the Son of man who came to minister in the gospels. On this Sunday Service, we take a deeper look at this very special type of charitable love that we, as Christians, ought to firmly possess.