The Love Chapter: A Study of 1 Corinthians 13 with Father Reid

In the opening session of The Love Chapter, Father Reid begins an in-depth exploration of one of the most familiar—and often misunderstood—passages in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 13.

Although its words are frequently heard at weddings, Paul did not write this chapter as a meditation on romantic love. He wrote it to a troubled church in Corinth—a Christian community wrestling with division, pride, spiritual gifts, status, and competing ideas about what it meant to be faithful.

Father Reid places the chapter back into that larger setting, showing why Paul’s teaching on love appears precisely where it does in 1 Corinthians. Surrounded by Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts, worship, and life within the Body of Christ, the “Love Chapter” becomes not a sentimental interruption, but the heart of Paul’s argument.

This first lecture lays the foundation for the eight-part series by examining the biblical understanding of love, the meaning and importance of agape, and Paul’s insistence that even extraordinary knowledge, eloquence, faith, sacrifice, and spiritual ability amount to nothing when love is absent.

Before asking what it means that “love is patient” or “love is kind,” Father Reid invites us to consider an even more fundamental question: What kind of love is Paul actually talking about—and what would it mean for Christians to live it?