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BEHAVIOUR IN MEETINGS

Supremacy of charity

Chapter 13

(Automatic translation from Portuguese, still to be edited)

In this chapter charity, or love other versions, is the translation of a Greek word meaning deep affection or benevolence: it is the same word used in 1 John 4:6 with respect to God, and this chapter is a description of what it represents.

Charity is an essential virtue for the Christian. Without it, even though he spoke in all kinds of languages, would only make noise, even though he could prophesy, had all knowledge, and even all the faith, I am nothing, and even if he gave his possessions to the poor and his body to be burned, none of it profit.

Love is : patient, benign.

Charity is not : jealous, conceited, vain, rude, selfish, irritable, suspicious.

Charity does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Compared with other spiritual gifts, love never fails, while:

• If there are prophecies , they will disappear.

• If there are different kinds of tongues , they shall cease.

• If science will pass.

These are spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit in the early church for evangelism, instruction of new converts and edification of believers. Are only partial, temporary, and disappear when you get which is perfect (which means complete).

In the beginning God's revelations are imperfectly glimpsed (as in a mirror reflection of two thousand years ago) but later clearly (face to face) where the disclosure is complete. Some think that this will only be fulfilled at the coming of the Lord Jesus, but the interpretation that best seems to fit the context is that perfection and complete revelation refers to the maturity of the church and the full revelation of the Holy Spirit found in the New Testament, not admits change (John 16:13, Revelation 22:18,19).

This also explains the disappearance of those gifts in the first century of Christianity, directly linked to the revelations of God ..

Of the three great Christian virtues, faith, hope and charity, charity is the greatest.

 

R David Jones

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians chapter 13