The More Excellent Way

In one paragraph

The pastor walked First Baptist Jackson through 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter Paul placed right in the middle of his teaching on spiritual gifts. The point was not just to understand what love is but to feel the weight of applying it, and several people had already told the pastor during the week that the Corinthians series was hitting hard. That honest difficulty was treated as a good sign. Paul...

Read together

1. 1 Chronicles 16 psalm of thanksgiving used to open worship, quoted as 'give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name'
2. Isaiah 40 quoted that God never grows weak or weary and gives power to the weak
3. 1 John 4:4 quoted to show that the one in us is greater than the one in the world
4. 1 Corinthians 12:31b Paul's teaser leading into chapter 13, 'I will show you a still more excellent way'
5. 1 Corinthians 13 the main text of the sermon, covering indispensability, characteristics, and permanence of love
6. 1 John 4:8 cited to establish that God is love, used when substituting Jesus for love in the passage
7. Hebrews 1:3 cited to identify Jesus as the exact representation of God's nature
8. John 13:34 quoted as Christ's command, 'as I have loved you, so you must love one another'
9. 1 John 4:7 read as the benediction, 'beloved, let us love one another for love is of God'

Talk about it

1. The pastor said that without love, even the most impressive spiritual gifts become 'worthless, annoying, and unprofitable.' Where in your own life have you seen someone exercise a real ability or gift in a way that rang hollow because love was missing?
2. D.A. Carson's observation was that in 1 Corinthians 13, love is not defined so much as described, and that 'not one element is sentimental, everything is behavioral.' How does that shift the way you think about love compared to how our culture usually talks about it?
3. The pastor pointed out that Paul writes 'we see in a mirror dimly,' not 'you see in a mirror dimly,' and called that the humility of the we. What does it mean practically for how we talk to each other about Scripture and spiritual gifts when we accept that none of us, including the teachers, sees the full picture?
4. The exercise of substituting your own name in place of the word love, 'I am patient, I am kind, I do not insist on my own way,' was described as a mirror. What did that mirror show you, and was there a particular quality on the list that hit hardest?
5. The pastor said the sanctification process, becoming more loving, starts with yielding to the Holy Spirit, and that it is the power of God not just for salvation but for that ongoing change. What does yielding actually look like in a practical, day-to-day situation where love is hard for you?