Sunday, April 2, 2017

Honest Lent: What's the connection between love and knowledge?

Picture of a heart, with text from 1 Corinthians 13. Image source.
Today for Honest Lent, we're reading 1 Corinthians 13.

All right, this is "the love chapter." I've read it tons of times. I memorized it back when I was in bible quizzing in high school. But today I noticed something weird. The chapter starts out saying all these nice things about love, good for reading at weddings- love is patient, love is kind, etc. But then, for some reason, the writer starts talking about things we know and don't know:
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
So... seems like he kind of gets off-topic here. Why is this passage suddenly talking about "we know in part"? Is it connected to love?

Maybe it's related to what I wrote about yesterday: We don't need to understand everything in the bible; the most important thing is love, and everyone can understand that. Maybe this passage in 1 Corinthians 13 is saying there are always things we can't understand, and all we can do is fill in the gaps with love. Love is more important than knowledge. Love is more important than having all the correct "biblical" rules.

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