I think you’ll find that the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians is a great lesson in love. I will copy it into the end of this post in case you want to review it.
I recently was told that if someone disagrees with me, that it is good to ignore the Apostle Paul’s teachings regarding love, and use insults and sarcasm to make my point. The same person then says we are not Christians unless we follow Paul. So which is it? Are we supposed to ignore his teachings when we find them inconvenient or are we to follow him?
When you use sarcasm and insults to win people over to the Lord, you just hurt their feelings and motivate them to do the opposite as you want them to. It is counterproductive.
A tool that actually works is truth. When you use truth, countering each of their faulty arguments with truthful ones, they eventually run out of arguments and have to admit that you are right.
1 Corinthians 13 (RSV):
[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
[2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
[3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
[4] Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
[5] it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
[6] it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
[7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[8] Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
[9] For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
[10] but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
[11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
[12] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
[13] So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I recently was told that if someone disagrees with me, that it is good to ignore the Apostle Paul’s teachings regarding love, and use insults and sarcasm to make my point. The same person then says we are not Christians unless we follow Paul. So which is it? Are we supposed to ignore his teachings when we find them inconvenient or are we to follow him?
When you use sarcasm and insults to win people over to the Lord, you just hurt their feelings and motivate them to do the opposite as you want them to. It is counterproductive.
A tool that actually works is truth. When you use truth, countering each of their faulty arguments with truthful ones, they eventually run out of arguments and have to admit that you are right.
1 Corinthians 13 (RSV):
[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
[2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
[3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
[4] Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
[5] it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
[6] it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
[7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[8] Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
[9] For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
[10] but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
[11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
[12] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
[13] So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
One of my favorite bible verses ^^
