Featured "that which is perfect..." 1 Cor. 13:10

You have got to be kidding! Where did you study Greek? Joe's bar and Geek School?

 

Paul is expressing a principle (when the perfect comes that which is in part ceases) pointing to the superiority of love (which never fails).

Paul is not talking about the canon, or the gift of tongues or prophesy. Paul is not talking about "sign gifts". Paul is talking about love.

 

Yes, it's obvious that Paul is talking about love. That is probably why the chapter is called "The Love Chapter."

But Paul CANNOT be referring to "love" when he says "when the complete comes the partial will be done away."

Love (αγαπη) is a feminine noun and does not agree in case, number, and gender with "partial" (μερους) which is a neuter noun, as is "complete" (τελειον) a neuter adjective.

Context is your friend. All of chapter 12 is about spiritual gifts and their misuse by the church at Corinth.

He tells them to lay aside the things of childhood and become mature believers. Their favorite toys will go away, and only faith, hope, and love will remain. And the best of the three is love (verse 13), which sacrifices self for the service of others, unlike their abuse of the spiritual gifts to brag to others about how gifted their were.

And he tells them in 12:31 "I want you to desire the best gifts. So I will show you a much better way." Then all of chapter 13 is the "much better way." Better than the gifts the Corinthians had been bragging about and abusing, which would soon pass away.

 

Paul is talking about love by pointing out the incomplete nature of the things he lists (the sign gifts the Corinthians were bragging about). Those things are temporary and will be put away (like an adult puts away things of a child). He is speaking of love's superiority because love is not temporary (like those incomplete things which will end).

 

Yeah, that's what I said. But the point remains, the sign/confirmatory gifts ended.

 

Regardless to the validity of your conclusions concerning sign/confirmatory gifts (whether they have ended) your point has absolutely nothing to do with the passage in question. Paul is not pointing to an end of these gifts but to their temporary nature and this to expound on love.

 

Good grief, Jon! Grab a dictionary and look up "temporary." It means "gonna end." Paul establishes the FACT that the miraculous sign/confirmatory gifts are temporary. They will end. Verses 9, 10, and 13 give us the time line for that ending.

 

Yeah. That's what I just said. Paul tells us that love, unlike the "sign gifts", never fails. Love is not temporary. Sign gifts will end. Love will not.

We can read our ideas into this and say this means sign gifts ended by the time Paul authored Corinthians, or when the Bible was compiled, or when Christ comes (depending on what we want to ascribe to "perfect"), but the fact remains this is not really supported by Paul's words here. His point is that, unlike the gifts the Corinthians looked to, love is superior.

 

But the Greek grammar of versees 9 and 10 does support the point, as does verse 13.

If Paul was not talking about the ending of the gifts he would not have said "tongues shall cease" and "knowledge shall vanish away." But he did say those things and you have to deal with them.

We can't just throw it all out because somebody might be offended.

 

Paul was saying tongues shall cease. And we will know in full, and see clearly. You.are missing the point that we agree on the grammar. We agree that sign gifts, a less than perfect understanding,.... and even a less than perfect us....are all temporary. This will cease. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. But love endures.

My point is that you are reading into the passage to support your conclusions that sign gifts have ceased because you believe their purpose was to bridge that gap (to confirm) which is no longer needed.

Even if you are correct that these gifts have ceased your utilization of this passage as evidence is just as much error as me claiming the passage proves I now understand perfectly because imperfect understanding is temporary.

Paul's statement is that these gifts are temporary - which he seems to take as already understood by the Corinthians. This is NOT a lesson on sign gifts or partial understanding but a lesson on love.

Context, brother. Context.

 

There is the problem! You completely missed the point!

And again you miss the point!

Half right. "These gifts are temporary." Correct. "This is NOT a lesson on sign gifts." Wrong. It is a lesson on all the gifts. The synecdoche we see in verse 8 referring back to the gifts mentioned in verses 1 - 8, followed by the inclusion of the remaining gifts in verse 13.

Yes. Context. Read the immediately preceding context of chapter 12. "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant." There is your context, John. Spiritual gifts. And not being ignorant of the facts concerning spiritual gifts.

 

Exactly.

Right on the money.

Exactly.

Yes.

"Perfect" and "partial" are both neuter noun/adjectives. And so is "bible."

"Christ" is masculine. Can't refer to Him. Case, number, and gender don't match.

Remember, the book of James is probably the oldest of the New Testament writings. Paul was probably familiar with James and probably had the following in mind when he penned 1 Corinthians.

James 1:23 For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror:

A man face to face with himself.

James 1:24 for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
25 But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing.

When we get our eyes off of self (the Corinthians were (mis)using the gifts in a self-centered manner) and into the bible, the "perfect law of liberty" we see ourselves in the light of scripture, as God sees us.

 

"Coming" (παρουσια) is feminine.