Originally posted by gb93433:
From 1 Cor 13:8: If you say that faith hope and love are the only three remaining, then are you also saying that knowledge is done away with also. You seem to indicate that all is in the present tense.
This has nothing to do with the historical context of 1 Corinthians.
GB,
Paul wrote the passage when the gifts other than faith, hope, and love still were in operation. But he said the time would come when those other gifts would pass away.
He did not say that knowledge, or for that matter, tongues, healings, or any of the other things mentioned would pass away. What he said is that the
gifts of these things would pass away.
A man who had the gift of knowledge got knowledge directly from God. Today, we get it by only by study. A man who had the gift of tongues got it directly from God. If we want to learn a foreign tongue today we must learn it by study. If we want to heal someone, we must study the discipline of medicine.
Paul said that when the perfect knowledge and prophecy would come, the partial gifts of knowledge and prophecy would pass, along with all the other gifts, excepting faith, hope, and love. When did this happen? The Scriptures are not ambiguous at all:
"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in the book.
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen, Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."
The King James translators understood the import of these words to well that they appended a big, "THE END" at the close.
Mark Osgatharp