1 Cor 13:8-13

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

·         The supremacy of love is evident here over spiritual gifts. If we have love then, whatever other gift we have is less important, because the gifts are going away.

·         Again, no bones about it you are hearing from someone who thinks that there are no supernatural miracle workers out there. There is a supernatural God who works miracles, but no apostles.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

·         Paul and the Corinthians had special divine revelation and prophetic visions of the mind of God, but they didn’t have everything He wanted Christians to know.

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

·         Perfect stands in opposition to partial, as a Greek word it means full grown, mature. Once we are full grown we will not need to grow further, in other words.

·         This is referring to the close of the canon for the Scriptures. When everything is written we will need no more special revelation.

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 know fully, even as I have been fully known.

·         Once we have the full and complete revelation from Christ there is no need for partial understanding or incomplete revelations.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

·         So the other three: supernatural revelation, prophetic visions, and miraculous gifts will go away, but what will remain is what will fill the church instead: faith, hope, love. And of these love is supreme.