Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
In preparation for this piece, I searched through free photos under the topic childish. It was interesting how many of them were of a man pretending to be a boy, doing something childlike, foolish, or even foolhardy. Children do things adults are supposed to know better than doing. Children often get away with them.[1] When adults do them, they get away with it far less frequently.
Paul became a man.
There came a point in his life when he, and others, recognized that he was no longer a child. He was responsible for putting away childish things and picking up adulthood’s responsibilities. This, of course, is true physically. It is equally true spiritually.
The context is clear. Those childish things in the realms of the spiritual are:
- Prophecies
- Tongues and
- Knowledge[2]
These “childish things” are to fail, cease, and vanish away.
In their place, we have something better, something perfect, something a mature believer will choose instead. It is charity. It is the outpouring of self in the local church.[3]
[1] Sometimes they don’t- children die almost every day somewhere in the world because they did something they shouldn’t have.
[2] Knowledge is like prophecies in that those claiming it say they have something from God and outside the Bible.
[3] ISBE says that the word charity is derived from a Greek word not seen previous to the writing of 1 Corinthians and is apparently coined to describe the unique love a Christian has for his church.
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