Speaking With Love: 1 Corinthians 13:1

By Contributing Writer, Kelly Crawford

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

(1 Corinthians 13:1 ESV)

Perhaps because it is easier to do something well–to hone a particular gift or practice–that throughout Christendom, humans have been tempted to exalt other things above the one virtue that trumps them all: LOVE.

What motivates?

This was Jesus’s big beef with the Pharisees. It wasn’t that He was bothered by their careful tithing or their careful keeping of certain ceremonial laws – “This you should do” – but those things were empty and meaningless simply because they weren’t motivated by love.

Paul begins the “love chapter” with the gift of speaking. He may have been referring specifically to the gift of tongues or simply the gift of using words eloquently. The same principle applies either way: love must motivate all we do.

“Could a man speak all the languages on earth, and that with the greatest propriety, elegance, and fluency, could he talk like an angel, and yet be without charity, it would be all empty noise, mere unharmonious and useless sound, that would neither profit nor delight. It is not talking freely, nor finely, nor learnedly, of the things of God, that will save ourselves, or profit others, if we are destitute of holy love. It is the charitable heart, not the voluble tongue, that is acceptable with God.” -Matthew Henry

Applying Love in Context

As a writer/blogger, this topic has forced on me unmeasurable pondering. As I write on difficult, often controversial topics, there are hard things to say and hard people to answer. I have found a popular position among Christians that asserts one can’t speak firmly or passionately under any circumstance or it seems “unloving.”

Admittedly, there is a fine line here. We are to speak with grace and kindness. But the crux of “speaking in love” is that we speak out of the motivation of love. And sometimes that requires us to say hard, even hurtful things, as Jesus often did. Many times the knee-jerk reaction to that is “you’re being unloving,” when in reality, love is the primary motivator even if the thing could be said more gently.

Love is the grand thing

Love above all. Even those with a speaking platform, aiming to speak always with grace, are still very much human and will sometimes fail to speak gracefully.  Can we assess whether their speech is motivated by love? Do we show love to them in that? Can we let love trump, both in how we speak and in how we respond to others who are sincerely motivated out of love, even if their speech is rough around the edges?

Are we speaking to be heard or to demonstrate our gifts, or are we compelled to speak out of pure love for others?

I fear we get all tangled up. Some, too intent on being heard, go around as a clanging symbol; others, confused about the definition of love remain quiet when they should speak the hard things.

In the end, we look to Christ as our example. Willing to be hated for things He said, yet always motivated from the deepest, most agonizing love for those around Him, He could not keep silent, but His words, bathed in the spirit, bring healing and life to those who can hear, and to the deaf, no measure of carefulness can mitigate the hurtful truth.

May our love for others compel us to speak with melodious grace – and boldness of truth.