The Greatest is Love

Love is the essential of Christianity. Where this is wanting there is no true Christianity. The subject therefore is vital, and its claims upon our attention paramount. A splendid gift is sometimes very attractive; an intelligent mind, as to the mysteries of Scripture, often highly valued; a self-sacrificing person greatly extolled; and yet all these things, if love be wanting, are only like so many clouds without rain, or wells without water. The seraphic tongue and riveting eloquence of some men enchant crowds of eager listeners, and extol the speaker to the skies. The quiet, unobtrusive saint, however, diligently engaged in loving ministry to the souls or bodies of the needy children of God, is a work too small for many to deign to notice. But in God’s sight how different! The one may be only an empty noise, no sooner heard than gone for ever, while the other is the fruit of the Spirit, having the value of eternity divinely stamped upon it. Yes, says the apostle, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (or love), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-31Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1‑3)). Thus we see that love is the essential, the vitality of Christianity. And at the close of the same chapter we find that, important and precious as faith is, and hope also, yet love is there again set forth in its superlative importance as the very key-stone of the arch, and laying hold of faith and hope by its mighty grasp in present reality and power. “And now abideth faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love.”
H. H. Snell