I Corinthians 13 for the Body of Christ

1 CORINTHIANS 13 FOR CLERGY AND CONGREGATIONS

(Adapted by Steve McCutchan, steve@smccutchan.com)

L: If clergy speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but congregations do not have love,

P: Clergy are noisy gongs and congregations are clanging cymbals.

L: If clergy have prophetic powers, and congregations understand all mysteries, and clergy have all knowledge, and congregations have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love,

P: Both clergy and congregations are nothing.

L: If congregations give away all their possessions, and clergy hand over their bodies so that they may boast, but neither have love, they gain nothing.

P: Clergy love is patient; Congregational love is kind; Clergy love is not envious or boastful or arrogant and congregational love is not rude.

L: Loving clergy do not insist on their own way nor are loving congregations irritable or resentful; loving clergy do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoice in the truth.

P: Congregational love bears all things, loving clergy believe all things, loving congregations hope all things, and loving clergy endure all things.

L: Love among clergy and congregations never end. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

P: For congregations know only in part, and clergy prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

L: When clergy and congregations first begin, they speak like children, think like children, and reason like children but when clergy and congregations mature, they put an end to childish ways.

P: For congregations and clergy see in a mirror, dimly, but in time will see face to face. Each knows only in part; then they will know fully, even as they have been fully known.

All: For both clergy and congregations, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.