Faith
When the Perfect Has Come
We know in part and we prophesy in part, Paul writes, but when that which is perfect has come, the partial is done away. Then he explains it with a childhood: I spoke as a child…
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We know in part and we prophesy in part, Paul writes, but when that which is perfect has come, the partial is done away. Then he explains it with a childhood: I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and then I put away childish things.
Notes on 1 Corinthians 13 — maturity as the theme, and love as the person who completes it.
We know in part and we prophesy in part, Paul writes, but when that which is perfect has come, the partial is done away. Then he explains…
Childhood: dependence
Peter tells new believers to lay aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy and envy, and to desire the pure milk of the word so they may grow by it. The corrupt seed produces inconsistency; the incorruptible one produces appetite.
Some of us have to go back to childhood first. That was Nicodemus' whole problem — a teacher of Israel being told to be born again.
The young man: renewal
Romans 12:2 is where the mind gets rebuilt. Paul's language becomes I have been crucified with Christ, and the Spirit begins breaking pride and growing hunger for holiness and intimacy.
Hebrews is blunt about the alternative: by this time you ought to be teachers, and you still need milk. Solid food belongs to those whose senses are exercised to discern good and evil.
The man: character
The finished picture in Ephesians 4 is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Grace was given to each of us according to that measure — the same four dimensions Paul prays we would grasp.
You cannot keep holding the old when the new has come.
Love is a person, not a feeling
Paul opens the chapter with the impressive things — tongues of angels, mountain-moving faith, giving everything away — because he knows those are what we admire. Then he says without love they amount to nothing.
This love is the character of Christ himself. If only a part of him sustains you, you are missing the perfect knowledge of him. The branch is cut off for one reason: it stopped bearing fruit.
In part, then face to face
For now we see in a mirror dimly. Jacob wrestled and said he saw God face to face. Moses saw the glory and came away shining, then veiled it. David wrote Psalm 22 from the inside of abandonment and Psalm 110 from the inside of the promise.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known — known the way Jeremiah was known before he was formed. The perfect is not more information. It is becoming a man in Christ.
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