If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1) He reasons first of charity, the excellency of which he first shows by this, that without it, all other gifts are as nothing before God.
Here the apostle shows what more excellent way he meant, or had in view, in the close of the former chapter, namely, charity, or, as it is commonly elsewhere rendered, love - agapeĢ: not what is meant by charity in our common use of the word, which most men understand of alms - giving, but love in its fullest and most extensive meaning, true love...
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1st Corinthians Chapter 13 This chapter is a continuation of the subject commenced in chapter 12. In that chapter Paul had introduced the subject of the various endowments which the Holy Spirit confers on Christians, and had shown that these endowments, however various they were, were conferred in such a manner as best to promote the edification and welfare of the church.