Love Defined
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 1 Corinthians 13:11 · Berean Standard Bible
Just as you grow out of childish ways of thinking and behaving as you mature, we're growing out of the spiritual training wheels we need now—that's how it'll be when we reach full spiritual maturity in God's presence.
Paul uses his own experience of growing from childhood to adulthood as an illustration of spiritual development. The Corinthians are spiritually young and squabbling like kids; they need to grow up.
Paul, using a personal analogy to illustrate spiritual growth
This connects to Paul's other writings about becoming 'mature in Christ' (Ephesians 4:13). The Christian life is about transformation and growth, not staying stuck in spiritual infancy.
Paul illustrates his point through a personal analogy: the move from childhood to adulthood involves deliberately setting aside immature ways of thinking and acting.
This is a bridge passage—using a concrete metaphor to prepare for verse 12's mirror image. Paul likens the Corinthians' spiritual immaturity (nepiotēs) to childhood. They 'talked like a child' (elála), 'thought like a child' (ephron), and 'reasoned like a child' (elogizomēn)—three progressive domains of intellectual and relational life. The transition to manhood involved deliberate renunciation (apethēka—set aside, abandoned) of these modalities. This speaks to spiritual development requiring intentional choice, not just chronological passage.
Paul adopts first-person retrospection to make his analogy psychologically immediate.
This reflects a broader New Testament concern with spiritual maturation—1 Corinthians 2:6 speaks of 'mature' (teleioi) wisdom; Ephesians 4:13 describes growth toward 'mature manhood' (andros teleios). Love is not childish reaction but mature response.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.
11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.
12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
Read all of 1 Corinthians 13 — Read at every wedding, but written to a church tearing itself apart. Love looks less like a feeling and more like daily choices.
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