What is the more excellent way (1 Corinthians 12:31)?

What then is to be our attitude in regard to the various gifts? We are to desire earnestly the better, or greater, gifts; that is, such as prophesying, or teaching, as is evident from the opening verses of 1 Cor. 14. These are better because they are for wider and more general profit, and the gifts are given to each for the profit of all. And there is a way of more surpassing excellence by which this end may be reached. This way is the way of "charity" or divine love, as unfolded in chapter 13. The Apostle turns aside for a moment from the main line of his theme to stress the surpassing excellence of that love which is the very nature of God himself.

At the same time the saints are encouraged to desire earnestly the greater gifts, but these were for edification, not for show. And yet he points out to them a way surpassingly excellent; not surely a mere way, however eminently good, to obtain these gifts, as some suppose, but a way for souls to feel and think, to walk and worship, beyond all gifts. It is the way of love, which he opens out in the next chapter.

The questions of verses 29 and 30 of course are intended to imply negative answers. No more did all speak with tongues or interpret than were all apostles or teachers. Yet they are encouraged to desire earnestly the best gifts, This is not that each individual is to desire this in order to rival others, but rather the assembly was to desire earnestly that the best gifts should be in godly exercise in the assembly. As to the regulating principle in desiring gifts, however, chapter 14:12 is plain: "Seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church." Gift is given for the good of others, not for my own satisfaction. And the apostle adds, "Yet show I unto you a more excellent way." More excellent than gift itself is the genuine spirit of love in which it should be consistently exercised. Chapter 13 considers this.

Nevertheless there was something more excellent than all gifts. They were the manifestations of the power of God and of the mysteries of His wisdom; love, that of His nature itself.

We are exhorted to “covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet,” we are told, “I show to you a more excellent way.” What is that? To love one another. It may take talents and gifts to preach or teach, it may take a large income to give largely to the Lord’s work, but one can love with a full heart, even if one’s head and pocket are alike empty.

The Apostle has spoken of gifts, and in the gifts there are degrees, for he speaks of “the best gifts”. We are to covet such; but, even so, there is a “way of more surpassing excellence”. We can serve one another by way of gift, but the more excellent way is the way of love.

Let them learn then from the ordinary treatment of the human body what became them who had received such gifts as members of Christ's body. (vv. 14-26.) The more abundant honour is bestowed on the uncomely parts. Was that their thought about others? and did they think that the exercise of supernatural powers were the highest gifts to be desired? God had set the gifted ones in the assembly in an order of His selecting, in which such as could exhibit miraculous powers were far removed from being in the front rank. (vv. 28-30.) Would they desire gifts? Let them desire the best. Howbeit there was something better than any spiritual gift; viz., the activity of the divine nature, love, in which they were sadly deficient, and without which the person, however richly endowed with gifts, was nothing? (1 Cor. 13)

(V. 31). Gift is something that we may rightly covet. Nevertheless, as we, like the believers at Corinth, can easily abuse gifts by seeking to use them to exalt ourselves, we are told there is a more excellent way of serving one another. Of this more excellent way the Apostle immediately proceeds to speak.

He tells them to covet earnestly the best gifts and he would show unto them a more excellent way. This more excellent way is the way of love of which we hear in the next chapter.

To excel therefore in love should be the first and foremost aim of every believer. The way of love is the more excellent way, to which the apostle directs the saints in Corinth who were too much enamoured of those gifts which appealed to their senses rather than to their souls. He says to them, “And a still more excellent way show I to you. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 12:31 — 13:2, R.V.).

Whatever the estimate of the value of tongues in modern days, the apostle rates them, whether of men or of angels, to be, in the absence of love, no more than “a mere instrument of sound without sense, dead, mechanical, devoid of moral worth.” There is much clangour and clatter, but no true ministry of the Spirit bearing witness to the spirits of the saints. No edification results, for it is love that builds up, while tongues like knowledge puff up.