Bristol, Virginia rbreem@gmail.com

Love. Sounding Brass or Clanging Cymbal

Part 2.

In this series we are going to learn what the love of God looks like. As part of this process we will look at what love doesn’t look like as well.

Paul made a point of doing this in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous “love” chapter. We are endeavoring to know what love is. First off, let’s be clear, this love we are talking about is agapē love.

This is love that is pure and comes from God alone. Agapē is quite different from brotherly love, human love and even the strong love between a husband and wife or parent and child.

Paul starts 1 Corinthians 13:1 with this:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.”

The Corinthian church was very familiar with the sound of a “sounding brass.” The city of Corinth was very pagan. One of the practices of the pagan worship was to bang brass that made this continual, empty ringing noise. The Greek word for brass in the above verse is chalkos. Brass is copper with a bit of tin in it. The brass is hollow, allowing for an echo. In fact, the word “sounding” in this verse ēcheō, which we get our English word echo from. It also carries the idea of the endless roaring of the sea.

The church at Corinth would also be very familiar with a “clanging cymbal.” The Greek word for “clanging” is alalazō and means “to repeat frequently the cry ‘alala’ as soldiers used to do on entering into battle.” The cymbal, also made of brass, was used by soldiers while going into war. It was also used for a joyful sound to celebrate a victory. God is saying here that even if we know various human languages and can even speak fluently the language of angels but if we don’t have love we are nothing more than the empty, hollow, repeating sound of sounding brass. Not only will our words be empty, vain repetitions but they will also incite war in people. Our words, possibly without realizing it, will cause anger to rise in people.

Rick Renner ministries has an interpretive translation of 1 Corinthians 13:1 that I quite like.

Even if I converse fluently in the languages of men and of angels, but do not possess love, then it’s all nothing more than empty, hollow sounds. People like this, who claim to be super-spiritual but lack love, sound a lot like the nonstop banging and clanging of pagan brass instruments in your city that you wish would stop.Those who go around pretending to be deeply spiritual, but who are sorely deficient in love, are so annoying that when you feel trapped in a vicinity near them, you’ll begin to look for any way to escape from being trapped with them. Even if they may say all the right things, their lack of love makes them as grating on your nerves as the clanging brass instruments that make you want to scream, ‘Stop it and stop it now!’ Let’s be honest – these super-spiritual motor-mouths talk incessantly about how spiritual they are but their absence of love makes it nothing more than a bunch of verbal hullabaloo. The hyped-up spiritual talk of these folks who demonstrate zero love to match their words is so offensive and nauseating that it can nearly call your flesh to battle just to get them to shut up.

Father, we do not want our words to be like the endless, empty banging of sounding brass. And we certainly do not want to incite war in people. We want to be people of peace and people of love. We ask you to fill us with your pure, agape love that is not empty but full of power. In Jesus’ name.

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