1 Corinthians 13:13 meaning

1 Corinthians 13:13 Meaning: Faith, Hope and Love, the Greatest of These Is Love

1 Corinthians 13:13 meaning: faith, hope and love remain, and the greatest of these is love. Why love is greater than faith and hope.

Illustrated portrait of Christopher McAllister

By Christopher McAllister

Founder of theBibleand.Love

Published September 25, 2026Updated September 27, 20268 min read1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

An oil lamp rests on a stone ledge while two friends walk an olive-lined path toward a village.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

— 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

1 Corinthians 13:13 means faith, hope, and love are the three that remain, and love is the greatest of them. In the NIV, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The line people search, "the greatest of these is love," is that second sentence. Paul is closing the love chapter. He is not ranking three moods. He is saying what still stands when the gifts people were boasting about have done their work, and he names love as the greatest.

1 Corinthians 13 is the whole chapter. 1 Corinthians 13:1 stays with the opening line: without love, speech is a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. What 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 means stays with patient, kind love. 1 Corinthians 13:7 stays with "love bears all things." 1 Corinthians 13:8 stays with "love never fails" and the gifts that pass away. 1 Corinthians 13:11 stays with "when I was a child" and putting away the ways of childhood. 1 Corinthians 13:12 stays with the mirror and "through a glass, darkly." Love and Faith and Love and Hope follow the other two words through the rest of Scripture. The verse people look up as faith, hope and love is Faith, hope and love Bible verse. The phrase people look up as the greatest of these is love is The greatest of these is love. The verse-number page is 1 Corinthians 13:13 meaning. This page stays with verse 13.

What the verse is saying

The wording above is the NIV. The ESV says, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." "Remain" and "abide" translate the same Greek verb, menei. The three stay. They are not in the list of things that cease.

"These three" looks back at the chapter, not at a new topic. Verses 4-7 have already shown what the love is: patient, kind, not keeping a ledger. Verse 8 has said that love never fails, while prophecies, tongues, and knowledge pass away. Verse 13 gathers what Paul still wants named after that contrast: faith, hope, and love, with love called the greatest.

The Greek word for love here is agapē: a will for someone's good, not a feeling you wait to have. It is the same word through the chapter. It is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional — a choice to seek the other person's good, not a mood that has to show up first. Agape love is that word in the rest of the New Testament. God is love, and the love Paul has been defining reflects his character.

Why love is greater than faith and hope

Paul says love is the greatest. He does not add a second sentence that spells the reason out. The reason sits in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, the verses he has just written, and in what faith and hope are.

Verse 8 says love never fails, and then names what will not last in the same way: "where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away" (1 Corinthians 13:8, NIV). Verses 9 and 10 say why. "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears" (1 Corinthians 13:9-10, NIV). What we have now is partial. It is retired when the complete thing arrives.

Verse 11 pictures the same change as growing up: the speech of a child put away when completeness comes. What "put away childish things" means is 1 Corinthians 13:11. Verse 12 names that arrival as sight. "For now we see only a 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" (1 Corinthians 13:12, NIV). What the mirror and "through a glass, darkly" mean is 1 Corinthians 13:12. For this page, the point of that sentence is the contrast: now is indirect, and then is face to face.

Faith and hope belong to the "now." Hebrews 11:1 says faith is "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Romans 8:24 says, "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?" Faith trusts what is not yet seen. Hope waits for what has not yet arrived. When the mirror gives way to face-to-face sight, faith is not asked to keep believing what is standing in front of you, and hope is not asked to keep waiting for what you already have. They are fulfilled at sight. They have done what they were for.

Love is not fulfilled by being replaced. It is the life that sight does not retire. The God we will see face to face is the God who is love, and the people we will see with him are people we will still love. That is why Paul can say the three remain, and still say the greatest of these is love. Faith and hope are real, and they are aimed at a day when seeing finishes their work. Love is what that day is for. 1 Corinthians 13:8 stays with the gifts that pass. This is the next claim: among what remains, love is greatest.

Love and Faith follows faith that expresses itself through love, the claim of Galatians 5:6. Love and Hope follows hope as confident expectation, not a wish. Neither page is a reason to treat faith or hope as small. Paul keeps all three. He refuses to let the church treat love as optional next to them.

What this love looks like

The greatness of love is not a compliment pasted on a feeling. It points back to the portrait in verses 4-7. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, boast, or grow proud. It does not dishonor people, seek itself, or keep a record of wrongs. What 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 means reads those lines one by one. Patience and love stays on the first word.

In a house, a church, or a friendship, that is ordinary and costly. It sounds like not making someone pay all evening for a sharp sentence at noon. It sounds like loving one another when it is easier to keep score. In a marriage it is the same love, lived inside a covenant: love in marriage. When someone has actually done wrong, it is forgiveness, not a stored ledger. The pattern is Jesus. How to love like Jesus stays with his command and his example.

Faith that can move mountains is already called nothing without this love (1 Corinthians 13:2). The greatness in verse 13 is the same point from the other end. Impressive faith is not greater than the love it was supposed to serve.

What the verse does not mean

A few limits keep "the greatest of these is love" from being used as a slogan it is not.

  • It does not retire faith or hope today. Paul says the three remain. He does not say you may drop trust or expectation because love is greatest. The Christian life still walks by faith and still hopes. Love is the greatest of the three, not a replacement you can have without the other two.
  • It does not say a feeling outranks the truth. The love in this chapter is the patient, truthful love of verses 4-7. Calling a mood "the greatest" and then refusing the truth is not this verse. Love "rejoices with the truth."
  • "Remain" is not a promise that every relationship lasts. The three virtues remain. People still leave, lie, and wound each other. The verse does not tell someone in a harmful house that staying is the proof of love. Verse 7's "always perseveres" is not a trap, and verse 13 does not make it one.
  • It is not a new contest about gifts. The gifts were what the Corinthians used to rank each other. Verse 13 is the answer to that ranking: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest is love.

Questions people ask

What does 1 Corinthians 13:13 mean?

It means faith, hope, and love remain, and the greatest of these is love. Paul has just said that prophecies, tongues, and partial knowledge pass away, and that now we see in a mirror and then face to face. Verse 13 names what he still wants the church to hold, and he puts love first among those three.

What does "the greatest of these is love" mean?

It means love outranks faith and hope, not that faith and hope are discarded. "These" are the three just named: faith, hope, and love. Love is greatest because faith and hope are aimed at what we do not yet see, and love is the life that face-to-face sight does not replace. The line is the close of 1 Corinthians 13, after the portrait of patient, kind love.

What does faith, hope and love mean?

In this verse, faith trusts God where sight is still a mirror, hope waits for what God has promised and not yet given, and love is the committed will for someone's good that Paul has described since verse 4. He says all three remain. He says love is the greatest. The three belong together. Love is not a third hobby beside them.

Why is love greater than faith and hope?

Because faith and hope are fulfilled when sight comes, and love remains as the thing sight was for. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says we now see a reflection and then we shall see face to face. Faith is assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). Hope that is seen is no longer hope (Romans 8:24). When we see face to face, those two have arrived. Love is not waiting to be swapped out for a view. It is how we will still live with God and with one another.

Do faith, hope, and love all last forever?

Paul says the three remain, in contrast to gifts that cease. He also says love is the greatest, after telling the church that partial knowing gives way to face-to-face sight. Faith and hope are for the time of the mirror. They are real now, and they are completed when what they reach for is seen. Love is not completed by being finished off. It remains. That is the sense in which it is the greatest, not a claim that trust and hope are unimportant today.

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