📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 13:11
What does 1 Corinthians 13:11 mean?
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things."
— 1 Corinthians 13:11 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;
but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.
But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
Explanation
In this verse, Paul describes the natural progression of maturity: as a child, he spoke, felt, and reasoned in ways appropriate to childhood, but upon becoming an adult, he set aside those childish patterns. In plain language, he's making an observation everyone recognizes from experience—growth means leaving behind immature ways of speaking, feeling, and thinking as understanding deepens.
This verse sits within 1 Corinthians 13, Paul's famous discourse on love, written to the church in Corinth, a congregation deeply divided over spiritual gifts, status, and which members possessed the more impressive abilities. Just before this verse, Paul explains that prophecies, tongues, and knowledge—gifts the Corinthians prized highly—are partial and incomplete; they will eventually "be done away with" when something greater arrives. The childhood analogy illustrates this point: our current spiritual knowledge and gifts, however valuable now, are like a child's understanding compared to the fuller maturity that will come, especially when believers see God "face to face" (verse 12).
Theologically, the verse reinforces Paul's central argument that love is superior to the temporary, partial gifts the Corinthians were competing over. Just as a child's speech and reasoning give way to adult understanding, the present, incomplete knowledge of spiritual matters will give way to complete knowledge in eternity. The passage isn't primarily about human development in general but uses that common experience to make a specific theological point: spiritual gifts are wonderful but provisional, while love endures. The
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