Welcome to The Daily, where we study the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, every day.

Our shout-out today goes to Judson McCulloch from Lansing, MI. Thanks for your partnership in Project23. We cannot do this without donors like you.

Our text today is 1 Corinthians 13:11-12.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. — 1 Corinthians 13:11-12

Paul now moves from the permanence of love to spiritual maturity.

Childhood is not a sin. But being an adult believer and acting like a child is.

"When I was a child…"

Notice how Paul makes this personal. Paul is not mocking spiritual immaturity. He is describing spiritual growth.

Children speak in fragments. Think in fragments. Reason in fragments. Partial. Incomplete. Developing.

And that is how spiritual gifts function in this age. They operate in the partial.

While real. They are good. But they are incomplete.

The church in Corinth, however, treated partial things as ultimate things. They were fascinated with flashes of insight. Moments of manifestation. Public demonstrations of knowledge, tongues, and prophecy.

Paul says that is childish thinking. Spiritually mature believers recognize the limits of the present age.

"For now we see in a mirror dimly…"

That is our condition. We know truly—but not fully. And that reality should produce humility, not spiritual gifting arrogance.

Then Paul lifts their vision again:

"Then face to face."

"Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

The Christian hope is not better gifting or more manifestations of your present spiritual gifts. It is a further and fuller sight of the more valuable motivation.

One day, you will not need prophecy. You will not need partial knowledge. You will not need mediated insight. You will see Christ. And this is what we live for: a future reality that shapes a present humility.

Aim for that in all your motivations this week with the gifts the Spirit has given to you.

DO THIS:

Identify one area where you speak or argue with more certainty than Scripture allows. Practice humility in that space this week.

ASK THIS:

1. Do I treat my partial understanding as final?
2. Where has knowledge made me rigid instead of humble?
3. Am I longing more for clarity now—or for Christ himself?

PRAY THIS:

Father, remind me that I see only in part. Guard me from childish arrogance and inflated certainty. Shape in me a maturity that longs for the day I see you face to face. Amen.

PLAY THIS:

"Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus"