<p>13:3- see on Acts 7:59.</p><p><i>And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and if I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing- </i>Even making sacrifice for others does not make us anything- if it is not done with love. Even dying for our faith doesn't make us any more than &quot;nothing&quot; if we do so without love. See on :2 <i>I am nothing</i>. Our &quot;profit&quot; is to that of others. Doing good deeds of charity alone would not save, according to the Lord's teaching in Mt. 6:1-4- if there was the wrong motive; some manuscripts add here &quot;That I may glory&quot;. And this certainly makes sense here. The burning of Christians only began under Nero's persecution, so far as history records. But perhaps such punishment had already begun in some places and Paul therefore alludes to it.</p><p>Let's not equate true love with the mere act of giving aid to charities. We can give all our goods to feed the poor, but lack true love; the life of love, the love of Christ permeating all our being (1 Cor. 13:3 may well have been written by Paul with his mind on some in the early Jerusalem ecclesia, who <i>did</i> give all their goods to the ecclesial poor, but lacked a true love, and returned to Judaism).</p><p>There is another possibility regarding giving our body to be burned. Some of the legal terms used in the NT for our redemption imply that Christ redeemed us from slavery through His death. And yet one could redeem a slave by oneself becoming a slave (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; Gal. 3:13; 4:5). This is why the crucified Jesus is typified by the suffering servant / slave of Isaiah&rsquo;s prophesies. And Paul seems to have risen up to something similar when he speaks of giving his body to be branded, i.e. becoming a slave (1 Cor. 13:3 Gk.).</p>