<p>13:13 <i>But now abides faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love- </i>In the future Kingdom of God, there will be no need for the miraculous Spirit gifts as they were in the first century. Love is &quot;the greatest&quot; because faith and hope will then have been turned to sight and will be no more (1 Cor. 13:13). A theme of Corinthians is the ability of the believer to live on different levels- e.g. 1 Corinthians 7 advocates the single life of devotion to God as the highest level, but goes on to make a series of concessions to lower levels. It seems that in the matter of the use of the miraculous Spirit gifts, Paul is again presenting a higher level upon which the believer of his time could live- a &quot;more excellent way&quot;. He wanted to live the Kingdom life now as far as possible. We &quot;have eternal life&quot; not in the sense that we shall not die, but in the way that we in Christ can live the kind of life we shall for ever live- right now.</p>