Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 13:3

"And if I bestow all my goods to feed [the poor], and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." — 1 Corinthians 13:3 (ASV)

Bestow all my goods.—The Greek word literally means to feed others by giving them morsels of food, and so we have the thought of a charity extensive in its diffusion, as well as complete in its self-sacrifice. The whole of the bestower’s property given in charity, and so divided as to reach the largest number.

I give my body to be burned.—A still greater proof of devotion to some person or cause is the sacrifice of life; yet even that may be without love. A strange reading has crept into some manuscripts—“that I may boast”—which would make the passage mean that a man gave his body to some torture from a wrong motive, namely, vainglory. But this would weaken the force of the passage. What renders the self-sacrifice valueless is not a wrong cause, but the absence of love as the motive power. Although burning was not a form of martyrdom at this time, yet such histories as that of the three children in Daniel 3:19 would make the expression intelligible and forcible.

These words are historically interesting to the English Church. They formed the text from which Dr. Smith preached at the martyrdom of Latimer and Ridley!