1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Please be aware that the current understanding does not apply to the understanding of the time of that writing. The Greek word used was esoptron which means mirror. Mirrors in those days would have been made of highly polished metal. An accurate portrayal of an individual would have been difficult even if the mirror were to be polished just before use. Certainly those items were not in common use by any but the wealthy.

Knowledge of those mirrors would have been common but the image for the common man would have been left to the imagination. The translation for looking through makes it even more difficult to translate into common language of the times as one cannot see through metal. Once again, it is illusionary, left to the imagination.

A time sensitive understanding of the word through is a comparative and as it relates to this passage would best be understood in context of “we change over time” as the use of now and then brings into usage the secondary definition of the Greek word “the grounds or reason by which something is or is not done”.

Now place this verse in context of where it stands as a connective phrase between 13:11 and 13:13.

13:11 asks us to put away childish things (imaginations)

13:13 emphasis is the greater attribute love, the grounds or reason for something to be done, or not done.

If we look only to our own understand about a prophetic future and what that means for us, we miss the relative importance of the timely understanding for the people to whom these words were written.

The lessons they learned will do us good to learn in context.

Luke 2:35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

These are the prophetic words of Simeon to Mary, about her son Jesus.

Do we ever speak our hearts?

Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

The mind is not the heart. If you were given a new heart upon being born again as implicated in Ezekiel 11:19, then this new heart is something other than the mind, will and emotions upon which life has experienced up until becoming a new creation in Christ.

When the heart was evil, the mind and will and emotions of the old man was set upon protecting and hiding that evil heart. Much is said in scriptures about renewing the mind as if the mind is what matters. It is not, it is the condition of the heart that matters.

The renewing of the mind has everything to do with understanding and expressing the new heart. The mind was trained and lived to hide and protect that which is now dead and gone. Our memories are still real but were conditioned by an old heart. Our new heart is not reflective of those memories but yet we treat it as if it was responsible. It was not.

Luke 24:32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

Here are two men on a walk to Emmaus who hear the scriptures, the same scriptures they grew up with and had heard so many times before and yet now, this time their hearts “burn” within them. The only thing that changed for these men was their hearts and for the first time they discovered what that meant.

The renewed mind reveals and shows the new heart condition.