Theme for the week: The Love Chapter – 1 Corinthians 13
February 10, 2022 (Thursday)
Today we visit verse 13 of the Love Chapter: ” And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Yesterday’s blog said that love is greater than faith; today’s blog says that love is greater than hope.
The words, “faith” and “hope” are so important that both words are used by the world to identify us as Christians. Our “faith” identifies us in the world’s eyes as everything we stand for, and our “hope” is used by us to say that we believe in God who comforts us as we optimistically see a future worth living. The two words have taken on meanings that strengthen and enlarge their original meanings. Faith and Hope are important to us. Very important.
Why, then, would Paul say that Love is greater than either? What if we were asked to choose the greatest of the three, Faith, Hope and Love? Without the help of 1 Corinthians 13:13, would we come up with the same answer that Paul gave us? I certainly hope so. We need not worry about it because the Bible settles the issue: “the greatest of these is love.”
Faith and Hope are vital to our spiritual life. Paul would agree to that, but he would remind us that without Love, neither is possible. Love is, indeed, the greatest thing in the world.
THE SOLID ROCK
Words, Edward Mote, ca.1834
Music, William B. Bradbury, 1863
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
Refrain
His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
Refrain
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
Refrain
The blogs this week are based on 1 Corinthians 13: Love is greater than:
Spiritual Gifts, Expectations, Faith, Hope, Anything.
New International Version
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Footnotes
1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames