Episode 210 - Faith, Hope, and Love - 1 Corinthians 13:13

1Cor. 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I don’t often do this. But we are only going to focus on one verse in this episode. I intentionally kept it separate from the section we covered last week and from the beginning of chapter 14 even though Paul continues to discuss spiritual gifts. My reason for this is that this verse not only summarizes what Paul is driving at, it highlights what should be the focus or priority in the life of a Christian.

Let’s focus first on the word “abide.” Paul writes that “faith, hope, and love abide, these three.” (v. 13a) This word reminds us again that the spiritual gifts listed earlier were given to help the young, immature church to grow up and become mature. They are valuable and Paul will continue in this letter encouraging and giving instruction concerning the gifts because the church still was very immature. But like young people who look forward to and want to be adults, we need to act like adults. How do we do that? We stop priorizing our “childish things” and manifest faith, hope, and love. They abide. The maturing Christian will have these three things evident in their life.

The first of these is faith. Faith is trust in what God has revealed. Faith is not, is never, blind. Someone cannot rightly say, “If you have enough faith, you will give me $1000.” That is not in the Scriptures. God did not reveal that. But what if that person claims to be a prophet and has “received this message from God.” The Scriptures teach us that not all prophets are speaking God’s message and they need to be tested. The Old Testament commanded that prophets who were proven to have spoken a false word they claimed was from God were to be stoned to death. We can’t get by with that today. But it shows the seriousness of saying, “Thus saith the Lord!” The truth still holds that what people say is from God must line up with what God has revealed. I had a man tell me one time that the Lord sent angels to tell him to divorce his wife. My response was, “That’s strange. God’s word says he hates divorce.” (Mal. 2:16) There is provision for it in certain cases because of the sin in this world. But I can’t imagine God encouraging it if he hates it. The one case I can recall where the leaders of Israel actually encouraged divorcing their wives was when they returned from exile where they had been because of their idolatry and rebellion against the Lord. As a nation they had been warned against marrying “foreign wives” because the foreign wives worshipped foreign gods and would lead their families away from the Lord. We see exceptions to this. Boaz married Ruth (a Moabitess) who was an ancestor to David and later Jesus. But she had committed herself to the Lord. Anyway, the command to put away their foreign wives was to say that their faithfulness to the Lord was the priority in their walk of faith.

The Greek word that is translated “faith” also means “faithfulness.” It seems to me that while we will see God in eternity and will therefore be both seeing and believing, we will still manifest “faithfulness” in our moment by moment existence.

Hope is the second thing that abides. In my sixty years of life, I cannot think of a time where hope was so lacking in our world. But we, as Christians, are offered an amazing hope that this life and all of its troubles are temporary and that eternity will be never-ending abundant life that Jesus offers through faith in him.

It would seem that once the resurrection happens, that will be the culmination of hope. We will have arrived and will eternally experience what we had hoped for in this life. But is it possible that hope will continue perhaps in even a more pure and rich form throughout eternity? Is it possible that the glory of God will lead us to a never-ending journey of learning and experiencing God’s glory. Hope would be a never ceasing joyful expectation of what is next. It’s just a thought.

Faith, hope, and love abide. “But the greatest of these is love.” (13b) The Scriptures have a lot to say about faith and hope. But Paul says that love is even greater, more important. Why? I think it’s because God has demonstrated nothing greater toward us than his love when Christ died on the cross for our sin, making it possible to have peace with God. We have faith in God. We have hope in God. But love is what can be directed toward God and all of humanity and God’s creation.

This is one of those verses we could use as a life verse. We need to meditate upon this and prayerfully ask the Lord to increase our faith, hope, and love as he leads us into a mature faith.

Episode 28 - God loved the world

John 3:16-18

16   “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 

We have arrived at what is likely the most famous or well-known verses in all of the Bible; at least in the English language. You have likely driven down highways and seen this verse on a billboard. You may even recall watching sporting events where spectators who were sitting in areas frequently captured by television cameras would be holding placards with the reference John 3:16. 

Just because and maybe even especially because it’s so familiar, we should not move past it so quickly. Take the first phrase “For God so loved the world . . . “  for example. This part of the verse is frequently interpreted as a description of quantity; a measure of how much God loved us. However nice that sounds, it is likely more accurate to understand this as an expression of the manner in which God loved the world. In other words, we could paraphrase this as “God loved the world in such a way that he gave his only Son . . . “ Regardless, that phrase is intended to cause its hearers or readers to stop in awe. Ideally, mankind confronted by this reality should be stopped in our tracks at the wonder that God would love any one of us that he would send his only Son into the world to die on our behalf so that we might not perish. If you get nothing else from this blog or podcast episode, I hope this Scripture will have such an effect on you. It should move us to be humbled, to be thankful to God, and to say to God, “God, let the gift of your Son have the effect You desire in me. Help me trust you in all things.”

Notice that the rest of this little section we’re reading speaks of two kinds of people; those who are perishing and those who are given eternal life. This sounds pretty extreme and so it is if you believe this is the truth from God’s Word.

The first part of this that is important to understand is that it’s God’s love, expressed through the giving of His only Son, makes it possible for people to not perish, but be given eternal life. This is important to realize God’s good intention toward mankind. In verse 17, it’s more fully explained by saying, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world.” I’m continually amazed by how many people I meet; religious or not who tend to think that God is always waiting to judge and condemn people for the slightest misstep. The situation, however, is that mankind is already in a judged and condemned condition. How did that happen? That happened back at the beginning of time when the first man and woman who were perfectly created by God, used their God-given wills to choose to disobey God. They brought “darkness” into the world through their disobedience. We are their children and are, therefore, born into this condition of darkness. But, God is saying, “I don’t want you to be there and I’m going to do something about it.” 

Don’t miss the repetition of “the world.” God’s intent is not simply to save the Jews. God’s intent is to save the world; people all over the world regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. 

Do these people need to do anything to not perish and have eternal life? Yes. They have to “believe in him.” Who is him? The answer is God’s only Son Jesus Christ. Think of it this way: Someone can give you a gift. But, you don’t have it unless you accept it. In verse 18, John writes that if you believe you are not condemned. However, everyone who has not believed is already condemned, “because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (v18) 

There are people who want to say that everyone gets to God in their own way or everyone ultimately is saved. But, this verse is in direct contradiction to that kind of thinking. The point is that we all have this problem of “darkness.” We need God’s light in our hearts and minds leading us Him. That light, the true light that came into the world was God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.