But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13, NASB
Love: Preeminent Reinforcement
I've been editing a document for a friend and found this passage to be beautiful and insightful regarding the famous passage on the role of faith, hope and love. The argument I am accustomed to teachings that argue love is superior because of its longevity. While there is a day when faith becomes sight and hope is fulfilled, love will never lose its usefulness. We will love and be loved throughout eternity!While this line of reasoning is solid and wonderful, my friend argues that love is (also) preeminent 1) because it gives a holy context to the other two and 2) because it nurtures and supports the other two in our present reality. In his own words:
...he begins with a negative emphasis on its essential nature (what good is any other act or quality, even including faith, without it?) then ends with a statement that only 3 qualities can endure in this world: faith, hope, and love. Perhaps the interpretation could even mean that the three qualities are all that will endure into eternity: Faith, the trusting in God’s goodness and vision; Hope, by which we know for certain we have been redeemed and are loved; and Agape’-Love, the concern for all that God pervades and all that is of God. And the greatest of these three? Without love, faith is sterile. Without love, how can we have a hope—in God or anyone or anything else? Without faith, love can heal us until we are able to trust enough to express faith. Without hope, love gives us vision to see the focus of hope is in God, in his unchanging certainty, and in the needs within his creation that he has prepared for our actions to heal.
—Steve Morris