Faith, Hope and Love

 Greeting toyou all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     First tCorinthians 13:8 says, “ And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” 

     I am often intrigued by words and why certain words are used and how new ones ae een coming to be placed in the dictionary such as “selfie.”  It  was unheard of a few years back but now has found its place in the dictionary.  Some people like to take “selfies” time and time again to show a new hairdo or a new friend or to be seen in a certain spot.  We couldn’t do that with film years ago.  I remember that My dad was in the back row on the street as the funeral procession of John F. Kennedy passed by in Washington, D.C.  He held his camera up to take some pictures but when they were developed, all he had were pictures of the feet of the horses pulling the caisson that bore the body of the president.  Selfies are easy and if you don’t like the result, you can instantly take another one without waiting for several weeks for the prints to arrive.  Words can sometimes portray an action that is being taken.

     The above verse mentions three things that abide, faith, hope, and charity.  In The KJV, the word charily is A25 in the Greek dictionary which is “agape” or the word we commonly use for “love.”  Paul exhorts the Corinthians that “love’ or “charity” is the greatest of the three.  Adam Clarke spends a lot of time on this verse with too many words to include here except for the last paragraph which says,”I conclude, therefore, from these and a multitude of other reasonings which might be brought to bear on this subject, that faith and hope will exist in the eternal world as well as love; and that there, as well as here, it may endlessly be said, the greatest of these is love. With great propriety therefore does the apostle exhort, Follow after love, it being so essential to our comfort and happiness here, and to our beatification in the eternal world; and how necessary faith and hope are to the same end we have already seen.”   As Pastor Randy would often say that this type of love could be defined as “righteous deeds to meet the need of another.”  Some are simple deeds and others are more complex, but they effectively meet the needs of the others to whom we are addressing.  There are words that express anger and resentment and other words that convey kindness and understanding, so even our expressions can either built up or tear down as the result of saying them.   Some will even say after a terrible blast of words, “I was only kidding.” but I found this to usually be the opposite of what was intended.  They said what the wanted first and tried to soften the blow afterwards.  Will our words be words of love or words of wrath?  Will our words build up or tear down?  Praise God today  for His Words of love towards us.  May we do likewise to those we meet today.