Last Sunday at Hobart Baptist Church we commenced a three part series on Faith, Love and Hope. This ‘triad’, as it is often called, is found in many places in the New Testament. It pops up in various combinations in several of Paul’s letters, but also in Hebrews and Peter’s first letter.
The first week we looked at faith, and yesterday we focused on love. Perhaps the most well-known of the triads is found in First Corinthians: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (13:13).
Writing to a church in a society where knowledge was the highest value, and one by which everything else was judged, Paul insists that knowledge in and of itself is useless unless it is grounded in relationships permeated with faith, hope and love. It is a most radical statement, not only for his time but for today also.
It is easy for us to gloss over what Paul says because of its familiarity.
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Random thoughts of a fellow traveller
Good stuff – I’m reading Philip Yancey What’s so amazing about Grace for the fifth time and here it is again, something new!!
I don’t fit church but I do love God, as you know. I’ve tried for over forty years to fit and all I can say is that I’m so grateful that God loves and respects me and has made me who I am. It’s funny, there’s a real sense of being led into a place of reflection and peace at the moment and I don’t know what it means, I’m just resting. Making time for me (so rare) and just being. I’m going to see Sophie in Sydney on Wednesday and then back to Port Lincoln, a complex place. Deane is so happy with his work and that’s wonderful too.
Hi Lyn,
There are many today who face a similar dilemma – they love Jesus but struggle with his church. Our institutional forms of church that have generally served us well for many centuries just don’t seem to cut it for many of us living in the early decades of the 21st century. Mind you, our individualistic consumerism doesn’t help, although I’m not suggesting that is at work in your case. I trust your “resting” is rich, deep and inspiring and that your sense of God’s grow in like manner. It’s good to know he loves me and all people, even those both in and out of churches that I sometimes find hard to get on with.
Stephen