The Greatest Of These Is Love!

The Greatest of These is LOVE!

What are some powerful forces in life? What has the power to move you?

Is faith a strong force? A mustard seed of faith can move mountains (Mark 11:23). What about hope? One great gift we have as believers in Christ is hope for the blessed future that lies ahead. God often tells us that a powerful gift He gave us is love. Love is one of the most powerful things in existence.

What is love? What does love mean to you?

What are some verses of Scripture about love?

The apostle Paul wrote about how strong love is. He devoted many verses in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians to it. Verses 1-3 say “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

What is Paul saying in these verses?

He’s saying that love is essential for any part of life to be meaningful. Without love, nothing matters. I can speak with the intelligence of a scholar but without love, it’s nothing more than blabbering like a baby.

The next verses he wrote on love are often used in marriage ceremonies. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 says “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”

Do we want our spouse to be patient, kind, modest, generous, & humble? And wouldn’t we want them to be able to hold their temper & not get angry? And not keep a record of everything we do wrong? Those are all qualities we desire our companion to have.

Love is all of those things!

In verse 8 we read, “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.”

What’s Paul saying in that verse?

All things will cease or pass away. All things except love because “love never fails.”

On this topic, the McArthur Bible commentary says “This refers to love’s lastingness or permanence as a divine quality. Love outlasts all failures. Paul strengthens his point on the permanence of love by comparing it to the spiritual gifts which the Corinthians so highly prized: prophecy, knowledge, & languages, all of which will have an end." All these will end but love is eternal!

In these verses, we see how powerful & essential love is in the Christian life. Now let's fast forward a couple of verses to the verse we are going to dig deeper into. In verse 13 Paul writes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)

In the original language faith is the Greek word pistis (pis'-tis). What is the Christian faith? This word means a conviction of the truth of something. It’s a belief.

About faith, the Word of God says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) “So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” (Mark 11:23)

2 Corinthians 5:7 is another verse that indicates how powerful faith is. That verse says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is a powerful gift of God.

Hope is the Greek word elpis (el-pis). It means an expectation of good especially about fulfillment of God’s promises.

What is hope & what kind of things do we put our hope in?

The ultimate object & source of hope is God. God has been our true hope for generations through His mighty deeds. God redeemed the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. When they were freed, He provided for their needs in the wilderness, formed a community on Sinai, & led them to settle in the land of Canaan. These miraculous acts were a base for confidence in God’s purposes. Even when Israel was unfaithful hope was not lost because God’s faithfulness had not wavered. Because they always had secure hope in the Lord, Jeremiah addressed God as the “Hope of Israel” (Jeremiah 17:13)