2. Three Things We Can't Ignore
Seeing faith, hope and love throughout the New Testament … Once we begin to see the pattern of faith, hope and love throughout the writings of Paul, we begin to recognize the same three qualities throughout the writings of the other New Testament apostles. This may come as a surprise to many people, but although we do not find the kind of simple listing we see in 1 Corinthians 13:13, the qualities are there nonetheless. We just have to look for them.
When we remember how Paul so frequently uses literal or symbolic synonyms for one, two, or even three of the qualities of faith, hope and love in his writing, we see that other New Testament writers also did exactly the same. We will look at just three examples to make this point.
Although most biblical scholars do not think that the epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul, the letter was certainly influenced to a great degree by many of his teachings and things he said. This fact is interesting when we look at the qualities of faith, hope and love in Hebrews. Notice what the author writes in the tenth chapter of that book:
"… let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:22-24). By now you should be seeing faith, hope and love jump off the page as you read such scriptures. As you doubtless noticed, the author of
Hebrews mentions all three directly. Faith is mentioned in verse 22, hope in verse 23, and love in verse 24. By reading these verses carefully we can see how the three qualities are associated with others (faith with assurance, hope with purity, love with good deeds) and perhaps come to a better understanding of what the author was stressing in this passage.
As another example, we will look at the second epistle of Peter: "… make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love" (2 Peter 1:5-7). Here, we see Peter gives a long list of important spiritual qualities, but remembering what we have learned about the New Testament's use of synonyms or related terms, we see that faith is mentioned at the beginning of the list, perseverance (used to represent hope, as we saw in the last chapter) is mentioned midway, and love at the end. What might seem at first glance like a long list of qualities that just happens to include faith, hope and love is actually an expansion of these things – almost like a spectrum – structured around them.
And this is not just a chance occurrence. If we look in his first letter, we see something similar on a smaller scale when Peter writes:
"… so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love …" (1 Peter 1:21-22 ESV). Faith, hope and love are explicit in these verses, but if we look closely we can also see once again the connection between purity/obedience and hope.
Finally, let's look at another clear example – this time from the epistle of Jude:
"But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (Jude 1:20-21). Faith and love are explicit in these verses and we do not have to look far to see hope in the form of waiting for eternal life (vs. 21).
Once we have the principle in mind, we can see the three qualities of faith, hope and love repeatedly in the New Testament writings (we will see many more examples in the course of this book), and we can profit from a deeper understanding of what those writings are aiming to teach us.