"I Don't Think It Means
What You Think It Means":
Love, Hope, Faith
El Montecito Presbyterian Church
October-November, 2013
Telford Work, Westmont College
- I. The Shape of Life and Its Essential Terms
- The New Testament trio of faith, hope, love (along with others) as essential to Christian life
- (1 Thess 1:3, 1 Thess 5:8, Col 1:4-5, 1 Cor 13; N.T. Wright, After You Believe).
- Perennially competing life-ordering principles: inward human desires and outward systems of rules,
- both producing antagonistic 'works of the flesh' (Gal 5).
- We use these terms according to (somewhat overlapping) guiding frameworks or paradigms ("Inconceivable!"):
- -The creeds' third articles: ecclesial and eschatological life in the Spirit
- (overshadowed theologically by sacramentology,
then stress on grace through faith).
- -The American cultural framework: honor/self-fulfillment, self-realization/American dream, duty/citizenship
- (cf. Aristotle's virtue ethics of civic self-improvement).
- -The folk or cultural Christian framework: a cultural-traditional hybrid
- (of ... righteousness by faith, strength through hope, and goodness with love? with what goal?).
- -The originating apostolic framework (cf. James 1:17-18): Christian essentials are
- life-giving gifts from the Father,
bestowed in the Son's death (end of the old) and resurrection (beginning of the new),
enjoyed in eschatological anticipation through the Holy Spirit.
- These 'theological virtues' (Thomas Aquinas) are essentially relational (other-directed),
- whereas their cultural meanings are much more self-directed.
- II. Love, not an Attraction nor a Courtesy
- The greatest commandments
- (Deut 6:5, Lev 19:1-18 [Gal 5:14], Matt 5:43-48, John 13).
- Love misdirected and lost:
- Disordered, self-centered, fragile, shallow, destructive, futile love: sin (John 3:19).
Revolutionary love: Jesus Christ (1 John 4).
Evil desire (1 John 2:16-17, James 1:15, 2 Pet 1:4, 2:10).
How often is this what our cultures call "love"?
- Love redirected and restored:
- Sacrificial, faithful, hopeful, victorious, infectious love: Jesus' grace (John 13:1).
- Love comes from the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit, to one another through knowledge and faith (1 John 4:7-5:3).
Love heads, ties together, and unites the virtuous fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23, Col 3:9-14).
- True love ("willing another's good") can be defined and distinguished
- from so-called "love" (1 Cor 13, not a Greek dictionary!).
- III. Hope, not a Wish nor a Gamble
- A motive for this series:
- How and why should Christians live as we do?
- Hope has different objects.
- Definition of 'hope': the feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best.
'Third Article' reasons: Sacramental life, made right through grace, in expectation of heaven (Titus 1:2?).
American cultural reasons: Prosperity/power, love/family, beauty/health, autonomy/liberty, friendship/community, justice/advantage (Shepard Fairey's Obama poster); progress; optimism itself.
Folk-Christian reasons: All of the above?
Apostolic reasons: Living in "the hope of Israel" (Acts 26:6-7, 28:20, Ps 16 in Acts 2:26-27; Ezek 37:11-14 cf. 1 Cor 15:19, Luke 24:21, Matt 12:21).
- Suffering and its outcomes:
- 'Third Article': Stoic determination to endure?
American culture: Effortful avoidance?
Apostolic: Other-directed hope (Rom 5:1-11, Lam 3).
Living by the Spirit in hope, versus indulging the flesh and depending on rules (Gal 5:4-16).
Hope (along with love and faith) in, with, and under church practices (1 Cor 13).
Believers as Paul's hope (1 Thess 2:19, Rom 15:1-13).
Persecution for 1 Peter's and Hebrews' 'living hope' in living Jesus (6:11-20, 7:19; the object of faith in 11:1).
Being perfected through "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27-28).
- What do our usual strivings have to do with the hope of Israel?
- Fleshly distractions (Gal 5:16-25, cf. Kirsten Moore's chapel talk)?
Old creation's natural drives (Proverbs)?
Necessary efforts that need God's blessing (Ps 130)?
Incoherent syncretism (1 Tim 6:17)?
Parallel secular/sacred realms?
Signs of the Kingdom (Rom 4:18, 8:18-25)?
Potentially all of the above?
- IV. Faith, not a Thought Let Alone a Leap
- Where love and hope suffer unclarity from different cultural meanings,
- faith also suffers different Christian meanings.
- Definitions of 'faith' (Webster's):
- 1. confidence or trust in a person or thing [ordinary usage; other-directed: "I don't have much faith in those tires."].
2. belief not based on proof [philosophical; self-directed: "just believe"; "blind faith"].
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion [religious; other-directed? "I lost my faith in college"].
6. ... loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc. [social; other-directed: "acting in good (or bad) faith"].
- In 1 Cor 13, what is Paul's meaning and implication?
- Creedal shape: trust in God (confidence specifically in the Triune God),
distinguished since the scholastic era from 'reason' and loaded with Reformation-era theologies.
American cultural shape: ordinary use (pragmatism, optimism, empiricism) is detached from philosophical/religious usage (modernism, pluralism).
Folk-Christian shape: a personal, inward, improbable, heroic (or anti-heroic), even inert existential choice
(or supernatural gift?) of submission that promises heaven.
Apostolic shape: Israel's shape (gifted and warranted confidence in YHWH, responsive service, and loyalty to YHWH's traditions, cf. Phil 3:3-4) (see Matthew Bates, Gospel Allegiance);
taken in steps rather than leaps, sighted rather than blind, shared rather than private, wise rather than heroic;
revived, fulfilled, transformed, received, and renewed through the gospel (Luke 17:1-10, Heb 11:1-12:3).
- Images: Abraham (Rom 4 and James 2:12ff); the Psalmist; Job; Hebrews' cloud of witnesses; Paul (2 Cor 4:13-14).
- Faith's antithesis, doubt, is personified by Thomas's skepticism and especially Judas Iscariot's disloyalty.
By providing for faith with love and more,
we escape corrupt desire through God's promises (2 Pet 1:3-8).
- V. Conclusion
- 1 Cor 13:8-13 revisited: What does Paul think faith, hope, and love mean?
- These virtues order the Christian life that produces them and the eternal future that requires them:
- Disciplined faith (grounded in knowledge but strong in uncertainty);
hope through suffering (spawning but outlasting prophecies);
sacrificial love (fueling but far surpassing 'tongues').
- 1 Cor 14:1's last word: "Seek this love, and go for the things of the Spirit."
