So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three.

1 Cor. 13:13 ESV

The apostle Paul was not alone in grouping the three so-called theological virtues—faith, hope, and love—together. The writer of Hebrews (Heb. 6:10-12) and the apostle Peter (1 Peter 1:21f) did the same. (Paul did it again in Rom. 5:2-5, Gal. 5:5f, Col. 1:4f, and 1 Thess. 1:3 and 5:8). The early church used to speak of these three virtues in the same breath.

But does the modern church keep that practice? A visit to the website SermonAudio.com shows almost 150,000 sermons available on the topics of either faith, hope, or love, but only 897—less than 1%—on all three.

A search of Christian books listed by Amazon with “Faith” or “Love” in the title show each has about a 45% market share. Hope comes in last with about 10%. Again, less than 1% of those books have all three virtues in the title.

Why is hope the neglected sister of the three daughters of virtue? Why do faith and love get most of the attention? Do they even belong together?

Paul gives us a strong clue in 1 Cor. 13:13. In the Greek text, the verb translated “abide” is singular (grammarians wince!) Literally, the verse reads, “So now faith, hope, and love abides, these three.” Paul was not guilty of an error in grammar, but he did treat the three virtues as a unity. They should not be separated.

We often measure Christian maturity in terms of faith first. “John sure knows his Bible! He is one of the strongest Christians in the church.” And we all know that faith without works is dead, so love gets top billing as well. “Sarah is a wonderfully mature saint. Have you seen how much time she spends helping the poor in our community?” But have you ever heard someone say, “Sam is an outstanding Christian: he overflows with hope.”

I think not. Next time we will spend some time with the neglected daughter of virtue, Hope.

Photo by Shumilov Ludmila on Unsplash