Echoes of a more excellent way

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. It's been a crazy past few months and I'm just now getting back into writing. But my posts should come more regularly now that my life has slowed down a little bit. 

1 Corinthians 12:31

But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

Gifts are unique to each man. Each person has been given different capabilities and different things that they like to do and are good at doing. Having lots of siblings has helped me to see the diversity of God's gifts to each one of us. While one of us may be very skilled in a particular thing another one of us may not be skilled in that area. God gifts us according to what he calls us to do and if your gift may not be something that is noticed very much that doesn't mean that you are in any way inferior to someone who's gifts are more noticeable.

But what are the higher gifts Paul is talking about here, well that question is answered in chapter 14 but that's a whole other topic for discussion. What I want to focus on in this and my next few posts is what Paul calls the more excellent way. What is this more excellent way? Well it's laid out in chapter 13 which I'm sure all of us are familiar with. And while gifts are unique to each man these three things, which I'll talk about in this post and get really deep into over the next couple ones, are not ones that are supposed to be unique to each person, although they are becoming less and less common nowadays. They are more tools that gifts, tools that, in my opinion, are almost necessary for the Christians walk and aid us in our ministry to the world. These three things which are laid out in 1 Corinthians 13:13 are three of our greatest if not our greatest evangelical tools. 

But before we get deep into these topics I'm going to take this post to explain a little bit of the history behind this book to help us better understand Paul's intention for writing it. 

The letters of 1st and 2nd Corinthians were written to the church located at Corinth. Now the city of Corinth was very much known for being full of idols and rampant sin. But as we all know the light shines brightest in dark places. The story of Paul at Corinth is laid out in Acts 18. 

1 Corinthians is actually the second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians, his first letter had been misinterpreted by the church of Corinth. The Corinthians were struggling with placing some gifts above others, and using gifts such as seeking in tongues (see chapter 14) for their own gain. So in this portion of the letter Paul corrects them and though he does place more importance on some gifts over others his main focus is for the use of gifts for the encouragement of the church. But even before getting deeply into this topic he lays out in chapter 13 a "more excellent way."

These next few posts are going to be on that way. 

1 Corinthians 13:13

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I'm not going to get deeply into these three topics here or else this post might be a big long but I am going to talk about faith, hope, and love as a whole. You see faith, hope and love don't work well apart. Faith without hope is just believing in something without actually wanting or expecting it. Faith without love is just belief without desire of occurrence. Hope without faith is literally nothing, and hope without love is just an expectation without a want. Love without faith is like a dream, you enjoy it but you know it isn't real. Love without hope is simply nothing. 

So you see these three things cannot truly be separated or else you have a cheap version of the real thing. As Christian we are called to have faith, hope, and love and these tools are some of our greatest assets in our Christian walk. They help us not only to thrive spiritually but help us to reach out to others who are in need.

Hear the echoes of hope, faith, and love. And hear God calling you to take hold of the tools he's given you for his glory.