And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV
This sentence concludes the Bible’s Love Chapter, perhaps the most beautiful description of love the world has ever known. British Evangelist G. Campbell Morgan was the Pastor of Westminster Chapel in the early twentieth century. He said that examining this chapter is like dissecting a flower to understand it. If you tear it apart too much, you lose the beauty.
Paul’s triad of faith, hope, and love were once described by Thomas Aquinas as theological virtues because God is both the object and the source of each. We should have faith in God, hope in God, and love God, since it is God Himself who inspires all three virtues within us. Love is the greatest of these virtues, specifically the unconditional kind of love sometimes translated “charity.” This is God’s love, and it promises, “I will love you no matter what.”