Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, July 21, 2024
by Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Faith has a role to play in how 1 John understands our relationship to God. Here we see how faith and love work together to build our relationship with God through Christ.
The hero’s back is up against the wall. Their allies are down, their resources are depleted, and nothing seems able to avert their inevitable doom. But then, what’s this? Just when all hope seems lost, a voice is heard in the distance, a shadow appears in the doorway, and lo! An old mentor thought dead, an erstwhile foe who experienced a change of heart, whomever it is—help has come. The day is saved. And though we tell ourselves that we all knew it was coming, accompanying our cheer is also a sigh of relief and a lowering of our blood pressure. It feels good to know that the ending we wanted for everyone is now secure.
We all love dramatic entrances like these, and 1 John does not disappoint. Up until now, we’ve heard a lot about love and had our ups and downs. We’ve experienced both the comfort that the love of God brings and the challenge that love presents to how we live our lives. As we enter into the final chapter of 1 John, we come to see that there is still one more character to step into the story: faith. And when faith finally makes its debut in 1 John, it is as the victory which conquers the world. What an introduction! Why was the author holding out on us for so long? If we are experienced with Pauline canon, we expect faith to make an appearance front and center. In the Johannine Cinematic Universe, however, our authors approach from the perspective of love. What role, then, does faith play? How do we understand faith as victory when, up until this point, love seemed to have all the basis covered?
Admittedly, 1 John does not give us much to work with. Faith here is not treated in nearly as much depth as in the letters of Paul, and unlike the letter of James, 1 John is not in direct conversation with the works of Paul. Belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God seems to be the sum of faith for the author of 1 John, and that this belief stands alongside love. As we heard two weeks ago, “And this is the commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us” (3:23). That John articulates the nature of faith so simply helps give us clarity: faith is what points us to Jesus Christ as the Son of God as the source of our love, as we heard last week in 1 John 4. Faith may make a second act appearance, but really, it was working in the background the whole time. It is our trust in God’s love for us revealed in the death and resurrection of Christ which produces the same love as this in us, oriented toward our neighbors. Faith may have been late to the party, but it showed up to provide essential aid that saves the day.
