Many commentators see in this verse a pattern in the poetry, that is, you see four phrases here like this: 1, 2, 2, 1. That is because faith and hope are very similar ideas. The meaning is quite similar to the previous phrase that love believes all things. Let us notice the meaning, the basis, and the pattern. So, as we will see, the point here of love hoping always is that it does not give up. So, “all things,” I think, is probably better understood as “always.” It never stops hoping. We do not hope that, for example, all of humanity will be saved. As we hope in God, we do not hope contrary to what God has revealed. If you think of hope, we do not hope all things. But I think the emphasis is more on the fact that it does this continually. Love in its scope believes all things and hopes all things and endures all things and bears all things. And it can be a pronoun: “all things” or it can be an adverb: “always.” If we think of it in terms of all things, certainly there is a scope to love that is being described here. “All things” is two words in the English, but it is one word in the Greek. I want to explain the word “always” first, because the verse says that love hopes all things. Our theme in this message will be “Love Always Hopes.” We are, in this message, at the fourteenth of the fifteen characteristics of love, the fourteenth thing that love does, the fourteenth practice or activity of love.
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