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I had conducted a wedding. At the reception one of the guests, a complete stranger, a rough, tough man, with no obvious refinements of education or cultured thought, confronted me. "What was that thing you read in the service?"
"It was from the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13" I said. "Why?"
"Never heard anything like it. Wow. It's deep man, deep".
"Yes" I said ... wondering just what direction to take with him. He was obviously pole-axed by it.
Well, here it is again, but this time from an American scholar's paraphrase, which might come across freshly, and hit you as "deep man, deep" :
"If I give everything I own to the poor, and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't have love, I've gotten nowhere.So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without Love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others. Isn't always 'me first'. Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others; Doesn't revel when others grovel. Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything. Trusts God always. Always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end."
Now that is really deep. It is even deeper when I substitute the word 'Jesus' for the word Love'
A Prayer: Thank you Father for the Deep Deep Love of Jesus.
Now, putting it another way, read Deuteronomy Chapter 6.
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