The greatest of these is love

The ancient Romans are thought to be responsible for the name of our modern day of love: Valentine’s Day. It is anything but romantic in its origins, however, as it is said to have come about as reaction to the martyrdom of a priest and a physician–both named Valentine–on February 14th of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

So much for images of cupid and sweet sonnets sung by starry-eyed troubadours.

Across the ages of human history, what ‘love’ means from person to person, let alone from century to century, is one of the most heterogeneous in the English language.

Take the Apostle Paul, the former persecutor of Christians whose heart God changed.

Paul’s first handwritten letter to the Christian community he founded at Corinth, an ancient Roman city located in south-central Greece, is one of the most significant of all Paul’s prolific writings.

In his letter the apostle ventures into the arena of love with celestial illuminations on a love that essentially flips the script on our forgivable understanding. The bandy-legged man of new-found grace explained to his fellow Christians that no gift of God–whether it be faith that moves mountains, or knowledge of mysteries– has meaning unless it is accompanied by love.

Galaxies beyond the sentimental, romantic prose of countless authors, poets and playwrights–and we who have only understood love in their contexts– this spiritual leader over far-flung churches dares express.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” Essentially, an annoying noise maker.

“If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to martyrdom, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Bottom line, what Paul is telling us, is no matter what we say, what we believe, and what we do, we are bankrupt without love.

Paul’s unquestionably not referring to the kind of “love” so often scripted by Hollywood.

Paul, whose surviving letters secured his place as one of the greatest spiritual leaders of all time, claimed:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”

“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” Sadly there is little rejoicing in our present culture; in as much as there is little truth.

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

“Love never fails.”

“But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.”

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.”

“When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Reading Paul’s counsel on love affirms its “alternative world” attributes.

For a man who struggled throughout his life with his physical eyesight, he certainly saw clearly the things of God.

Paul concludes his full-hearted epistle, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.”

“But the greatest of these is love.”