The Greatest of These — Love Beyond All Gifts

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:1,13) This chapter graces weddings, but it was first written to a gift-rich, quarrel-torn church. Paul stacks up the most dazzling spiritual résumé imaginable — tongues, prophecy, mysteries, knowledge, self-sacrifice — and stamps each item: without love, "I am nothing." Look at love's fifteen verbs: patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not arrogant… every one an actionable practice, not one a fluttering feeling. Biblical love is not fallen into; it is stood in. One reading will pierce you: replace "love" with your own name — "___ is patient, ___ is kind" — and wherever you cannot keep reading, there is today's prayer. Prayer: Lord, You are this love in person. Take the line I could not read, and work it into me. Amen.