I’m not a religious man. I don’t secure the buoy of my spiritual beliefs to any monotheistic faith, though I do believe in faith. And hope. And, of course, love.
While not a Christian, I value strong writing/storytelling as much as anyone (bonus points for great translations from obscure languages), no matter what banner it falls under or what stigmatism might be attached to it, and the Bible certainly has its fair share of inspiring, meaningful and beautifully crafted passages.
Among the most famous and well-known of these would certainly have to be 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter focused on what is most commonly translated today as “love,” and authored by Paul the Apostle and Sosthenes. Parts of the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Coronthians in the New Testament have been quoted innumerable times by politicians, artists, activists, religious leaders, parents, teachers and Christians the world over, but one of my favourite recitals of the tremendously moving words came from Robert De Nero in Roland Jofee’s masterpiece, The Mission.
I’m cheating today by (1) cutting part of the original text and (2) including quotes (plural), but this one certainly warrants it in my opinion.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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