Love — Leonard Ravenhill

Love in 1 Corinthians 13

The following message was delivered by Reverend Leonard Ravenhill during a regular session at the Christ for the Nations Institute. He is speaking on the subject of love based on 1 Corinthians 13.

A hymn a minute ago, Standing on the Promises, I thought of the famous Baptist preacher. I once preached a week with him, dear old Vance Havner, and I think we sang that hymn, Standing on the Promises.

And he said, well that's nice, to sing Standing on the Promises, but I find there are more people sitting on the premises. Now I don't know which you think is the most profound chapter in the Bible. This, of course, is open to public opinion.

But this afternoon we're going to deal with the chapter that I think is maybe the most profound. And this is in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter. It has 13 verses, and if we take as long over each one as we've done some nights over one text, well, you should be home for breakfast about Tuesday morning.

1 Corinthians chapter 13, and we read all the 13 verses. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing.

Charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Pretty good standard. Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Therefore we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I thought as a child, I speak as a child, I understood as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.

The Church’s Greatest Need Is Love

Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith and hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. In the 2 ,000 years of its erratic history, the Church of Jesus Christ has lacked many things.

And she still lacks many things today, but there's one thing she's never lacked, either in the past or the present, nor will she in the future, and that is critics. She's always had plenty of them. We have a very ripe crop right now, both inside of the church and outside of it.

Everybody's an amateur diagnostician, trying to take the pulse of the church, trying to tell us what's wrong with her. Some say, of course, she has no faith. Well, if she has, it's very weak. And some say she has none or very little power, and some say this, and some say that, some say the other.

And very often, people say to me, Brother Ravenhill, as you crisscross what we call the Church of God, what do you think is the most essential thing in the day in which we're living? Is our need faith?

Is it vision? Is it power? What is it? And I always answer, you disagree, but I always answer in one simple word. The greatest need of the church today is love. And the qualification is love out of a pure heart.

And it's essential to remember this. Because again, the emphasis today on the work of the Spirit in the human heart is on power. But God's emphasis is not power, it's purity. And it's an awfully dangerous thing.

I was reading only today the foundation of the Apostolic Church in America in 1900, through Parham, I think the man was. And he was a man who ministered in holiness circles and many other circles. And then there was a dramatic operation of the coming of the Spirit of God without asking.

The Holy Ghost fell upon them. And they began to speak in tongues. A woman stood up praying, spoke in eloquent Chinese. And not only that, what I've not read before, but she wrote out the message in brilliant Chinese.

And it was faultless because the Holy Ghost gave it. And immediately false fire developed. Now you know we're so worried about not having false fire that we settle for no fire at all. And this is equally dangerous.

Wherever the carcasses, the eagles will be gathered. Wherever you get truth, you get error. And every time the Church of God is silent, on a cardinal point of doctrine, the devil fills in the gap. Why do we have Spiritism?

There is a revival of Spiritism on even now in America. You read the magazine Esquire, which I do not normally take, but I took it this year in March. And Look magazine ran 20, 16 pages I think in Esquire, 24 on the present revival of demon worship, devil activity, terrible.

And usually when the Church is silent or not correct in her teaching on the Holy Spirit, the devil comes in with false spirits. When the Church is silent on divine healing, the devil raised up Christian science.

There's always something to fill in the vacuum. When the Church was silent on regeneration, up came the teaching of reincarnation. And if you trace it through, which isn't my job, you'll discover every time there's a gap, Satan rushes in to fill that gap.

Now, I say that love is the answer. It's my simple conviction. It may seem to oversimplify the thing. But I believe today that a baptism of genuine Holy Ghost love would put the Church of God back into business.

Love as the Cement of the Church

Now some will say right away, well you blasted, say, the Church of Rome this week. And you know I've got news for you, I'm going to continue blasting it. You say, well love your enemies. Rome isn't my enemy, it's God's enemy.

I love my enemies, but I won't love his enemies because he isn't, he's going to roast them. So don't you ask me to do what God isn't going to do. If the Church of Jesus Christ is a building and doesn't the Bible say that you and I are not David Livingstone, but we are lively stones.

Now if you build up stones, you've got to have something cementing them together. And if you and I are the lively stones in the Church of God, then love must be the cement that holds those stones together.

If the Church is a body and this is what the Bible says it is, then love must be the blood stream in that body. Now in the past 50 years, biblical scholarship has given us a crop, nearly an over crop of translations, transliterations, paraphrases and what have you, of the New Testament.

And two pioneers in this field, there are many, many of them now, but two pioneers in this field were one, Dr. Moffat and the other, Weymouth. And when Dr. Moffat made his translation of 1 Corinthians 13, he gave us, in my judgment again, the most superb picture of a sanctified, or if you'll change the vocabulary, a spirit-filled life of anybody that ever put a pen to paper.

Read it sometime. I'll quote some of it during the message. You see, he took issue with this King James Version. Now there are some people who won't read any other version at all. I don't blame them. I like the little Irish lady.

My Irish wife says it was an English lady. Well anyhow, the little old Irish English lady, somebody gave her a new translation of the New Testament for a Christmas gift and she returned it. Because she said the King James Version was good enough for Paul, so it's good enough for me.

Well, she missed it by about 2 ,000 years, but you know what she means. She means that she doesn't like twisting and torturing sometimes the Scripture to make it fit our vocabulary or our theology. Now here you have this very beautiful, stately, dignified, Elizabethan English.

And many of the words in the Authorised Version have lost their meaning totally. And the issue that James Moffat takes with one word in this chapter is that word charity. Now let's clear the ground here and you've got to do this with anything you read from the Bible or anybody who preaches from it.

Reading 1 Corinthians 13 in Its Corinthian Context

To whom is the Apostle writing here? I'm trying to... Next year I think I'm going to quit preaching and do nothing but write because there's so much I want to say and I think I'll do this. So you pray the Lord will send me $20 ,000 so I can get some publishing done and I'll print it through this office here maybe.

But there's so much to be said, in my judgment, to balance truth. Did you ever know a child who if he was offered a job or a chance to swing in the garden would choose the job? Don't we usually rather be entertained than be employed?

Isn't it usually true in the spiritual realm you'd rather rush to a breakfast or a banquet than go and try and rescue a prostitute down a back alley? See a good brother here from Teen Challenge. He was from Teen Challenge.

I quoted him the other day leading that song. You remember? He may have forgotten. What was it now? Hmm? Thank you. Amazing, great. Somebody remembered what I said. Isn't that wonderful? Not many do. But I remember him leading that song that day.

Now, what was I saying? Oh, I'm trying to get people on the beam because most of us are hopping around on one leg theologically. Now I take a middle of the road attitude about gifts of the Spirit and there's a great advantage in doing that because brother if you walk down the middle of the road you get hit with the traffic going both ways.

And I go to Holiness Church and say Hey, I'm here with a Pentecostal group. Sorry, we don't want you. So what? Think I'm going to cry? And then I go to a Pentecostal group who say You don't believe that everybody must have the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Oh, I believe that. But I don't believe that everybody I can't help it. I don't believe that everybody who receives the baptism must have gifts at least not within 10 minutes of receiving the baptism.

It's not your business to direct the Holy Ghost. That may be news but you better swallow it. Who is Paul writing to? To the Corinthians. Who were they? They were Greeks. What did they love? Oratory. And so here when he says to these Corinthians I may speak with the tongues of men.

He doesn't say he does speak with all the tongues of men and all the tongues of angels. And what's more I don't believe any man is capable of doing that. Utterly beyond him. Now it's true in the next chapter he says I thank God I speak with tongues more than ye all.

But you see these people they loved oratory. When they went to school they didn't have choirs they had competitions in oratory. Oh they'd catch on immediately when Paul says I may speak with the tongues of men.

You see this is the most controversial church in the New Testament. They had every gift of the Spirit and therefore they had more problems. He says they're carnal. Well you say how can a church be carnal and spiritual at the same time?

How can people be carnal and spiritual? He doesn't say they are in my judgment. He says the church is carnal and spiritual because half of them in the church are spiritual and the other half are carnal and therefore you've got a dialogue you've got controversy.

As I've said repeatedly if you pray God open the window of heaven. Well when he opens the window of heaven the devil will open the door of hell and you'll be caught in the middle. Long long since I ceased to pray what I think is a childish prayer Lord bless me.

I never ask God to bless me. Don't I need God's blessing? No not in that way. Not the way I did years ago. I don't pray that God will bless me because usually implied in that is Lord ease the burden or make me happy or do something.

My concern is not to be make me a not Lord bless me but make me a blessing. Now if he blesses me he could bless me and it wouldn't go any further. But if he bless he makes me a blessing whatever the cost may be somebody else is going to get the benefit the outflow.

Spiritual Gifts Must Serve the Body

Now I say Paul is speaking to the Corinthians and they knew very much what he was talking about. After all they had had the most eloquent orator in history and that was Demosthenes. He was born with an impediment he slurred his words.

And in order to get over this problem this what we would call a stammer he went to the seashore and he took little pebbles and put them in his mouth and he learned to get his tongue around the pebbles and his voice over the words until he developed a voice that was as musical as an organ.

Sometimes he would roar sometimes he'd whisper. And such was the eloquence of these men who spent their whole life developing these intonations and these cadences that we're told that there was an auditor by the name of Cato.

Now at that time there was an enemy of Rome and the great enemy of Rome was Carthage across the Mediterranean. And every time he spoke it didn't matter what he was speaking on he pointed in this direction he ended up his peroration by saying Carthage must be destroyed.

And men would pull out swords they weren't wearing and rush to a bridge that wasn't there in order to destroy their enemies. There's the power of oratory. You drag out your sword and you haven't got it you run for a bridge that isn't there.

But this is oratory stirring people. And Paul says you may speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have oratory like that. Now Rome the greatest military machine in the world was destroyed not by an outside force she rotted on the inside.

And I don't believe there's a nation in the world today that can destroy America. America will die but she'll commit suicide. And she's getting desperately near to doing it in the hour in which we live.

She doesn't need any outside power she's morally rotting she's destroyed on the inside. The five great things that destroyed the Roman Empire I won't quote but two of them. One is they were destroyed three they were destroyed number one by divorce.

They were destroyed number two because they begged more and more and more for less working days and more circuses. And three they exalted women too much. Those were three of the main facts which are very prevalent in America or even in England today.

Now Paul says I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels who is he saying it to? The Corinthians who loved eloquence. Who is he warning? The Corinthians who have gifts of the Spirit. Now look at the immediate background to this explanation.

He's talking in verse 27 of the previous chapter. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. Notice who it says and God hath set some in the church. Notice where they are they're in the church.

First apostles and then prophets and then teachers and then miracles and then gifts of healings and then gifts of helps. Boy I wish a few more folk would pray about getting that gift. We've got lots of other gifts but we don't have many folk with a gift of helps anymore.

And then he says governments and diversities of tongues. Who set them in the church? God set them in the church didn't he? And what does he do? He sets them in order. There are prophets and apostles but our trouble is we want the pastor and the prophet and the evangelist and the teacher and everything else all rolled up in one and that isn't what God says.

You see if you've got a tent we used to take a big tent around in England and we had what we call a bell tent to sleep in. Now if you've got a bell tent all you have you've got a tent with a pole in the middle.

Now if you take the pole away what happens? The tent goes down. But supposing you have a tent with 12 poles round and you take a pole away does the tent collapse? No? Supposing you take a pole away from it does the tent collapse?

If you take a pole away from that side does the tent collapse? You could take 4 or 5 of those poles but the tent would still hold up because you have the poles there. Now you see we get some churches Presbyterian, Pentecostal and oh brother aren't they big big churches while your great preacher is there or some big shot in the middle that you take the pole away and what happens?

That church goes down you can lose 600 members in about a year and the church has gone down to something. Why? Because the foundation was not laid upon the apostles and the prophets but on a pastor. Now I don't believe there's one man capable of running a church and I don't think you can prove from the New Testament that you should have just one pastor in the church.

If you're going to reduce it you'd have to reduce it to 2 at the very least. Jesus sent out the 72 by 2 you get Peter and Paul Peter and John Paul and Barnabas Paul and somebody else always 2 never 1.

A .B. Simpson the great preacher on 5th Avenue New York I wasn't around when he was preaching I preached in the church and you know great as he was he had Dr. F .E. Marsh can you think of a church where either F .E. Marsh or A .B. Simpson was teaching?

Brother you get that fat you'd need a truck to get you home nearly I mean spiritually. And Campbell Morgan would never pastor a church by himself he must have someone else sharing that ministry. Oh but we think we've got 1 or 2 gifts and boy this church is really going to go.

I slipped into a church in New York not long ago where a few years ago you couldn't get a seat morning and night with 1 ,200 people and that night when I went there was 75. How do you account for it? Or some say because there's so much crime and problem well up the road not very far away 15 cents then 30 cents now on the subway.

Just a few blocks up the road you've got Dr. Stephen Alford with a church holding 1 ,400 people and I preached in that too when it's been nearly full in the morning and nearly full at night. So that isn't the answer altogether.

You see you can rewrite a lot of things but brother you can't rewrite that book. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the teachers and the prophets. And if we do God's work in God's way at God's time with God's power we'll get God's success.

Do it any other way you'll get partial success. Again you'll be running an eight cylinder automobile on two cylinders. Now alright he's talked about gifts. Then he says in verse 29 Are all apostles? What's the answer to that?

Come on now be honest about it. Never mind your theology. Answer logically and biblically. Are all apostles? Right. Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing?

Do all speak with tongues? Oh no it says not logically. You can't be consistent on nine items and then suddenly twist it because somebody told you the other angle. Now you don't like that I know. But I'm not here to tickle your ears as I told you.

If you've got itching ears scratch them yourself. I'm not going to scratch them. I'm only trying to bring people into perfect balance you see because one of the leading exponents of Pentecost in England and I've never met a finer gentleman was a man by the name of George Jeffreys.

And for 15 years his sister went to tarrying meetings and tarrying meetings and tarrying meetings and tarrying meetings and she never received the baptism with tongues. Now I don't care what you get under heaven and you can't disprove this.

Whatever you get under heaven you're going to get by faith anyhow. I know a lovely woman we heard her preach not long ago. She's a Baptist too. And she really does some dramatic and wonderful teaching.

And then she said you know God baptized me with the Holy Ghost. I entered in in fullness, in power, in liberty, I got purity, I got anointing and I spoke in tongues but more than six months after and I never doubted once I was filled with the Holy Ghost.

You know some people want me to believe that John Wesley was never filled with the Holy Ghost but some little cantankerous bitter carnal little fell around the corner two before spiritually and two before in a church.

He's Pentecostal just because he speaks in tongues. Look, if you haven't got a purity of heart you didn't get the baptism of the Holy Ghost according to the Scriptures. Acts 15, 8 and 9 that nobody preaches on.

God which knoweth the heart Peter talking about the house of Cornelius. God which knoweth the heart Acts chapter 15 verses 8 and 9 and God which knoweth the heart bear them in the house of Cornelius witness giving them in the house of Cornelius the Holy Ghost and put no difference between us in the upper room and them giving them tongues nor purifying their hearts by faith.

Now some people won't have me because I believe that there is a genuine valid gift of tongues and they won't have me. Now the other school won't have me because I believe that there is a gift but I don't believe it's for every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Isn't it stupid? Isn't it illogical? Isn't it unbiblical? If I come to your church and you say well we have gifts of the Spirit well I'll say hallelujah genuinely. But if you've only got the gift of tongues and interpretation and you lack wisdom and knowledge and all the other things brother you're no more Pentecostal than the Baptists up the road.

All I'm asking for is for fair play in the word of the living God. If you don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit then brother you're a liberal as far as I'm concerned. I'm concerned. Now if you go the other way and say well we believe in gifts as I said the other night if you find the outline of doctrine for the Mormons you'll discover that one of the main points of faith with the Mormons is that they speak with tongues.

Does that make them Pentecostal? Now be honest about this. Haven't you backslidden in your life at some period and still been able to speak with tongues? Come on. We met a man coming out of a movie in England and a friend of mine said you know he used to be one of the most outstanding young men in our Pentecostal church and he turned back and said hi.

Oh he said oh as much as I say I'm coming out of the house of the devil and I don't feel too convenient and you know he said well I may be backslidden but I can still speak in tongues. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance but the trouble is we don't lean on the Holy Ghost we lean on the gift.

You see. Now I say if I don't believe in tongues well because I do believe in tongues as a genuine experience not for every Tom, Dick and Harry on earth but whomsoever he willeth to give. If you set a table out with gifts and they vary from shall we say a thousand dollars to ten thousand and I see my name on one and somebody says do you know that gift in there is only worth fifteen hundred dollars.

The third one is worth nine thousand and the fourth one is worth twelve thousand and the fifth one is worth fifteen. You want to swap them over and I'm just taking the labels off and switching them over and the fellow comes in and says hey I got that gift well I don't want that gift.

I'm going to select the gift. Have I? I don't think so. We're Quakers right now aren't we? No Paul isn't saying that he you see the danger is to throw out the baby with the bath water. Now this is a very very common interpretation because I work with folk who do it.

You see they say Paul here has been reciting the gifts and they're very wonderful but notice what he says I show unto you a more excellent way there's something far better than tongues and these things and are you sure?

Don't you think really that the gifts of the Spirit are really the tools that God gave to the church to do the job? If somebody's prostituted them that's not my business. Again I'm not going to back off from having real fire because somebody else uses false fire.

Love, Not Gifts, Defines Spiritual Worth

Now what does Paul say? I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels and if I have not charity let's kick the word out like Weymouth and Muffet have done kick it out and put love there. Now he doesn't say though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love gifts are nothing.

He says if I have gifts and have no love I'm nothing. He's not devaluing the gifts he's devaluing the person. Notice he doesn't say if you can do miracles oh brother they'll gather round if you do miracles.

I know a man who packed tents with thousands and had miracles every night and biggest love offerings in history nearly and slept with a prostitute every night right after the meetings. And I can prove it.

Oh you can do the miraculous. But he says supposing I do all these miracles and I have faith to remove a range of hills from their places and have not love miracles are nothing. He doesn't say miracles are nothing.

He says I am nothing. He doesn't say tongues are nothing. He says I am nothing if I have no love. He doesn't say the word of knowledge is nothing. He says I am nothing if I have no love. He is not devaluing gifts.

He's devaluing an experience. And he doesn't say if you have tongues or miracles or these other things and have no love you're a second class Christian or a third class Christian or a fourth class Christian.

Do you know what he says? If you do all these and have no love you're nothing. You're zero. That's all. You may pull the wool over the eyes of the crowd. You may build a personal fortune. You may do a lot of things.

But in the eyes of God unless these gifts are ministered in the Holy Ghost and He is the Spirit of love as I said to me in many ways this chapter is the most profound chapter of all. Who is the first being in the world?

Come on. Who? And God is? Oh, He's not a miracle. Do this when you go home. I don't have time. I always run out of time. When you go home read through this chapter carefully. And will you notice two things that Paul here is telling us things that are permanent in the church of the living God and things that are passing.

As for tongues they will? As for knowledge it will? Vanish away. As for the miracles they will? But now abideth come on and and right. These that the greatest Oh, so that's what the Bible says. 1 Corinthians 13 is like a ring of gold with three precious stones and the three precious stones are faith and hope and love.

These three but the greatest of the three is love. So the first being in the world is God and God is love. And the first and greatest commandment is thou shalt the with Oh, hold it, hold it. We used to have an old holiness preach in England and he used to say, you know God cleanse my heart and fill me with the Holy Ghost.

And He's cleansed my heart from all sin because the scripture says thou shalt love the Lord thy God with what? Oh. Well carnality never loves God with all it has, does it? So the heart must be pure if you're going to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.

No, no, no. Paul isn't saying if I speak with tongues and I do the miraculous and I have no love the gifts are nothing. He says you can operate them even when your back's ridden you can operate them because the gifts and callings of God are without repentance and you can still operate them without love and it's not the gifts are nothing it's your nothing and I'm nothing.

Right. The first and greatest commandment the first being in the world is God and God is love. The first and greatest commandment is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with what? All heart and with all strength and with all thy and with all thy.

Hey, that doesn't leave room for much else, does it? That's pretty watertight when you think of it. You know, once when I was in Ireland somebody offered me a lovely telescope a long brass telescope for fifteen dollars I thought it was worth about ten times that and I bought it for my three boys took it home triumphantly thought now of course these boys are going to be real happy and they'll mount this telescope in our upper bedroom window and they could see all over Manchester and they're really going to be happy there and the boy came downstairs and he said, Daddy this is a lovely telescope.

I said, well Paul I'm glad you like it. He said, you know Daddy it's no good for the day time. I said, what do you mean? He said, it's not a terrestrial telescope it's a celestial you can only look through it at night you see, Daddy we won't have to go to bed now will we?

So, see how easily you can make blunders and so he said look at it Daddy he said, you see there's the barrel of the telescope. Now watch this Daddy and he pulled out one extension and another extension and another extension and another extension and you know just as he did that this scripture came to my mind because the first being in the world is and the first and greatest commandment is thou shalt.

And the first fruit of the spirit is oh, right there's the barrel of the telescope. Love joy peace long suffering gentleness meekness goodness temperance faith. They're all in the barrel of the telescope.

Now you're going to have to develop them. You've got a couple of little babies here this afternoon lovely little things. And I guess they can assert themselves. They can talk, smile. Now they've got brains but they haven't got intelligence yet.

At least they haven't got education yet now because they have a brain you can educate them. And you know a baby knows at six months old who is the boss. Do you know that? So you better watch it. It's a long delay after that.

So you're the big boss before it's six months old. And you know that one of the leading musicians in Japan now is teaching a class of children the violin. He's got two thousand of them between two and three years of age teaching them the violin boy, I guess sometimes it sounds like two thousand cats all squealing.

But anyhow he says you can't teach them too young. They can pick up music. You can do a hundred things with a child. Most of you don't have time except to stuff them off to look at channel twelve or something.

But you know the potential of that child from being about a year old is just amazing. You can get a child to teach by the time. It's two or two and a half. There's no problem really. Now the same thing is true spiritually.

You see I say we'd rather go to meetings to be entertained than come to a meeting where it demands a little bit of concentration and mental sweat and get down to the word of God. And after all what is it?

The emotion of I hid in my heart? My book doesn't say. So what does it say? Thy word of I hid not in my head in my blood stream in my heart. It's motivating me. For out of the heart of the issues of life.

Love as the First Fruit of the Spirit

Now here's the greatest the greatest being in the world again. God the greatest commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God the greatest the first fruit of the Spirit. It's singular not plural. It's a bunch of grapes.

Love joy peace long suffering gentleness meekness goodness temperance faith. You know I think there's a whole lot of us not you. I didn't say that. I put the ring right round and said a whole lot of us that need another real baptism of love.

Your neighbors aren't impressed. Whether you speak in tongues or stand on your head and clap your feet. No they're not. But you manifest some love. Oh there's a little word in this. I wish it wasn't there.

It kind of hurts when you have to. Oh boy I got my finger on that word again. I wish it wasn't in the New Testament. I'm always running into it. It's not difficult. You don't need a Webster to define it.

You know what it says. It just says oh boy. I got my finger on it again. There. A-L-L. Oh isn't that a stiff word. I mean if it said love beareth things you'd say right. I go along with you Paul. But when he says love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things.

Well you say that proves he wasn't married. Or else you say he can't have had a mother-in-law like mine. He'd never have said it like that. What does he say. Love beareth all things I say again isn't it fantastic that this is the man going down the road.

He was going to liquidate the church of the living God breathing out threatenings. If I find anybody like this I'll put him on the block and chop his head off. If I find some people down there I'll just kick them all into the arena and watch the lions devour them.

Who are these people. We've got thousands of years of Jewish monopoly of God. And you say a little cult has come up a nameless nameless homeless penniless carpenter. Some of the best men in the world have started following him.

If I find any of them I'll just rub them out like a schoolboy kills a fly. And the man with all that bloody intention on him writes love never faileth. Hey that's a big jump isn't it. Isn't that a long way from breathing out threatenings to saying well I've got something now.