And the greatest of these is love…

Brenda Cannon HenleyBy Brenda Cannon Henley
A friend of mine, whom I love, admire, and respect, asked me recently if I had read a short sermon or booklet by Rev. Henry Drummond. I had not, but because he was so consumed with what he had read and learned from this old scholar, I looked him up and ordered two books with his messages printed in them. I find him quite interesting. Perhaps you will, too, if you will take the time to read some of his work. Henry Drummond was born in Scotland in 1851 and became a man of many talents. He may be best remembered as a gifted evangelist who assisted Dwight L. Moody, one of the greatest evangelists of all history. Drummond worked with Moody in his revival campaigns, but he was also a lecturer in natural science, an ordained minister, and a professor of theology.

Moody wrote that he was staying with a party of friends in a country house during a visit to England in 1884. “On Sunday evening, as we sat around the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Being tired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry Drummond, who was one of the party,” said Moody. “After some urging, he drew a small testament from his hip pocket, opened it to the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and began to speak on the subject of love.

“It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, and I determined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to Northfield to deliver that address. Since then I have requested the principals of my schools to have it read before the students every year. The one great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God, and to each other. Would that we could all move into that love chapter, and live there,” challenged Moody.

Drummond became a noted author and published Natural Law in the Spiritual World, published in 1883, and selling 70,000 copies in five years. He later published Tropical Africa and The Ascent of Man. However, The Greatest Thing in the World, a meditation he wrote in 1874, and the subject of Moody’s endorsement, illustrated the importance of 1 Corinthians 13, commonly called “the love chapter” of the Bible. BCH-2017-0509Widely read and quoted during his lifetime, it went on to sell over 12 million copies, which was unheard of in that day, and it continues today to influence people to follow God’s two great commandments — to love God and to love each other. Drummond died in 1897.

In dealing with several bothersome events, clashes of strong personalities, and making decisions for several groups, I have joined Evangelist Dwight Moody in thinking, “Would that we all could move into that love chapter, and live there.” It would surely settle hearts, minds, lives, and communities.

What is love and why is there such an absence of its true virtue in our society these days? What is the “summum bonum” — the supreme good? We get love mixed up with so many other things, and tumbled about in our own emotions, that it seems to me to often lose its wonderfulness. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, I am become as 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 move mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.

“Love suffers long, and is kind. Love envies not. Love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believeth all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

“Love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For 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 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. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now, I know in part, but then I know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, love — these three — but the greatest of these is love.”

Please read the love chapter several times in the coming days, and in a following column, we will again deal with this subject.
[5-22-2017]

Brenda Cannon Henley can be reached at (409) 781-8788, or
[email protected].

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