The Greatest is Love!

The month of February brings Saint Valentine’s Day and an emphasis on love. This is a particularly significant theme for Mary and me as we look forward to the wedding of our oldest son, John, and his bride Li-Chuan Sara Yang in a two-part ceremony that will begin in Taiwan on February 27 and conclude at Holland Church on March 7.

 You are probably familiar with the famous biblical chapter on love, First Corinthians 13. Have you ever noticed that this chapter is part of a lengthy discussion of spiritual gifts that incorporates chapters 12 through 14 of Paul’s letter?

 In Chapter 12, Paul enumerates many spiritual gifts that are available to Christians by the power of the Holy Spirit. He emphasizes that they all come from one God and however they are distributed among believers, they all are given for the common good. He uses the image of the human body, with its many members, to illustrate the variety of specific gifts all serving the overall purpose. It seems evident from the context that there was disunity in the body of Christ as some people with particular gifts thought themselves better than those with other gifts, or with a lesser endowment.

 It is with that background that the apostle leads into his beautiful song in praise of love with the final verse of chapter 12:

But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

 The first paragraph of chapter 13 shows that no spiritual gift – speaking in tongues, prophecy, or faith, nor any sacrificial act of almsgiving or martyrdom – has any value without a basis in love. In the next few verses, Paul tells of the characteristics of a loving relationship: patience, kindness, absence of envy, boasting, arrogance or rudeness. Those who truly love are not self-centered, nor irritable nor resentful. Love means finding satisfaction not in wrongdoing, but in truth. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

 For those of us who have been married for many years, as well as for those who are just entering into this relationship, these verses show us what God expects of us, and what he makes possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. Love is his gift to us, which we must embrace in order to fulfill his purpose in our lives. Although all of us fall short of the ideals expressed here we strive toward the goal of Christ-like loving in marriage and in all our relationships, including those with family, friends, acquaintances and even those we need to forgive.

 Paul concludes this “love chapter” with the observation that other spiritual gifts will pass away, but love never ends. “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

 To exhibit the love of Christ in our lives is the greatest expression of what it means to be a Christian.

 J.F.P.

Pastor John Potter has been at Holland Presbyterian Church since January, 1991.  Until January 2005 he was also employed weekdays by the A.M. Best Company in Oldwick, NJ. Previously he had been pastor of the Amwell First Presbyterian Church (Reaville) and the United First Presbyterian Church of Amwell (Larison’s Corner) in Ringoes, NJ for fourteen years. Pastor Potter is a member of the Presbytery of New Brunswick and has served as Moderator as well as on several of its committees and task forces over the years.

Pastor Potter came to faith in Christ as a senior in college in 1965. This conversion experience led to a complete change in his life and career plans. He graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1971 and served as an unordained parish associate at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Trenton, NJ before being called to his first pastorate in 1976.

Pastor Potter has been married to the former Mary Raff since 1965. They reside in Ringoes, NJ and are the parents of three grown children, John, presently serving as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy in Okinawa, Susanna and Charles.  A new grandson, James Benjamin, was born in February 2009 to Charles and his wife, Helen.