CHARITY
Monday,
March 05, 2012
1Corinthians
13 … now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Not long after WWII Dad and Mom purchased
there second, moving us from Hamilton to Dundalk. It was wonderfully near a lot
of historic colonial geography. Across the center humped road of tar and
Bethlehem Steel cinders (Not good to fall off bike on.) was a huge old
plantation with negro families living in the old main house and dirt floor
slave quarters. Brother Jim, I, and our new playmates ranged far and wide over
fields woods, swamps, and gravel pits reliving the battle of Sollers Point
Dad took us to meet the seller’s family. I
don’t remember anything about the couple other than he was very big and she was
very little. What I especially remember is they had 3 daughters, Faith, Hope,
and Charity. I remember Charity most of all, she was the friendliest, most
beautiful and funny. It wasn’t until a few years later when Aunt Edith gifted
me with my first Bible that I discovered that the girls’ names came from the
Word of God.
Later yet, God began through dear Ann to
seriously teach me what charity is. It was through her Biblical worldview and its
resultant lifestyle that I came to understand godly charity. It wasn’t that I’d
never practiced charity, but hadn’t known that 1Corinthians 13 charity went far
beyond feeling gloriously loving in having something to give away. Biblical
charity may involve not at all wanting to give, and even when doing so, not
enjoying it.
As you know, I prefer KJV and MKJV. It’s not
that all other versions are covertly or overtly wrong. It’s that I prefer
reading their language first because of the practice of contemporizing phrases
and words.
1Corinthians
13 is an example of this. What does “love” as opposed to “charity” mean to most
people today? (Have you ever tried reading the 23rd Psalm in a new
English version?”
Indeed “charity” entails affection, but in
practice it definitely requires personal benevolence. (By this time some of you
have referenced Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.) But then we don’t have to do
a word study to understand this charity, do we? Reading “love” contextually in
contemporary English versions, are we left with any doubt?
I wonder whatever happened to Charity, and if
she lived up to the name her parents chose for her? EBB4
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