Love Does Not Delight in Evil, but Rejoices with the Truth

Fred Clark at Slacktivist is probably the best writer in blogdom, when it comes to matters of religion and the intersection between religion and politics. This might sound like damning with faint praise, given how screechingly awful most blogospheric writing about religion is, but it's not intended that way. He's a terrific writer by any standard, and he's at his very best when it comes to religion. Supporters of liberal engagement with Christianity could do a lot worse than just pointing everyone they meet to his blog.

So, when blogdom's best writer on religion writes a post about the best writing in the Bible, well, it's the must-read blog post of the week. As Kate notes, this was the New Testament reading at our wedding, because nothing else in the Bible come close. I don't really agree with a lot of what's in Paul's letters, but he outdid himself here.

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Cor 1:13 is a beautiful passage, but almost a wedding cliche at this point. We used Ruth 1:16-17, which I've never heard at another wedding:

Ruth 1:16-17

"Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

You don't hear Ruth at weddings because it's a woman to another woman. (Daughter in law to mother in law, but you never know!!)

Elswyth Thane had Tibby recite that to Julian Day before he went off to join the Revolutionary Army, though - her pledge of love to him. (Dawn's Early Light)

We knew the context of the Ruth quote, but didn't care. After all, the Corinthian quote isn't about love of a man for a woman, either.