Thomas Mason

God Is Love Thomas Mason

These are my favorite Bible verses. They deal with God's Love, things that God does not love, the power of faith and, for me, an insight into Jesus's personality. To me, he was really a cool guy. When the crowd was going to stone the woman, he said, according to John, Chapter 8: Verse 7, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." While the crowd gradually dispersed, he doodled in the sand, waiting. When the men had all gone, he asked the woman, "Where are those who condemned you?" She said, they had all gone, there was no one there to condemn her. Then, as John, Chapter 8: Verse 11, tells us, Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." So Jesus's handling for sin was not punishment and suffering, but just stop sinning and live righteously. When I read that this time through The Bible, I realized that all those punishments listed in the Old Testament were intended to keep people on the straight and narrow, not to reduce the population. They were intended to prevent sin. As I studied The Bible again, I realized that both the Old and New Testaments speak about God's love. In The Old Testament, Leviticus, Chapter 19: Verse 18, we read. "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Again, in Leviticus, Chapter 19: Verse 33, we read,"the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself."The New Teatament teaches us, in John, Chapter 4: Verse 8, "He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love." Also in 1 John, Chapter 4: Verse 7, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." Further, in 1 John Chapter 4: Verse 11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."