March Topic: Love, Love, Love

Written by Natalie, Editress of Visionary Womanhood

I’m excited about this month’s theme.  In preparation, I’ve been reading a marvelous book written by one of America’s most famous and influential ministers of the Gospel, Jonathan Edwards.  This book had been recommended to me in the past, but there were so many books calling my name, and this one sounded dry and boring, so I didn’t get it.  Then, my mom gave it to me for Christmas and raved about how wonderful it was.

I knew we were going to be covering I Corinthians 13 here at Visionary Womanhood this month, and it seemed that God was nudging me to read this book at last.  My only regret is that I didn’t pick it up sooner.  The book is Charity and Its Fruits: Living in Light of God’s Love, a compilation of 15 sermons that Edwards gave in 1738.

The version I have is edited by Kyle Strobel, who has over 150 helpful notes throughout the chapters that have added an insightful dimension to the reading.  He also defines unknown terms and includes interesting quotes from other writings of Edwards.  I definitely recommend this version for these reasons.

I encouraged the writers here to get a copy and immerse themselves in this focus as they prepared to write their post for this month.  I’m not sure if they all had a chance to do so, but each writer will be taking one verse from I Corinthians 13, often called “The Love Chapter” of the Bible, and writing a post on that particular verse.  By the time March is over, we will have studied the entire chapter.

For those of you following along with this blog, if you’d like to do a concentrated study of the topic this month, I encourage you to get a copy of Charity and Its Fruits and dive in.  I’m not finished with it yet, but I have been blessed by just reading for ten minutes each night before I go to sleep.  It is encouraging, convicting, and educational as Edwards peels away the layers of I Corinthians 13, making it accessible and applicable to everyday life.

Jeannette Paulson, one of my special “real life” friends and mentors also wrote about this book in a post last year, highly recommending it.  You maybe don’t know her, but I’ll just tell you, if she recommends something, I take it seriously. She knows how to pick gems.

I’m looking forward to journeying, learning, and growing with you this month as we dive into this most important of topics: Christian charity.

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