Here’s a
readers’ theatre setting of 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13, taken from The Message.
Readers’ Theatre: The
Way of Love
(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
If I speak
with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy
but don’t
love,
I’m nothing but the creaking of a
rusty gate.
If I speak
God’s Word with power,
revealing
all his mysteries and making everything plain as day,
and if I
have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps,
but I don’t
love,
I’m nothing.
If I give
everything I own to the poor
and even go
to the stake to be burned as a martyr,
but I don’t
love,
I’ve gotten nowhere.
So, no
matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do,
I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never
gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never
dies.
Inspired speech will be over some
day;
praying in tongues will end;
understanding will reach its limit.
We know
only a portion of the truth,
and what we
say about God is always incomplete.
But when the Complete arrives, our
incompletes will be canceled.
When I was
an infant at my mother’s breast,
I gurgled
and cooed like any infant.
When I grew up, I left those infant
ways for good.
We don’t
yet see things clearly.
We’re
squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.
But it won’t be long before the
weather clears and the sun shines bright!
We’ll see
it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us,
knowing him directly just as he
knows us!
But for
right now,
until that completeness,
we have
three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:
Trust steadily in God,
hope
unswervingly,
love extravagantly.
And the
best of the three is love.
