In that wonderful chapter on love 1 Corinthians 13, one of the qualities of love is patience,a man called Horst points out that this word in the Greek Bible translates the Hebrew' to delay wrath'the idea being that being powerful one chooses to refrain.Kenneth E Bailey gives an example of this,'President Lincoln(at the end of Civil war) when a Northern victory was assured and many wanted to punish the South for the ''rebellion''.On March 4 1865 Lincoln delivered his second inaugural speech said,''With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us....do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace,among ourselves, and with all nations''.Lincoln was expressing that patience as one who had the power to demolish the South but choose not to.The opposite of this was shown by France and it's allies at the end of the 1st world war,when they imposed very severe penalties on Germany,and caused a lot bitterness,and was partly to blame for the second world war,This patience mentioned in 1 Cor 13,was shown in its fulness by our Saviour in His suffering in 1 Peter 2 v 23, we read,'When they hurled insults at Him he did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly'.
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