“God is love, I John 4:16“ a gospel tract by Tom Cantor

Here is a PDF of a short gospel tract by Tom Cantor, “God is love, I John 4:16”, at his evangelistic ministry to Jewish people Israel Restoration Ministries

It’s short and worth reading, as it presents God is love, what that means, the gospel, and “You can respond to God’s love by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior by praying: ‘Lord Jesus, save me – a lost sinner.’”

Sometimes people think that because God is love he will put up with anything, and we don’t have to do anything, and everyone goes to heaven. Other times, people ignore the truth that God is love by focusing on his power and authority. This gospel tract briefly gives a biblically balance understanding of God‘s love.

https://www.israelrestoration.org/pdf/GodisLoveCardENG.pdf

Tom Cantor usually teaches our adult Sunday school class and gives the sermon on the first, third, and any fifth Sunday of the month.

Love by George Herbert – Christian poetry and analysis

Love by George Herbert is another poem by this Christian metaphysical poet. “Love” (III) seems to be inspired by the Bible verse “God is love” (I John 4:8, 16). This previous post gave and linked to details of his life. Here is one of his more popular poems from his collection.”

Love (III)
By George Herbert

Love bade me welcome; Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here.”
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.

Note how Herbert is able to make very good poetry while still being positive and gentle. So often the great plays and poems are tragedies and about tragic subjects. I think there is something Christian about redeeming tragedy.

Love by George Herbert, like all of the poems in “The Temple,” has a unique structure to the collection. It has three stanzas, though the content does not seem structured strictly on the stanzas. This is a flowing conversation back-and-forth between the author and Love (I John 4:16). The line lengths are 5 feet, 3 feet, repeated three times per stanza. Again, the feet are iambic (de-dum, de-dum), this is very popular in poetry especially from the Elizabethan time. The rhyme scheme is a b a’ b’ c c’. If we want to improve our poetry, looking at how the experts did it as one way.

Christian Poetry