Sunday, October 7, 2018

On Love and Elephants

By Jennifer Hunt

Love,
I don’t think I ever hated you more
than that time on the car ride home,
after the sermon on John 13
the one where Jesus washed the disciples’ feet
when I remarked how I had just learned
from the Bible Gateway app on my phone that
the Greek word “agape” in the text meant
“to take pleasure in,
wish well, long for and esteem”
and how nice it was to know Jesus, God
felt that way about me
even me--
and you responded I should not assume
the word meant all of those things in that verse
and that I was in danger of committing an exegetical fallacy,
much like saying cars are elephants because elephants have trunks
and cars have trunks, too...