Paulson Post

'Love is a verb, not a noun.' That was on a T-Shirt. What it stressed probably is to really love than talking about love. However, in the Bible, just two verses apart from each other the word 'love' is used both as noun and verb. That is in 1 John 3:16-18. In the first case (in 1 John 3:16) it is a noun. ' By this we know love , that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ' The second occurrence is in 3:18, ' Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. ' Love cannot be just a verb. At the same time, unless love is quantified and displayed it cannot be a verb or an action. In fact, the act of loving comes from love. The reason for the exhortation in verse 18 is the direct result of the experience of love that verse 16 talks about. Love is quantified as 'laying down our lives for others.' That is the breadth and depth of love. It can reach a point where a person lov...

He wore a confused look. His eyes were constantly scanning around. He was looking for something but appeared as if he was not sure what he was looking for. I met him on a medical college campus in Pune. Among the students lounging around the cafeteria, he was the only one without a white apron. However, he had a clean pair of clothes and a small backpack. Watching him for a while, I walked towards him to find out what he is looking for. He told me that he is looking used textbooks. He is a first-year medical student at a different college. However, he doesn't have money to buy new books; so he is asking around among the second year students if they would like to part with their old books. But he hasn't yet met anyone willing to do that. He told me his story. He is a Dalit from Nanded district in Maharashtra. He got 280 points out of 720 for the national medical entrance exam. Though that is only 38 percent he still managed to get a seat, being a Dalit. According to him those...