KEY POINTS:
In the first century, about 56AD, the Apostle Paul, who was at the time spending a couple of years in Ephesus, wrote the first of two letters to the new Christians at Corinth, some of whom, he had heard, had been getting up to some rather sordid mischief.
It was a long letter, later divided into 16 chapters, the 13th of which has become one of the best-known and most-quoted passages in the Bible.
It is known as the Love Chapter and is often recited at weddings, usually by people who have no understanding of its true meaning considering that the arguments start on the honeymoon and the divorce follows within a few months at worst or a few years at best.
Although I was brought up in a church in which the love of God was a constant theme, I, too, was ignorant of the real meaning of the word until I was in my late 30s.
At that time a seeker after truth, I was presented by a dear friend and mentor with a thin, cheap, poorly printed little paperback called The Greatest Thing in the World.
It contained a sermon of that name delivered by a Scottish theologian and scientist, Henry Drummond, to a group of university students some time in the mid-1880s - a dissertation on 1 Corinthians 13.
In it Professor Drummond, one of the most admired preachers of his day, who died at 46, describes in simple terms just what love means in the context of "God is love".
It revived, renewed - indeed revolutionised - my spiritual life and I have returned to it many times over the years as a means of refreshment during my often wayward Christian walk.
That tatty little paperback has been replaced - several times for I am in the habit of giving them away - with hardback volumes containing more than 20 of Professor Drummond's addresses, which are also entitled The Greatest Thing in the World.
The other day I came across an adaptation of the Love Chapter pertinent to this time of the year.
It came to me by email, as so much that is worthwhile - and even more that isn't - does these days. I don't know where it came from or who its author is but I was much taken with it and record it here, with apologies to St Paul.
"If I decorate my house perfectly with fancy bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.
"If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas goodies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.
"If I work at a soup kitchen, sing carols in the rest-home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
"If I trim the tree with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata, but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
"Love stops the cooking to hug the child. Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband. Love is kind, though harried and tired. Love doesn't envy another's home that has Christmas china and table linens.
"Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
"Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
"Video games will break, diamond necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of love will last forever."
And now to put paid to an urban myth, perpetrated most recently by the Reader's Digest, which published a survey suggesting that for New Zealanders churchgoing isn't high on the list of things people want to do at Christmas.
The survey - of a mere 259 souls - claimed that only 10 per cent think the religious message is the most important thing about the festive season, and that going to church is a turn-off.
Which has come as a big surprise to New Zealand's church leaders, many of whom are at their wits' end to find room for all the people who want to worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, packing churches of all denominations until there is standing room only.
As Lyndsay Freer, national director of Catholic Communications, says, "They obviously didn't survey those hundreds of thousands of people who always make a great point of church on Christmas Day.
"A lot of people see Christmas as the very heart of their faith, although we know it's Easter.
"But there's something very appealing about the birth of a child, and the birth of Christ was the beginning of the Christian story."
The Anglican Church of the Saviour in Blockhouse Bay will have five services on Christmas Eve this year and two services on Christmas Day.
The vicar, the Rev George Stonehouse, says, "The trend is certainly not downwards - it is upwards."
And Salvation Army spokesman Major Peter Christensen says figures from throughout the country over the past six years show that attendances for December are higher than the average for the rest of the year.
Christ isn't back in Christmas - He never left it.
