SO
Dear Readers,
A lifetime friend asked me to add some remarks and comment about use of the little word “so.”
After pondering the request, my thought is that “so” adds flavor to use of a word, but I have not found a place where “so” in its own right rises to the level of words like grace or mercy. For example, salt and pepper will season a meal but it will not be the main course of the meal; “so” is in this category of salt and pepper.
I have tried to find a song that “so” is its centerpiece but haven’t found it yet either.
But “so” really does have a place. Consider for example “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ….” oh! the flavor “so” adds, making “everlasting” far tastier.
What do you think?
By: Frank Tunstall, D. Min.
Abraham Lincoln’s most remembered speech is his Gettysburg Address: “Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty….” The total speech was spoken with less than three hundred simple words and it stated the reasons it was important for the North to win the American Civil War and hold the Union together. The speech might have had more impact on the outcome of the war than the Battle of Gettysburg.
Jesus Christ revealed the heart of God in forty-eight simple words [two thirds less words than Gettysburg] and the simple word so stands out: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 NIV).
The Heavenly Father sent His only Son into the world to redeem lost people, giving a new birth to “whoever believes in Him.” It is the good news of God’s solution to redeem fallen mankind. In expressing the few words in verses 16 and 17, Jesus spoke what has become one of His most remembered sentences in the Gospel worldwide.
The verses are also profound for the portrait of Jesus’ Father in Heaven who “so loved the world,” meaning His love is without limit.
THINK ABOUT IT: Eternal life follows for whoever in true repentance believes Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. It is wrapped in this little word “so,” that seasons the unlimited and eternal abundance of the love of God (1 John 3:1).
Such love, such wondrous love,
Such love, such wondrous love,
That God should love a sinner such as I,
How wonderful is love like this.
And now He takes me to His heart a son.
He asks me not to fill a servant’s place.
The far-off country wanderings all are done,
Wide open are His arms of grace.
By: Graham Kendricks
