Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, I know.  You're all like "Hey, Daniel, where's your bilingual Valentine's article?!" 

Please forgiveness my laziness. I had a good one in mind, but, alas, I never got around to writing it.

If you take my private lessons though, then you got a good overview of vocabulary and discussion topics to go with it.  If not, well, I guess you can read 1 Corinthians 13 - "The Love Chapter" in the Bible- and e-mail me any thoughts or comments you have.  Here is the simple version if you're a beginner: 1 Corinthians 13

If you can handle it, this version below is a little more accurate and sounds more like the famous passage most English-speakers are familiar with.  In short, I think it has a more natural and lovely cadence to it...


¹ If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13 (NIV)

Actually throughout the Bible, God has lots of great stuff to say about relationships and love and marriage, since, you know, He created it all.  Unfortunately, a lot of distortions have crept into our understanding of these things.  Well, that's an article unto itself.

And for all you lovely Japanese ladies out there (without a doubt the most beautiful in the world), here's my belated giri-choco for you.  Enjoy.