Wedding Bible Readings

Instead of: 1 Corinthians 13:4-10 (NIV)


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. ¹²For 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.
Why Not: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NIV)


¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] 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,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.



Why Not: Song of Songs 8:5-7 (NIV)


 Friends
 ⁵ Who is this coming up from the wilderness
   leaning on her beloved?


   She
   Under the apple tree I roused you;
   there your mother conceived you,
   there she who was in labor gave you birth.
⁶ Place me like a seal over your heart,
   like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
   its jealousy^[a] unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
   like a mighty flame.^[b]
7 Many waters cannot quench love;
   rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
   all the wealth of one’s house for love,
   it^[c] would be utterly scorned.