Love Pierces Through Ceremonial Darkness to Religion's Core

Deborah the prophetess stood at the confluence of two spiritual worlds. She was nourished upon the Mosaic Law, moving through a world thick with heathen cruelties and mysterious divine terrors. Yet she pierced through the external machinery of ceremony and retaliation to grasp something luminous: the vital centre of all religion is agape—love. Maclaren marvels at this paradox. The same woman who could burst into triumphant approval of Jael's bloody deed against Sisera closes her war-song with words purely spiritual and lofty: "Let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in His might."…