Hugh Kerr writes this about the famous theologian Karl Barth: "When Barth gave his Princeton lectures in 1962. . . it was announced that he would receive questions from the audience if the questions were written out beforehand. One of my students said he wouldn't dare ask Karl Barth a question! It would be, he hinted, like tangling with Socrates. 'Why not?' I said. 'Ask him whether he thinks it makes any difference where you begin to study theology.' To my alarm, after one of the lectures, Barth read the student's question aloud and replied in words to the effect that, no, it doesn't make any difference where you start so long as Jesus Christ is at the center. It was also at this time, by the way, when someone asked Barth to distill the esseence of his magnum opus [the voluminous Church Dogmatica] in a few words, . . .he replied, 'Jesus loves me--this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'"
Yes, Jesus loves me, and He loves you, as well, with an everlasting love. This distillation of the core of Barth's teaching is perhaps the most important truth in the universe, and it comes from a children's chorus:
Little ones to Him belong: they are weak, but He is strong.
Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.
Jesus loves me! He will stay close beside me all the way;
He's prepared a home for me, and some day His face I'll see.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
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