"If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha." Two strange words appear in the KJV version of 1 Corinthians 16:22. Maranatha and Anathema. (Stick with this. It's a fruitful study.) First, Maranatha means 'come Lord' or 'the Lord has come' and was a common greeting among early believers as a constant reminder of the fact the Jesus came in the flesh and He's coming again. We may do well to greet each other in similar fashion in these last days. The other word, anathema, means 'set apart' or 'separated'. Strangely enough it's similar in definition to the word 'sanctified' or even 'holy'. By this time the word had taken on a negative tone and literally meant 'a curse'. In short, it was a bad thing. Now the kicker of this verse is not in these hard words here, but in the word 'love' at the beginning. There are a few Greek words for 'love' in play in the scriptures but the word here is not the common 'agape' that is used to signify divine love. It's the lesser 'phileo' which simply means 'tender affection'. The Bible says that in the last days the 'love' of many would grow cold. We often become so opposed to anything supposidly 'soulish' or 'emotional' that we buy into the error that says if you can turn your feelings off you'll achieve spiritual maturity. NOT SO! There is a holy place for a tender affection for Jesus Christ. God help us if we have allowed our tender affection for Christ to grow cold for in doing so we allow our tender affection for one another to follow. "How can we love God who we have not seen and not love our brother who we have seen?" Perhaps this is why it's so difficult for the world to know that we are Christians for the Bible says that "they'll know we are Christians by our love". There's much more to this study but for now, ask yourself this question. "Has my tender affection for Jesus Christ grown cold?"