Daniel and I have just finished a much needed vacation, hence the silence on the blog this past week! But I have been writing. This morning, Her.meneutics (the Christianity Today blog for women) posted something I wrote on a popular trend in Christendom--single women calling Jesus/God their boyfriend. I'm sure at some point you have heard someone say something along these lines, "until God brings me a husband, I am content to just have him as my boyfriend." Some have even gone so far as calling God their lover, as so many popular songs often do.
While a personal relationship with our Savior is crucial, it is not a personal romantic relationship. In fact, when we use earthly relationships to describe our relationship with Jesus we miss something really important, namely the fact that our earthly relationships (i.e. marriage) is meant to image his relationship with his Bride (the church). We are a collective bride, not an individual one.
In the post I say this:
Just as self-marriage misses the mark for what God designed marriage to point to, “marriage” to Jesus misses what his work accomplished. Marriage to Jesus while waiting for a husband can often trivialize our Savior in a way that makes him more like a sweet boyfriend who takes us out on dates, rather than the God-man who paid for our sin on the cross. Jesus did not accomplish redemption to marry us individually. He died for the church corporate, of which we are apart. His death accomplished something much greater than simply meeting our deep-seated desires for a significant other. That is what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 5:22–33 when speaks of the mystery of marriage.
Read the rest of the post here.
While a personal relationship with our Savior is crucial, it is not a personal romantic relationship. In fact, when we use earthly relationships to describe our relationship with Jesus we miss something really important, namely the fact that our earthly relationships (i.e. marriage) is meant to image his relationship with his Bride (the church). We are a collective bride, not an individual one.
In the post I say this:
Just as self-marriage misses the mark for what God designed marriage to point to, “marriage” to Jesus misses what his work accomplished. Marriage to Jesus while waiting for a husband can often trivialize our Savior in a way that makes him more like a sweet boyfriend who takes us out on dates, rather than the God-man who paid for our sin on the cross. Jesus did not accomplish redemption to marry us individually. He died for the church corporate, of which we are apart. His death accomplished something much greater than simply meeting our deep-seated desires for a significant other. That is what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 5:22–33 when speaks of the mystery of marriage.
Read the rest of the post here.