Covenant And The Metaphor Of Divine Marriage In Biblical Thought

This volume deals with the varied forms of shame reflected in biblical, theological, psychological and anthropological sources. Although traditional theology and church practice concentrate on providing forgiveness for shameful behavior, recent scholarship has discovered the crucial relevance of social shame evoked by mental status, adversity, slavery, abuse, illness, grief and defeat. Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have discovered that unresolved social shame is related to racial and social prejudice, to bullying, crime, genocide, narcissism, post-traumatic stress and other forms of toxic behavior. Eleven leaders in this research participated in a conference on The Shame Factor, sponsored by St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Lincoln, NE in October 2010. Their essays explore the impact and the transformation of shame in a variety of arenas, comprising in this volume a unique and innovative resource for contemporary religion, therapy, ethics, and social analysis.

In his commentary on Hosea, H. W. Wolff proposed that the divine marriage metaphor is the central metaphor of the entire OT. In Hebrew prophetic books, the metaphor reflected the covenantal relationship between Yahweh and his people. No other metaphor reached as deeply into the heart of this relationship or better described the tragedy of a broken relationship between Yahweh and his people. No other metaphor expressed more fully the abundance of God's grace shown in the promise of covenant restoration and renewal in the eschaton. In this volume, Polish Reformed academic Sebastian Smolarz demonstrates that the divine marriage metaphor is also one of the leading NT metaphors used to describe God's restored covenant relationship with his people, especially in the Book of Revelation. Smolarz argues for continuity between OT and NT concepts and theologies in general, and for continuity between the Apocalypse and OT material in particular, showing that the Apocalypse has much in common with other parts of the NT. In doing so, he focuses on some Gospel parables and reads them against their OT background. He also examines instances of the divine marriage metaphor in Paul's theological reflections. The focus of Smolarz' volume is a covenantal reading of the Apocalypse. He argues that the metaphor helps to establish the Apocalypse's Sitz im Leben, which he relates to the main conflict between the faithful and the unfaithful within the people of God in the first century CE. His work establishes that the Apocalypse contains not only explicit instances, but also implicit references and many echoes of this covenantal metaphor.

Marriage is God's idea. The world views marriage as a social contract that changes according to the culture of the day. But the truth is, it is a divine covenant with an unchanging God who promises His blessings when we live by His design. Divine Marriage, by Luis and Kristen Román, is a practical guide to help you and your spouse experience the presence of God in every area of your relationship. In this book, you will learn: The benefits of living in a covenant marriage How our differences are our greatest strength How to experience deeper levels of communication God’s design for sexual fulfillment How to overcome the enemies that rob our peace Supernatural solutions for family finances How to raise secure and happy children who love God Practical wisdom for blended families

This book examines the whole of Scripture as the unfolding marriage covenant between God and his people. The book demonstrates that God's marriage to his people is the central theme of the Bible. Eighteenth-century Reformed pastor Jonathan Edwards captured that perspective when he observed: The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse . . . to whom he might . . . pour forth all that immense fountain of . . . love and grace that was in his heart and that in this way God might be glorified. This book traces the divine marriage from God's promises to Abraham, to the betrothal covenant that includes the Ten Commandments, to Israel's breaking of the covenant as described by the prophets, to the new covenant in Christ, and finally to the consummation of the divine marriage covenant in Revelation at the wedding of the Lamb. God instituted the marriage of a man and a woman in Genesis 2 to be an image of God's divine marriage with his people. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that both the Gospel and marriage are under attack in our culture. Human marriage cannot be rightly understood apart from the Gospel and the Gospel cannot be fully understood apart from marriage. This book enables Christians, whether single or married, to appreciate in a much fuller way the depth and nature of God's love for his bride. Seeing how the divine marriage defines and shapes human marriage also presents a clearer understanding of the spiritual importance of human marriage, inspiring Christians to pursue marriages that more faithfully reflect God's design. This book proclaims Scripture's message of God's unrelenting, irrevocable love for his bride and invites the church to respond. Susan A. Cyre, MDiv, helped found Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry in 1995 and served as its executive director until 2014. She edited its bimonthly publication, Theology Matters. She has authored numerous articles dealing with biblical truth and its intersection with cultural norms. She and her husband live in Virginia.

The Catholic Biblical Theology of the Sacraments series provides readers with a deeper appreciation of God's gifts and call in the sacraments through a renewed encounter with God's Word. In The Bible and Marriage, leading Catholic teacher and popular speaker John Bergsma offers a biblical theology of marriage rooted in the Old and New Testaments that will be interesting and informative to the church catholic. This book shows the biblical basis for the teaching that marriage is a sacrament. It provides lay teachers with background and depth on a topic taught frequently in the parish, making it suitable for classroom use and parish ministry. Series editors Timothy C. Gray and John Sehorn teach at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. Gray is also president of the Augustine Institute.

Marital Imagery in the Bible. It can only be imagined that when the New Testament writers made their (albeit brief) comments on divorce and remarriage that they assumed they would be understood. So what has gone wrong? In the years after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, when Graeco-Roman culture was at its height, the Jewish perspective of marriage and divorce, and thus the context of those brief New Testament comments was lost. The Christian church of that era was influenced by the neoplatonic ideas of the day, and an idealised concept of marriage developed from on Adam and Eve’s marriage recorded in Genesis 2:23—it was love at first sight, a marriage made in heaven. These concepts frame an understanding of marriage in much of Western culture even today. However, that was never the understanding of ancient Israel. Instead they looked to Genesis 2:24: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’—so a naturally born man chooses a wife for himself, and their union was based on a ‘covenant’—in other words an agreement. The Old Testament makes it clear what the basis of that agreement was. Furthermore, it is clear, if that agreement was broken, there could be a divorce and a remarriage. All the Bible’s marital imagery (where the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures imagine that God is married to his people) is based on that understanding of human marriage. But so strong is our concept of marriage, that when Genesis 2:24 is referred to in the New Testament, it is thought that the reference is to Adam and Eve’s marriage. It is a paradigmatic marriage that for many excludes (or greatly restricts) the possibility of divorce and remarriage. This study looks to challenge that paradigm—and to suggest that the New Testament writers would not have employed an imagery which had at its center divorce and remarriage, only to deny the possibility of such in their own human marriage teaching. Colin Hamer’s thesis represents the only recent work on metaphor theory in biblical scholarship. It challenges centuries of academic scholarship and ecclesiastical assumptions about divorce. Hamer’s detailed and well researched analysis challenges the consensus view that the marriage of Adam and Eve in Gen 2:24 represents an ontological unity, suggesting important implications for contemporary Christian teaching on marriage and divorce.

In Divine Marriage from Eden to the End of Days, André Villeneuve explores the mystery of God’s love in the Bible and ancient Jewish tradition. Scripture portrays the covenant between God and his people as a divine-human marriage spanning through all of human history. For the ancient Jewish interpreters, God married humanity at the dawn of creation in the Garden of Eden; but the union was broken by human sin. The Lord restored the relationship when he betrothed Israel at Mount Sinai; yet the covenant was wounded again with the transgression of the golden calf. The nuptial bond was healed anew, commemorated, and reenacted through liturgical worship in Israel’s tabernacle and temple. This worship in God’s “nuptial chamber,” in turn, anticipated the ultimate fulfillment of the divine-human marriage in the messianic age at the end of history. The first part of the book explores the marriage through Israel’s biblical history in light of ancient Jewish exegesis. The second part unveils the marriage in the ancient interpretation of the Song of Songs and in wisdom literature. The third part reveals how the same symbolism is taken up in the New Testament and applied to the marriage between Christ and the Church.

God's Love Story: A Canonical Telling traces the metaphorical theme of God's love relationship(s) that spans the entire Bible. God lovingly pursues humankind in relationship that is robustly satisfying and salvific. Like many relationships, God's love story with God's people is both transcendent and tragic, messy and mercy-filled, raw and redemptive. Not merely a series of events relegated to the past, God's love story is an ongoing, present phenomenon--a salvation-relationship into which God invites all peoples to (collectively) be the spouse of God.