What is Your Favorite Love Story in the Bible?
Good Morning Friends,
Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that the entire world loves a lover and maybe he was right for the Bible is the best-selling book of all time. And it is filled with great love stories that instruct us. Amazingly these stories are culturally relevant, memorable, provocative, applicable, beneficial and hopeful for the readers. People might not think that they are especially romantic but they really are in all sorts of ways. Also lust, revenge, tenderness, courage, betrayal and humor fills the pages. And this leads us to today’s question. What is Your Favorite Love Story in the Bible?
24Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. 25He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.
Acts 18:24-26 (NRSV)
Message: The first couple had it all. Adam and Eve had peace, love and a great place to live, be fruitful and multiple. Unfortunately they got bored and they wanted what was forbidden and when they acted on that impulse… well that changed everything. Abraham and Sarah are so earthy. Their faith story even included surrogate mothers and all sorts of intrigue and relationships with foreign kings. That bit about Sarah laughing when she discovered she was going to have a baby in old age is memorable. The story of Jacob and Rachel is so passionate. Jacob loved Rachel at first sight. Jacob is so passionate for his beautiful Rachel that he is willing to work a total of 14 years to have her as his bride. The Samson and Delilah relationship is a bit troubling. They were a couple driven by the flesh. They had two different agendas when they decided to live together. Samson wanted physical intimacy, Delilah was interested in money, and neither one of them had God as a central figure in his or her life. They are perhaps the best bad of examples. The story of Ruth and Boaz begins with an interesting twist. It is about loyalty of a daughter in law and mother in law. But also Ruth’s rather sexy encounter with Boaz. The couple became the great-grandparents to King David. The story of David and Bathsheba has voyeurism and murder. David got greedy. He could have had any unmarried woman in the kingdom that he wanted, but he chose to have one who was already married. He went outside the bounds of what God had chosen to allow him to have. The Bride and Bridegroom
in the Song of Solomon is a poem that traces one relationship from meeting to courtship to consummation. It is more graphic than many might think possible for a book in the Bible. Hosea and Gomer is the story of a broken vow, a broken home, a broken heart, a broken life. But in other ways this story of a prophet and prostitute is so utterly unique that it ranks as one of the most amazing in all of literature. It is often ignored and shunned in our pulpits, but God has chosen the sad sorted story of this broken-hearted prophet to reveal his love and to demonstrate his grace. It too is a love story. We cannot leave out the story of Mary and Joseph. That a humble carpenter and a pregnant young woman trusted in God enough to marry and travel to Bethlehem displays not only deep devotion, but also extraordinary courage to be part of God’s plan for them to be the parents of Jesus. It is a story of love transcending fear and much more. However the story of Priscilla and Aquila draws my attention this morning, these two friends of the apostle Paul are less well known. When we first meet Aquila and Priscilla, we are told that they had come to Corinth from Italy as victims of Roman persecution, not for their Christian faith but because Aquila was a Jew. Aquila and Priscilla found their way to Corinth and settled there, pursuing their trade as tentmakers. When Paul, a tentmaker himself, came to Corinth, he went to see them, no doubt having heard of their faith in Christ. Paul lived and worked with them while founding the Corinthian church. These two remarkable people belong in the pantheon of Christian heroes, and their ministry is both an encouragement and an example for us. But they also represent a great love story of making a house a home for God. And for that they in many ways are a prototype for what marriage is all about.
Pray we have healthy loving relationships that honor and respects the power of being a couple. Pray we are encouraged and equipped by the love stories in the Bible. Pray we not want more than what God has chosen for us. Pray we are blessed by a marriage with a partner that loves us into being part of a team. Pray we learn to experience the love of God. Pray we be brought into greater unity. Pray we have an attitude and disposition that makes a house a home. Pray we realize that in growing closer to Christ was can grow closer to each other. Pray we have Christ centered marriages.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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