11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. Continue reading SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY (1 CORINTHIANS 13:11-13)
Continue reading SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY (PROVERBS 5:1-9) RUN FROM SIN
Thoughts about Eden make us look back and look forward. The beautiful garden where the first human beings were created is a symbol of a perfect beginning before sin shattered the creation. It was a protected place where God provided for every creature’s needs and had a face-to-face relationship with the man and woman, walking with them in the cool of the day. That Eden is gone. While the general location of the garden is indicated as the Tigris and Euphrates valley (along with two other water channels no longer functioning), all evidence of the paradise that was there has long been erased. The place exists, but the paradise is lost. What a fitting metaphor for the spiritual price we paid for the fall and the curse of sin. But a new heaven and new earth have been promised, an Eden-like place that will once again be the home of those who have been rescued from sin and given an eternal destiny with God.
Two brides take up most of the symbolic attention in the Bible. The bride of the Old Testament is Israel; the bride of the New Testament is the church, the bride of Christ. With the possible exception of the bride who takes the spotlight in Song of Solomon 4, the idea of a bride in the Old Testament was a daughter “paid for” by a bride-price and then wooed by her husband. Even in the case of Ruth, a widow, the proposal of marriage involved a cost: in this case, Boaz taking on responsibility not only for Ruth but also for
