Bible Pathway - July 31, 2012
Read Song of Solomon 1
Highlights:
The virtues of married love — a type of the Church and its love for Christ.
I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me (Song of Solomon 7:10).
The Song of Solomon is a poem of love. It reveals the mutual love that should exist between husband and wife and thereby teaches us to honor marriage as a gift from the Creator. It is God who created the institution of marriage. He did this in the very beginning.
God gives us two beautiful examples of pure, simple love in Scripture. It was God who led Eve, the first bride, to her admiring bridegroom and they became man and . . . wife (Gen. 2:22-25). A respect for the purity and holiness of the physical bond of love as seen through the eyes of God will also lead us to a better appreciation for the love relationship that should exist in the believer's heart toward His Lord.
Many see in the Song of Solomon a parable of the great love of Christ for His Church and the believer's desire and enjoyment of Christ's love. God clearly says: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself (Eph. 5:25-28).
Even as the shepherdess-maid longed to see her beloved, so the believer now loves an unseen Savior. Christ is the Great Lover of our souls. We should long for Him even more than we would even for the great love of our lives if he or she was absent from us. Christ should be in our thoughts constantly. We should ache inside and out to be able to see Him, talk to Him and be with Him for all eternity. Jesus has that kind of love for all of us. His is true love. Those who know Him as our personal Savior are part of His bride, the Church. That is the kind of love that we should have for Jesus Christ the Savior of our souls.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. . . . We love Him, because He first loved us (I John 4:10-11,19).
Thought for Today:
Lord, help us to express love to others as You express Your love to us.
Christ Revealed:
As the chiefest (outstanding) among ten thousand (Song 5:10). Jesus is the KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev. 19:16).
Word Studies:
1:3 savour, fragrance; 1:11 borders, ornaments; 1:12 spikenard, perfume; 1:16 our bed is green, we recline on a grassy field; 2:5 Stay me, Invigorate me; flagons, delicacies; sick of love, overcome; lovesick; 4:4 bucklers, small shields; 5:4 bowels, heart; 8:5 raised, awakened.
Prayer Needs:
Pray for Staff: Rick Hash • Government Officials: Gov. Deval Patrick (MA), Rep. Betty Sutton (OH), and Rep. Joe Wilson (SC) • Country: Nicaragua (5 million) in Central America • Major languages: Spanish and English • Limited religious freedom • 95% Roman Catholic; 5% Protestant • Prayer Suggestion: Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Ps. 37:4).
Optional Reading: Hebrews 8
Memory Verse for the Week: Galatians 6:10
