Insightful Musings on theScriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear people.

The wonderful “wife of my youth” has breakfast on the table. But I think I will let my scrambled eggs get cold, preferring to knock out a jog before I eat.

Oh my—Becki and I got carried away with more talk—then I just finished a business phone call that consumed nearly half and hour—now what? It’s now 9:47am! Phooey! I better just get on with my cold breakfast, a cold shower (just kidding), and proceed to my pile of cold work.

Blessings on your day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Solomon was a sexy dude. He was that to the extreme—getting so carried away with his God-ordained gift of gender attraction to the absurd point of having 700 wives and 300 concubines. Good grief! That’s crazy! I can only imagine that he could have encountered some cases along the way where a gorgeous babe was motivated to get herself all dolled up, viewing Solomon as a very attractive affluent guy, targeting him with her deceptive, sexy, exploitive charms—even though she was already married—maybe looking for an escape from her relationship with a selfish dictator type, subtly seeking to gain induction into Solomon’s harem, since that status represented such opulent security. Anyway, however he came by it, he knows enough about this stuff to have nothing good to say about an adulteress/prostitute. His judgment of her character as defined in the FOCUS VERSE is dismal—“She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths are crooked, but she knows it not.”

Hey—just a minute! Before we get all finger-pointy and comfortable with our denunciation of that contemptible woman, let’s think a little more carefully and consider how close to home this perverse character description really comes. Be reminded that God utilizes the metaphor of marriage throughout Scripture to describe the intended relationship between Himself/God/Christ, the Heavenly Husband, to His people/Church, as His exclusive faithful wife. Do you see what this really implies? It means that we are all represented as faithful married women—not just collectively, but individually. Even we men, without seeking some crazy trans-gender surgery, are female in the sense of ostensibly viewing ourselves as faithful brides of Christ. This spin can only equate any willful or thoughtless disobedience, or yielding to sin, as equivalent with adultery or prostitution. Ouch! Therefore, when a person deliberately yields to clearly identified sin, are they really mindful of what they’re doing at that point? Do they really recognize their behavior as the perverse despicable breach it really is? Of course not! “She knows it not.” It seems that self-justified disobedience tends to blow out the candle of conscience.

An ideal view of this relationship with our Savior/God/Holy Husband can be gleaned from our reading in Psalm 5: “But let all who take refuge in you be glad (all who are members of the Bride of Christ, the Church); let them sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name (those with a passionate HEART AFTER GOD) may rejoice in you. For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous (Your faithful Bride); you surround them with your favor as with a shield” (Psalm 5:11-12).