Sunday, February 24, 2019
What Made Me Weep Made Me Rejoice!
The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” --Luke 15:21
The situation that makes us weep can, with a change in our attitude, make us rejoice. We say with the Prodigal Son that we are “no longer worthy.” Those three little words can be the source of pain or joy. It is the source of pain if we are trying to create worthiness. However, it can be the source of joy when we see that Jesus came to be our worth. It is interesting that so many sought to take the life of Elijah. He would not let any take it. Yet he wanted God to take his life upon this one discovery: “It is enough, take away my life, I am not better than my fathers!” He had discovered that he had no worthiness and wanted to die. We do the same thing when we fail, but God wants us to see that we lack worthiness so that we can recognize that Jesus has become our worthiness. When we see this, we will wonder why we ever sought to have worth of our own. We must see that Jesus is everything we need. Greater things than He did we will do. Can we believe it? If not, it is because we are looking to ourselves--our flesh and our efforts--for its fulfillment. We have no worthiness, but we can give up on ourselves, for Christ is in us. He is our worthiness, our strength, our holiness, our righteousness, and when we see it, He will flow through us. Seeing that which we are not must always be followed by seeing just what He is in us.What initially caused us to weep will make us rejoice.
- Mike Wells
The situation that makes us weep can, with a change in our attitude, make us rejoice. We say with the Prodigal Son that we are “no longer worthy.” Those three little words can be the source of pain or joy. It is the source of pain if we are trying to create worthiness. However, it can be the source of joy when we see that Jesus came to be our worth. It is interesting that so many sought to take the life of Elijah. He would not let any take it. Yet he wanted God to take his life upon this one discovery: “It is enough, take away my life, I am not better than my fathers!” He had discovered that he had no worthiness and wanted to die. We do the same thing when we fail, but God wants us to see that we lack worthiness so that we can recognize that Jesus has become our worthiness. When we see this, we will wonder why we ever sought to have worth of our own. We must see that Jesus is everything we need. Greater things than He did we will do. Can we believe it? If not, it is because we are looking to ourselves--our flesh and our efforts--for its fulfillment. We have no worthiness, but we can give up on ourselves, for Christ is in us. He is our worthiness, our strength, our holiness, our righteousness, and when we see it, He will flow through us. Seeing that which we are not must always be followed by seeing just what He is in us.What initially caused us to weep will make us rejoice.
- Mike Wells
Monday, February 18, 2019
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Patterns in the Bible
God gives us patterns in the Bible. All the patterns point to the central truth that God wants a people for Himself — a special, purified, prepared, developed, matured, loving, and capable people joined in union with Himself. All other revelations and truths are secondary to that — just as all other considerations in life should be secondary to a man’s relationship with his wife. God’s desire for such a people is the thrust of the entire message of the word of God! Everything must revolve around that truth. It was not good for man to be alone, and it was not good for GOD to be alone! He wanted offspring, and Paul tells us in Acts 17:28-29 that WE are the OFFSPRING OF GOD! Nature itself teaches us that pigs have little pigs and dogs have little dogs. And I do not hesitate to tell you that God has little gods! That is the great mystery of our sonship. “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God” (Jn. 1:12). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (I Pet. 1:23). “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I (God) said, Ye are gods? If He called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God” (Jn. 10:34-36). Oh, yes! As children — offspring — of God, made in His image, after His likeness — we are COMPARABLE! When once we learn this one grand truth we discover our true identity and state of being and all the word of God begins to fall into place. My beloved, it is therefore in keeping that as the very first act of His sonship ministry our Lord should go yonder to a wedding in Cana of Galilee! There He went and put His seal of approval and His blessing upon it. He was there by His very presence and power to proclaim that UNION between God and man is the grand theme and purpose of God in creation and redemption!
Robert Browning poetically tells the story of Andrea del Sarto, a famous painter in Florence, Italy. In his youth, del Sarto married a woman of rare beauty. She was, however, a shallow-minded, superficial creature. She was the woman, who, with a careless swing of her skirt, smeared the noble picture he had painted in hours of great spiritual ecstasy. She filled his life with disappointment. Not because she robbed his hand of its deftness, or his mind of its genius, or his soul of its inspiration — the tragedy was this: she was heart blind; she never understood the moral majesty of his mind; she never genuinely entered into the great spiritual hunger and depth of his heart. Consequently, he could not disclose to her his noblest and best self. In like manner, the yearning of God is able to reveal Himself to us only in proportion to our spiritual development, capacity, and maturity. Methinks that many Christians have not reached the stage of growth and development in Christ which prepares them for being a bride. They have little understanding of the majesty of the mind of Christ, or the loftiness of His great and eternal plan and purposes, nor have they even begun to enter in to the deepest yearnings of His heart. Multitudes are spiritually childish — heaven to them is a vast celestial playground where they can frolic and dance and shout throughout eternity without a care or any responsibility beyond strumming a harp and polishing their crown!
- Preston Eby
Robert Browning poetically tells the story of Andrea del Sarto, a famous painter in Florence, Italy. In his youth, del Sarto married a woman of rare beauty. She was, however, a shallow-minded, superficial creature. She was the woman, who, with a careless swing of her skirt, smeared the noble picture he had painted in hours of great spiritual ecstasy. She filled his life with disappointment. Not because she robbed his hand of its deftness, or his mind of its genius, or his soul of its inspiration — the tragedy was this: she was heart blind; she never understood the moral majesty of his mind; she never genuinely entered into the great spiritual hunger and depth of his heart. Consequently, he could not disclose to her his noblest and best self. In like manner, the yearning of God is able to reveal Himself to us only in proportion to our spiritual development, capacity, and maturity. Methinks that many Christians have not reached the stage of growth and development in Christ which prepares them for being a bride. They have little understanding of the majesty of the mind of Christ, or the loftiness of His great and eternal plan and purposes, nor have they even begun to enter in to the deepest yearnings of His heart. Multitudes are spiritually childish — heaven to them is a vast celestial playground where they can frolic and dance and shout throughout eternity without a care or any responsibility beyond strumming a harp and polishing their crown!
- Preston Eby
What Is The Flesh?
Job 34:15, All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.
John 1:13, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
No one can be born again by the will of the flesh, insidious in its ability to take the eyes off of Jesus. It is impossible, for in the flesh are the senses of man that constantly need feeding. One may think of them as instinct gone amok. The flesh constantly screeches for attention and has a thousand methods at its disposal to get it. Senses in the body and soul (mind, will, and emotions) are given attention whether with pain or reward, feeding or starving, or conscious avoidance or obsession. Any consideration given them keeps them alive and in charge. The greater truth is that the senses want to be activated; the lesser truth is how they are stimulated, which is by eating from the tree of good and evil. The desire for food (wish fulfillment or fantasy) will keep senses alive just as much as condemnation from eating too much. Look at the anorexic or observe the obese, and both scream “flesh in control.” Either an overwhelming desire for sex or the self-condemnation from looking at porno will loudly proclaim that the flesh has regained control. The senses in the soul lead to pride, whether in thinking of oneself as intelligent or stupid; both are still flesh, just as is thinking of what one can do or not do or of being caring or not caring. Again, flesh is simply the senses of body or soul being in control. People in the East have a tendency toward denying the flesh in an attempt to appease it, while those in the West feed it in an attempt to appease it. Of course, the Westerners do not come out ahead, in that nothing is enough to satisfy it; like a tick, flesh will feed until it explodes and destroys itself.Nor do those in the East really have an advantage, since there is ultimately no way to withhold from the flesh.
Nevertheless, the flesh is flesh and is hostile to God, which explains why flesh desires to be in control so that man is flesh-centered. If man becomes Christ-centered, the senses of flesh would not be fed but would be subdued before Christ. The flesh can never be more than a slave, and a rebellious one at that, for by the works of the flesh will no flesh be justified. Believers and non-believers alike have flesh. The saddest thing is to witness someone who has abandoned his will to flesh. I meet many Christians that struggle with the sin of homosexuality but are not homosexual, and someone meeting them would never guess their particular deed of the flesh. However, meet someone who has by choice yielded to that area of the flesh, and it is evident in his or her body. Just a few minutes with that person reveals the object of their fleshly leanings.
Now, why would God put us in flesh?I am not talking about a physical body but the accompanying anti-God desires of the senses that reside in the physical body and in the soul. Well, it has been said that the greatness of a man is not determined by what he does but rather by what he refuses to do. The man who feeds his flesh through adventure and the procession of praise for victory or the mockery for defeat is not as great a man as he who says, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” Having flesh and its senses allows man the unique opportunity of choice, of living on the earth but not being of the earth, of living to God and not to senses, and the discovery of something higher in this life, spiritual fulfillment. Flesh, or rather the call of the senses to stay alive, is a constant reminder that we must move our eyes to Jesus. It is another stronghold allowing us to stay focused. If God is for us, then who can be against us? Again, the flesh is never a friend; we may buffet it and make it a slave, but it will never be a friend. The flesh is a strange thing in that it cannot live on its own but must thrive on something that is living. It adapts to resemble the thing on which it lives, but it is not really a living thing. When man dies, his fleshly condition dies.
Boy howdy, what a piece of information that can be of such great benefit to so many.
I think of two questions that constantly grieve me:
1. how is it that Believers have Truth that our New Birth is nothing of the old (this and other great verses telling us just that), yet so many will judge the actions of flesh in observing whether they think someone has been Born Again?
2. Why do so many Believers spend so much time focused on “the flesh” instead of moving the eyes to Jesus and staying focused on Him?
What is up with “the church” these days?
John 1:13, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
No one can be born again by the will of the flesh, insidious in its ability to take the eyes off of Jesus. It is impossible, for in the flesh are the senses of man that constantly need feeding. One may think of them as instinct gone amok. The flesh constantly screeches for attention and has a thousand methods at its disposal to get it. Senses in the body and soul (mind, will, and emotions) are given attention whether with pain or reward, feeding or starving, or conscious avoidance or obsession. Any consideration given them keeps them alive and in charge. The greater truth is that the senses want to be activated; the lesser truth is how they are stimulated, which is by eating from the tree of good and evil. The desire for food (wish fulfillment or fantasy) will keep senses alive just as much as condemnation from eating too much. Look at the anorexic or observe the obese, and both scream “flesh in control.” Either an overwhelming desire for sex or the self-condemnation from looking at porno will loudly proclaim that the flesh has regained control. The senses in the soul lead to pride, whether in thinking of oneself as intelligent or stupid; both are still flesh, just as is thinking of what one can do or not do or of being caring or not caring. Again, flesh is simply the senses of body or soul being in control. People in the East have a tendency toward denying the flesh in an attempt to appease it, while those in the West feed it in an attempt to appease it. Of course, the Westerners do not come out ahead, in that nothing is enough to satisfy it; like a tick, flesh will feed until it explodes and destroys itself.Nor do those in the East really have an advantage, since there is ultimately no way to withhold from the flesh.
Nevertheless, the flesh is flesh and is hostile to God, which explains why flesh desires to be in control so that man is flesh-centered. If man becomes Christ-centered, the senses of flesh would not be fed but would be subdued before Christ. The flesh can never be more than a slave, and a rebellious one at that, for by the works of the flesh will no flesh be justified. Believers and non-believers alike have flesh. The saddest thing is to witness someone who has abandoned his will to flesh. I meet many Christians that struggle with the sin of homosexuality but are not homosexual, and someone meeting them would never guess their particular deed of the flesh. However, meet someone who has by choice yielded to that area of the flesh, and it is evident in his or her body. Just a few minutes with that person reveals the object of their fleshly leanings.
Now, why would God put us in flesh?I am not talking about a physical body but the accompanying anti-God desires of the senses that reside in the physical body and in the soul. Well, it has been said that the greatness of a man is not determined by what he does but rather by what he refuses to do. The man who feeds his flesh through adventure and the procession of praise for victory or the mockery for defeat is not as great a man as he who says, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” Having flesh and its senses allows man the unique opportunity of choice, of living on the earth but not being of the earth, of living to God and not to senses, and the discovery of something higher in this life, spiritual fulfillment. Flesh, or rather the call of the senses to stay alive, is a constant reminder that we must move our eyes to Jesus. It is another stronghold allowing us to stay focused. If God is for us, then who can be against us? Again, the flesh is never a friend; we may buffet it and make it a slave, but it will never be a friend. The flesh is a strange thing in that it cannot live on its own but must thrive on something that is living. It adapts to resemble the thing on which it lives, but it is not really a living thing. When man dies, his fleshly condition dies.
Boy howdy, what a piece of information that can be of such great benefit to so many.
I think of two questions that constantly grieve me:
1. how is it that Believers have Truth that our New Birth is nothing of the old (this and other great verses telling us just that), yet so many will judge the actions of flesh in observing whether they think someone has been Born Again?
2. Why do so many Believers spend so much time focused on “the flesh” instead of moving the eyes to Jesus and staying focused on Him?
What is up with “the church” these days?
Monday, February 11, 2019
To Pray is......
I do not see prayer as a practice in which I alter God's behavior by pleading, begging, or even through putting in confident requests (Not that I do not make requests). Rather, I understand prayer as a willing and purposeful exposure of oneself to an other-worldly love that, twenty times out of ten, will regard us, and our fellow humans, with far more mercy and compassion than we do ourselves, when left to our own devices.
To pray is to place one's heart in the direct path of God's tornadic love, in order that it might contradict our evolved defaults, and awaken us to a love that we would otherwise remain ignorant of, and unresponsive to.
- Jeff Turner
To pray is to place one's heart in the direct path of God's tornadic love, in order that it might contradict our evolved defaults, and awaken us to a love that we would otherwise remain ignorant of, and unresponsive to.
- Jeff Turner
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Thursday, February 7, 2019
The Marriage of the Lamb - Part 3
The third step in the marriage was the “marriage supper,” actually a seven-day wedding feast took place to which guests had already been called and assembled. Once the marriage had been consummated by the bride and groom, that same night the wedding guests would begin to feast and make merry! They often celebrated these feasts twice a day during those seven days. The feast was the part of the “marriage” that Jesus attended in Cana of Galilee when He turned water into wine. And this is also the scene at the “marriage of the Lamb” in the Revelation! It is called the “marriage supper” or marriage feast of the Lamb. This is not espousal, but the time of union. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage (union) of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready (for this union). And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
If we stand back and get a correct perspective of the sweep of the entire picture I think we will understand it. You go back to the very beginning — marriage was the first institution that God made for man. And it was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (the Word, the Voice of God) that brought the first woman to the first man. He introduced them and performed the marriage for them and made them one. In that far-off beginning, at the dawn of human history, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18). What fathomless and holy truth lies buried in this remarkable statement! While God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” I would like to give another rendition and it goes like this: “It is not good that GOD should be alone.” You see, my beloved, God’s creation is the mirror, the reflection, and expression of God’s own personal character and state of being. How can we know this? Because God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Would you like to know what God is like? You can see it in man! God did not create just a man! “Male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen. 1:27-28). The message is just this: If it was not good for man in the image of God to be in that image alone, if the man needed a wife to complement him and reproduce their life in the world, then it was likewise not good for GOD to be alone! That is the mystery! It takes the mind of the Spirit to understand that when God saw Adam in his loneliness and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” God was expressing the great mystery of His own Being within Himself. God had need for companionship. God had need for a union of love! This divine need is expressed by the apostle Paul in these words of revelation and truth: “According as He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be…before Him in love: having predestinated us…according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-6).
God’s ultimate desire and need was for the companionship of beings like unto Himself, of His own kind, with whom He could share His mind and heart, and through whom He could expand Himself, incorporating them into the outworking of His own eternal purposes. As we view from the Father’s heart it becomes obvious that God in His social and paternal nature has “marked out for Himself” a vast family which shares His own life, nature, mind, spirit, purpose, and power. I do not believe that any creature or entity that existed before man either in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, even came close to providing what God needed. This is the condition which prompted God in that long ago beginning to issue the wonderful fiat, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…” (Gen. 1:26).
Little wonder, then, that we read from the literal translation of the Hebrew text these remarkable words: “And Jehovah God saith, Not good for the man to be alone, I do make him an helper — as his COUNTERPART” (Gen. 2:18, Young’s Literal). The Goodspeed translation reads, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I must make a helper for him WHO IS LIKE HIM.” Another interesting translation says, “…and God made for Adam a COMPARABLE helper.” There we have the very first symbolism of the bride of Christ! God made for Adam someone with whom he should have complete and total correspondence and intimacy. This only mirrored the desire within God Himself, so we find that He came in the cool, or spirit of the day, as it reads in the original, to fellowship with this man and woman made in His image and likeness. The message is just this — if the Christ is to have a bride then the bride must be COMPARABLE to Christ! She must be HIS COUNTERPART! She must be one who is in every respect LIKE HIM! And that’s awesome, isn’t it! But how could Christ become intimate, on all the levels that intimacy implies, with anyone who is not comparable to Him? A human would not marry a monkey, a horse, a dog, or a chicken. There is no correspondence! There are no grounds for union of mind, desire, emotion, knowledge, understanding, body, or love. And even within the same species, not everyone is suited for the marriage union. Would Christ become intimate with a little girl who is not mature and cannot comprehend the ways of love or responsibility? Would He share all that He is and has with a child who is physically and emotionally incapable of returning mature love, relating to His deepest thoughts and heart, or participating in His divine activities and purposes?
Preston Eby
If we stand back and get a correct perspective of the sweep of the entire picture I think we will understand it. You go back to the very beginning — marriage was the first institution that God made for man. And it was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (the Word, the Voice of God) that brought the first woman to the first man. He introduced them and performed the marriage for them and made them one. In that far-off beginning, at the dawn of human history, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18). What fathomless and holy truth lies buried in this remarkable statement! While God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” I would like to give another rendition and it goes like this: “It is not good that GOD should be alone.” You see, my beloved, God’s creation is the mirror, the reflection, and expression of God’s own personal character and state of being. How can we know this? Because God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Would you like to know what God is like? You can see it in man! God did not create just a man! “Male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen. 1:27-28). The message is just this: If it was not good for man in the image of God to be in that image alone, if the man needed a wife to complement him and reproduce their life in the world, then it was likewise not good for GOD to be alone! That is the mystery! It takes the mind of the Spirit to understand that when God saw Adam in his loneliness and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” God was expressing the great mystery of His own Being within Himself. God had need for companionship. God had need for a union of love! This divine need is expressed by the apostle Paul in these words of revelation and truth: “According as He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be…before Him in love: having predestinated us…according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-6).
God’s ultimate desire and need was for the companionship of beings like unto Himself, of His own kind, with whom He could share His mind and heart, and through whom He could expand Himself, incorporating them into the outworking of His own eternal purposes. As we view from the Father’s heart it becomes obvious that God in His social and paternal nature has “marked out for Himself” a vast family which shares His own life, nature, mind, spirit, purpose, and power. I do not believe that any creature or entity that existed before man either in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, even came close to providing what God needed. This is the condition which prompted God in that long ago beginning to issue the wonderful fiat, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…” (Gen. 1:26).
Little wonder, then, that we read from the literal translation of the Hebrew text these remarkable words: “And Jehovah God saith, Not good for the man to be alone, I do make him an helper — as his COUNTERPART” (Gen. 2:18, Young’s Literal). The Goodspeed translation reads, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I must make a helper for him WHO IS LIKE HIM.” Another interesting translation says, “…and God made for Adam a COMPARABLE helper.” There we have the very first symbolism of the bride of Christ! God made for Adam someone with whom he should have complete and total correspondence and intimacy. This only mirrored the desire within God Himself, so we find that He came in the cool, or spirit of the day, as it reads in the original, to fellowship with this man and woman made in His image and likeness. The message is just this — if the Christ is to have a bride then the bride must be COMPARABLE to Christ! She must be HIS COUNTERPART! She must be one who is in every respect LIKE HIM! And that’s awesome, isn’t it! But how could Christ become intimate, on all the levels that intimacy implies, with anyone who is not comparable to Him? A human would not marry a monkey, a horse, a dog, or a chicken. There is no correspondence! There are no grounds for union of mind, desire, emotion, knowledge, understanding, body, or love. And even within the same species, not everyone is suited for the marriage union. Would Christ become intimate with a little girl who is not mature and cannot comprehend the ways of love or responsibility? Would He share all that He is and has with a child who is physically and emotionally incapable of returning mature love, relating to His deepest thoughts and heart, or participating in His divine activities and purposes?
Preston Eby
The Marriage of the Lamb - Part 2
The second step in the marriage was when, on the appointed day, the groom came with his friends to take the bride back to his home. This “taking” of the bride was usually done at night approximately one year after the betrothal. This led to the consummation of the marriage through physical union of the bride and groom on the first night at the groom’s house. Since this second step was the essence of the marriage ceremony, it was regarded as the wedding or marriage. Thus the actual “wedding” or “marriage” was not a ceremony at all — it was union! We constantly read in scripture of a man taking a wife unto himself. We get our attention, in modern marriage customs, fixed on the ceremony: forgetting that in the biblical pattern the real marriage is “this man taking unto him this woman” to be his wife in all that it means. The espousal only announces it; just as the wedding feast only celebrates it! The perfect picture of Christ taking His virgin church as His bride is seen in Genesis chapter twenty-four, where Abraham would “make a marriage for his son.” He sends Eliezar, his steward, to far away Mesopotamia, to find and woo Rebekah by showing her the “things,” that is, a sample of the wealth of Abraham and Isaac (as the Holy Spirit now shows us “the things” of Christ, the firstfruits of the Spirit); and eventually Rebekah says to Eliezar, “I will go.” And then, the journey over, the record states that when upon their camels Eliezar and Rebekah arrive in the land of Canaan, “Isaac took Rebekah (into his tent); and she became his wife; and he loved her.” The same scenario is repeated a number of times in the Old Testament and this second step corresponds precisely to the expression “marriage of the Lamb” in the book of Revelation. It signifies the ultimate completeness and fullness of UNION WITH OUR LORD!
Preston Eby
Preston Eby
The Marriage of the Lamb - Part 1
The next mystery that we need to understand, in order to comprehend what the Holy Spirit is really saying to us, is that not only does this virgin church company keep itself wholly unto the Lord, but while she is truly espoused unto the Lord the marriage of the Lamb has not yet been consummated. She has not been joined in marriage union with the Lord, else she would not be a virgin. When we speak of the “virgin church” we must understand that we speak of the bride of Christ who is espoused to Jesus Christ as His wife. We often entertain very faulty ideas concerning this beautiful truth because many of our Western customs are so different from the Eastern customs. Many people think that the true church is not yet the bride or wife of Christ and will only become the bride or wife of Christ at the time of the “marriage of the Lamb” as revealed in chapter nineteen of the Revelation. But such is not the case! Let me explain the Eastern custom of betrothal and marriage, the traditions from which the analogy of marriage in scripture is drawn.
The Israelitish marriage customs in Bible times involved three major steps. The first step was betrothal, the establishment of the marriage covenant that bound the man and woman together as husband and wife (Mal. 2:14; Mat. 1:18-19). The apostle Paul referred to this great mystery when he wrote, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. 11:2). The meaning put on “espousal” is vital. The Basic Bible reads, “You have been married by me to one husband…” Wuest says, “I gave you in marriage…” Both show the marriage as a past event. In Bible days, prior to the actual wedding and marriage consummation, there was what was known as betrothal or espousal. This was somewhat like our modern engagement, except that it was much more binding and obligatory. It was more than a mere promise between two individuals to eventually “get married,” for it was in fact the marriage — at least the first step of the process. At the time of the espousal the families of the man and woman were involved in the negotiation of a contract between the two parties. It was a notable occasion! The payment of a suitable dowry was usually a feature of the contract. The groom or his father had to pay a price to the girl’s father for the bride. When the contract was signed and sealed in the presence of witnesses, the contract meant that the couple were legally married — they were husband and wife. Matthew makes this plain when he records, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away (divorce her) privately” (Mat. 1:18-19).
This period of engagement or betrothal was taken so seriously that any violation of the engagement was considered adultery and any break-up of the espousal required a legal procedure — a bill of divorcement. This reveals the seriousness of the situation when Joseph learned that Mary was with child. The news did more than stun him! It forced him to make a decision; either to expose Mary publicly or divorce her privately. In either case, Mary would have been dishonored by her family and friends, and degraded by the Jewish community. Even worse, her son would have been born an outcast with no rights of citizenship, and prohibited from worship in the temple. Under these circumstances, Joseph chose to be as gracious and kind as Jewish law permitted; he decided to put her away privately. But then the angel brought the message to Joseph and he took Mary home as his wife, accepted her child as his own, and became legally the father of Jesus. What explains his change of heart? Just this — his belief in God’s message that Mary’s child was a special creation, conceived of the Holy Spirit, to bring salvation into our world!
Now let us return to the marriage customs. After the espousal, at a later time, usually about a year, the second step in the wedding took place. During the interval, the two were not joined physically in intimacy. The bride remained a virgin. The girl continued to live in her own home, and the man in his. The groom begins to prepare a home for them to live in. This period also gave the bride a chance to “prepare herself” and “make herself ready” for the coming union. She learns many needful things and beautifies herself in every way. She wants to be perfect for her lover. One of the most important parts of her beautification was her gown. The white wedding dress was then chosen and knit together into a beautiful garment for her to wear when the groom comes for her. The wedding dress symbolized her pure and chaste life.
Preston Eby
The Israelitish marriage customs in Bible times involved three major steps. The first step was betrothal, the establishment of the marriage covenant that bound the man and woman together as husband and wife (Mal. 2:14; Mat. 1:18-19). The apostle Paul referred to this great mystery when he wrote, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. 11:2). The meaning put on “espousal” is vital. The Basic Bible reads, “You have been married by me to one husband…” Wuest says, “I gave you in marriage…” Both show the marriage as a past event. In Bible days, prior to the actual wedding and marriage consummation, there was what was known as betrothal or espousal. This was somewhat like our modern engagement, except that it was much more binding and obligatory. It was more than a mere promise between two individuals to eventually “get married,” for it was in fact the marriage — at least the first step of the process. At the time of the espousal the families of the man and woman were involved in the negotiation of a contract between the two parties. It was a notable occasion! The payment of a suitable dowry was usually a feature of the contract. The groom or his father had to pay a price to the girl’s father for the bride. When the contract was signed and sealed in the presence of witnesses, the contract meant that the couple were legally married — they were husband and wife. Matthew makes this plain when he records, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away (divorce her) privately” (Mat. 1:18-19).
This period of engagement or betrothal was taken so seriously that any violation of the engagement was considered adultery and any break-up of the espousal required a legal procedure — a bill of divorcement. This reveals the seriousness of the situation when Joseph learned that Mary was with child. The news did more than stun him! It forced him to make a decision; either to expose Mary publicly or divorce her privately. In either case, Mary would have been dishonored by her family and friends, and degraded by the Jewish community. Even worse, her son would have been born an outcast with no rights of citizenship, and prohibited from worship in the temple. Under these circumstances, Joseph chose to be as gracious and kind as Jewish law permitted; he decided to put her away privately. But then the angel brought the message to Joseph and he took Mary home as his wife, accepted her child as his own, and became legally the father of Jesus. What explains his change of heart? Just this — his belief in God’s message that Mary’s child was a special creation, conceived of the Holy Spirit, to bring salvation into our world!
Now let us return to the marriage customs. After the espousal, at a later time, usually about a year, the second step in the wedding took place. During the interval, the two were not joined physically in intimacy. The bride remained a virgin. The girl continued to live in her own home, and the man in his. The groom begins to prepare a home for them to live in. This period also gave the bride a chance to “prepare herself” and “make herself ready” for the coming union. She learns many needful things and beautifies herself in every way. She wants to be perfect for her lover. One of the most important parts of her beautification was her gown. The white wedding dress was then chosen and knit together into a beautiful garment for her to wear when the groom comes for her. The wedding dress symbolized her pure and chaste life.
Preston Eby
Saturday, February 2, 2019
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