"BRIDAL" DISCIPLES??
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
-by S. Hill.
Hello Friends
What if John 15 read like this?
Jesus looked at the disciples, sighed deeply and said, " I can hardly
wait for my marriage supper when we will be united as bride and
groom! I can hardly wait to behold you in your beautiful wedding
dress and call you my beloved!"
"From now on I am not calling you servants but 'My Bride' because my
Father is uniting us in marriage."
I think Peter and John would have begun to look for an exit
strategy! Time to go back to fishing! Things are getting weird
around here!
NO! Jesus looked at his men and said to them, "You are my friends
if you do whatever I command you." No obedience, no friendship!
The dominant relational metaphor of John 15 is father/son and
friends- the band of brothers. Love is demonstrated by doing, not by
singing love songs!
Why does the metaphor of the bride (which we also need but which has
much more to do with the future!) have so much more air time in some
parts of the church than the metaphor of a band of brothers
fulfilling a mission? Why the bridal imagery so much more than that
of the army on white horses?
Maybe we love the bridal stuff of Jesus the lover because it is
romantic, pretty and indoors rather than the messy, challenging and
outdoor life of Jesus the servant? Maybe that is why worship
conferences sell out but few of us have little evidence to accuse us
of being friends of sinners?
Paul (II Timothy 2) did not tell Timothy to work on his new romantic
worship CD! He told him to fight like a soldier, compete like an
athlete, work like a farmer and suffer like a prisoner. Nothing
romantic or nice there. Nothing you can sing your way through. You
either do it or you do not.
Jesus did not promise to make His disciples romantic lovers.
He promised to make them "fishers of men" and promised them
persecution and suffering as they did it.
When does private "seeking His face" become an obedience avoidance
mechanism?
He has placed His face on the least and said that to serve them is to
serve Him!
~SOURCE - http://www.harvest-now.org