✅ The theme of romantic love in the Bible - the parish of St. Seraphim.rf

The Bible's description of true love.

From Walter Elwell's Bible Dictionary:
§ Emotional Love V.Z. (Heb. ahabah and dod) is described in the Song of Songs.

§ A more exalted form of love, involving devotion, perseverance and kindness, is called in Hebrew the word “chesed”, which is sometimes translated as “fidelity”, but more often as “mercy” or “kindness”.

The meaning of this word is clear from Hos. 2:19,20.

“And I will betroth you to Me forever, and I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and judgment, in kindness and mercy. And I will betroth you to Me in fidelity, and you will know the Lord.”

The Bible contrasts the steadfast and steadfast love of God with the fickleness and whims of pagan idols. “Chesed” is not an emotional response to beauty, merit or kindness, but rather a moral attitude, a wish for the good of another, regardless of whether he is worthy of love and whether he does not reciprocate it.

“It was not because you were more numerous than all the nations that the Lord accepted you and chose you, for you are the fewest in number among all the nations, but because the Lord loves you, and in order to keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, He brought you out The Lord has set you free with a mighty hand from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

This steadfast loyalty, based on the desire for good, can be harsh; it can motivate God to discipline a people who have gone astray. But God's love is unchanging. And in times of exile and failure, God loved His people patiently, not abandoning sinners. There is kindness, tenderness, and compassion in this attitude (Ps. 85:15; 102:1-18; 135; Hos. 11:1-4), but its main feature is a moral obligation to promote the welfare of another.

In N.Z. Of the Greek words for love, “eros” is not used.

§ "Phileo", indicates natural affection.

§ “Agape” is love for the undeserving of love, despite disappointment and rejection.

Biblical love for a life partner = “1 Cor. 13 + Song of Songs.”

“Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, is not arrogant, is not arrogant, does not act disorderly, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not count evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers everything, believes everything, hopes for everything, endures everything.”

It is love “1 Corinthians 13” that is the basis for the strength of marriage. Because Biblical marriage is , first and foremost, a covenant.

A covenant is a commitment, not an emotional outburst.

Many marriages of the Old and New Testaments were decided by parents who decided to marry their children without even asking their opinion. And such marriages are given all the commandments about family life without any conditions, such as “if you loved each other before marriage,” etc. This gives us the idea that there is no room for carnal and satanic temptations to dissolve or invalidate a marriage, because... there was not enough feeling or awareness. The covenant is made and God's grace is sufficient for spouses to love each other and enjoy their marriage.

The covenantal nature of marriage affirms the primacy of Agape love in marriage, which “does not fail.”

A tilt in one direction is incorrect from the biblical point of view on marital love.

Neither the worldly lurch toward emotional love, nor the lurch toward unemotional love out of cold religious duty is the Biblical beautiful marriage love.

It is this unhealthy bias towards emotions that many Christians call “falling in love” and not true love.

This idea of love brings many problems to Christians:

§ Imposing an incorrect scale for assessing relationships.

§ Inducing premature emotionality.

§ Confusing spouses with doubts about the state of their relationship or whether they loved each other at all, because there is no emotional passion.

What an amazing and wonderful time you are going through - youth, youth: This is a time when you have to make choices in many ways in life, make independent decisions that will determine your future. Love is synonymous with happiness, which all people strive for. This is the only, enduring force in relationships. Today we are trapped in patterns of behavior that not only destroy love, preventing it from blossoming, but also ruin lives. Sex has become one of the greatest temptations for young people. We pay too high a price for the “fruits” of the sexual revolution: - 1st place in Europe in the number of divorces; — 3rd place in the world in terms of the number of abortions; — epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS; - increase in teenage pregnancy; - increase in the number of abandoned children. How many more broken hearts and broken lives? But is this what all those who became victims of the grandiose experiment with freedom wanted?! All people crave warmth and simple human relationships, and sex is the coin that many pay for tenderness!

There are many misconceptions about love.

1. Sexual attraction, passion. You are attracted to the body of another, his external physical characteristics. Sexual desire disappears immediately after satisfying your needs. This is not love!

2. Falling in love, infatuation. This is a state when you are completely overwhelmed by your feeling (“blinded by love”). The physical characteristics of a person excite you, and you are in love with some of his mental properties and character traits. It's an exciting feeling, an emotional uplift, but it doesn't last long because it's not real love. True love, and not just infatuation, will be what motivates the young to make a promise of fidelity to each other, and subsequent, calmer love will give them the strength to fulfill it.

3. True love. You love not something in a person, but precisely him, incomparable and irreplaceable. True love has no boundaries in time. She is selfless and loyal. Sexual intimacy in this case is not an end in itself, but an expression of love between a man and a woman. Simply satisfying the sexual urge offers pleasure; feelings of a lover - joy; true love is happiness. Don't wake up love prematurely! True love is worth waiting for. It's natural to want intimacy before marriage, but truly loving behavior would be to wait until after marriage. There is no such thing as safe sex!

Seven years are like a few days!

I would like to share a word from the Bible that touched my heart. It shows very clearly that true love awaits.

We find this passage in the book of Genesis, chapter 29, verse 20: “And Jacob served for Rachel seven years; and they appeared to him in a few days, because he loved her.” It is almost impossible to believe what is written here! He had to wait seven years and that time seemed to him like a few days! In today's language, seven years passed from the day of the engagement to the day of the wedding, and all this time Jacob calmly waited because he loved.

Today you can hear a lot about love. For example: “Expressing your feelings is beautiful!”, while any carnal attraction of the flesh is called love. Rather, you can hear: “I loved her so much (we loved each other so much) that we could not wait, our feelings were too strong.” It is not surprising if such love passes quickly.

I would like to note that deep true love, which becomes a solid foundation for married life, does not originate in the sexual attraction of two opposite sexes, its source and beginning is God Himself. In the Bible we can often find a description of the most beautiful, tender love between the bride and groom, and it is precisely this kind of intimate intimacy and marriage that the Lord chose to use the example of these relationships to show His love for the Church, His relationship with man.

Through some observations and reflections, I came to the conclusion that it is necessary to put a big question mark over love that arose as a result of touching each other, frequent meetings, flirting with each other, etc. If a girl or guy in such cases begins to feel something , this is not at all surprising, but natural, but is this love? It is interesting that such “love” loses all patience and relentlessly seeks its own, it is selfish and the owner of such love really loses his head and all reason. Love, ignited as if from a match, achieving what it so passionately sought, disappears as quickly as it suddenly appeared. Whereas true love does not need to be warmed up by touches, tenderness - it stores all this until married life, and such love does not dry up if it has to wait.

Application of principle No. 8 in practice:

About compassion and mutual assistance

We must “unload” each other: when we see that a person is having a hard time, we need to approach him, take on his load, make it easier, help in any way possible. By listening to others, we take on their burden. After all, grief told to another is already half the grief.

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Be warmth and light for those around you; first try to warm your family with yourself, work on this, and then these works will attract you so much that for you the family circle will already be narrow, and these warm rays will over time capture more and more new people, and the circle illuminated by you will gradually become more and more increase and increase; so try to keep your lamp burning brightly.

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There are moments when you really want to help some person, it is undoubtedly the Lord who disposes his heart to save another; just be pure vessels, so that He can act through you and have you as an instrument in His hands.

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Get into the position of each person, take into account who is in front of you, worry about others, try to relieve others. This will give you the opportunity to painlessly lag behind your “I”. Then you will suffer for others, as Christ suffered for everyone.

March 17-23. Love Stories.

Bible passages to study this week: Gen. 2:21-25; Ref. 20:5; Isaiah 43:4; 62:5; book of Song of Songs; John 2:1-11.

“The Lord appeared to me from afar and said: I have loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore I have shown favor to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Key Idea: How should we understand God's love?

Love is probably one of the first characteristics of God that comes to mind. Indeed, we cannot overestimate the love of God. However, one aspect of His love that receives little attention is the image of God blessing love and marriage.

To properly understand this aspect, you must first remind yourself of the time frame of the Bible. This book covers thousands of years of human history, from the first days of our world to the last. Like other historical books, the Bible as a whole tells about kings and rulers, wars, battles, and political intrigues.

But no historical book can tell about everything that happened. So is the Holy Scripture. It does not contain an exhaustive description of all historical events that occurred throughout the history of the Earth. Of course, much is not presented. But the most interesting thing is that in the historical data that God ordered the prophets to write down, He also included touching stories of human relationships. Why did God have to do this? Why include love stories in history books? Does this say anything about His nature and how important He considers a person's feelings? This week we will analyze why these stories were included in the Bible and what they can teach us.

Sunday. First love story

“And the man said, Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman: for she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23).

The first love story is found in the first chapters of the Bible. This is the story of Adam and Eve. Our first parents were special creations of God. Both man and woman reflected His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26, 27). Adam and Eve came to life thanks to the incredible creative power of the Lord. The complex structure of our bodies continues to be one of the most powerful testimonies to the wisdom and power of the Creator.

Read the Bible account of the creation of Eve (Gen. 2:21-25). How would you describe the relationship between Adam and Eve depicted in this passage?

Perhaps what this passage shows most clearly is just how personal and intimate the relationship between these two men was. God created woman from the body of man. They were literally one flesh and blood.

Adam then utters what is called the first "love song" in the Bible, which explicitly states how close the first people were to each other. In Hebrew, the word for “man” used in verse 23 is ish and the word for “woman” is ishsha, again indicating a close relationship between the two.

Verse 24 says that a man must leave his parents and be united to his wife, and they will become “one flesh.” This is another indication of how close their connection should be. Someone might ask: what parents are we talking about here if they didn’t exist then? The fact is that Moses wrote the creation accounts many centuries later to explain in more detail the meaning of marriage.

The nakedness of the first people also indicates a close personal relationship between them.

Whatever the relationship of the first couple, an important part of it was romantic and sensual love. God is not against feelings and romance. On the contrary, He created us capable of feeling it, He Himself put these qualities into us.

Love is a beautiful, God-given gift to humanity. If you are in love, what do you do to protect this relationship?

Monday. Love Stories in the Bible

Although the Bible describes many historical events, there is also room for touching love stories. Abraham and Sarah were bound by strong, tender bonds of love. Over the long years of her infertility, he did not forget about her and did not turn away from her. It was only at Sarah's request that Abraham entered Hagar. The bond of love between Abraham and Sarah was tender and strong. See Gen. 16.

A large chapter of Genesis describes how Abraham's servant sought a wife for Isaac. After announcing Rebekah's arrival, the chapter introduces us to another love story. See Gen. 24.

The next love story is the story of Jacob and Rachel. A few strokes depict the exciting meeting of Jacob and Rachel, accompanied by tears and a tender, friendly kiss from close relatives. And if we remember that God is the Author of the Bible and that the book of Genesis was written under His inspiration, then we will understand that God has a positive attitude towards the feelings of man, for He included this story in the Bible. See Gen. 29.

If you were writing a book spanning thousands of years, describing the creation of humans and their fall, would you include these small touching details and why? The book of Genesis omits many events that happened during this historical period. However, God inspired Moses to include these stories of love and human relationships.

Re-read all the stories mentioned. Their heroes faced many difficulties and suffered from their own or others' mistakes. What wrong actions have brought pain and suffering into this relationship? And most importantly, what can their mistakes teach us?

Unfortunately, many people have made the same or worse mistakes. The good news is that God not only forgives, but also heals. No matter what relationship mistakes you have made, how can you learn to seek forgiveness and healing from the Savior?

Tuesday. God's love

From the very beginning of the book of Genesis, it is clear that feelings of love and affection must have been an important part of the human family experience. One man with one woman - period. This was the Divine ideal, the biblical model of the family.

Very often the Bible uses images of love and marriage to show the kind of relationship God desires to have with His children. There is no closer relationship than between husband and wife, except the relationship of a person with God.

Read Ref. 20:5. What word in this verse reveals God's feelings for His people? How should we understand this word in relation to God?

Many times God has shown jealousy toward His people (see also Ex. 34:14; Deut. 4:24; Joel 2:18). Jealousy is a feeling that lovers experience when they think that their loved ones are unfaithful to them. And although we cannot compare human zeal with the zeal of God, our Lord is not a distant, faceless good “force.” He is a Person who has a strong love for the human race. No matter how difficult it may be for us to realize, God loves us, and as a loving Person, He is hurt by our unfaithfulness.

Read the following texts. How do they help us understand God's feelings towards us? Isaiah 43:4; 62:5; Ezek. 16:1-15; Jerem. 31:3; Open 21:9.

The Bible openly states that God loves every person infinitely. This is difficult to understand only because it is not easy to understand God Himself, the Creator of the Universe. After all, we can hardly understand the Universe as a whole, and much less able to understand the One who created it. However, God not only declared His love for us, He demonstrated it in many ways. Of course, the greatest of these was the sacrifice of Christ. What more proof of God's love do we need than what we received at Calvary?

Think about what would happen if God hated us, was indifferent to us, or simply didn’t like us? But the Bible says God loves us. What does this mean to you personally and how does the truth of God's love for you impact your life?

Wednesday. Romantic book

Libraries can be filled with books that deal with the complex issue of human suffering, difficult especially for those who believe in a loving, omnipotent God (for an atheist, suffering is just part of life in a godless and meaningless universe, so for him it is not such a complex philosophical issue as for Christian). However, without understanding the great controversy between Christ and Satan, most of these books do not provide answers to the questions of existence (even knowing about the universal drama, it is impossible to answer all the questions).

romantic love

Someone will see religious fanaticism in these words: they say, everything is permitted to those who love God. But in fact, a completely different idea is expressed here: love is the highest form of knowledge. For example, a scientist-entomologist who is well versed in insects is able to experience sincere admiration while looking at the furry legs of a spider, while a layman, noticing a similar monster nearby, frightenedly grabs his slipper.

Being perfect knowledge, love is above the law. Spouses living out of love know exactly how to take care of each other, and therefore do not need instructions from the Family Code. Mozart’s inspiration allows him to arrange notes much better than any theory of composition, which causes a fit of envy in Pushkin’s Salieri, who “dissected music like a corpse” and “trusted harmony with algebra.”

However, naively following the advice of St. Augustine, many of us make the most severe mistake in life. The fact is that there are many different forces that captivate a person, which are not at all genuine love, although they have symptoms similar to it. An incorrect diagnosis can lead to death for the patient. Having mistakenly defined his state as love, a person with a joyful face hurries towards crime. And now a mature husband, the head of the family, decides to leave his wife and three children because he had the misfortune of being carried away by his young secretary.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato compiled a description of the most common cases of “false” love. These include eros

, or "romantic love".

"Love is patient"

and
“he is merciful
,” says the Apostle Paul. Alas, the power of these virtues is absent in romantic love. The story of Romeo and Juliet develops so rapidly that the action of Shakespeare's tragedy fits into just five days - from Sunday to Friday. During this time, the young Montague manages to commit two murders: his first victim is Tybalt, the brother of his beloved, then Paris, her official fiancé.

“Love does not envy”, “love does not exalt itself”, “does not seek its own”, “does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness”

. It is easy to see that it is envy, jealousy, selfishness and intricate love affairs that are precisely the cornerstone on which the dramaturgy of the vast majority of works of romantic literature is built.

«Love never fails, although prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silent, and knowledge will be abolished.

" What a bitter smile these words of the apostle should cause among divorcing spouses!

That is why Plato called eros the lowest form of love. But, despite its clearly clouded nature, its ability to be a detonator of the evil hidden in a person, the philosopher considered romantic love to be a blessing, a valuable gift, and not at all a curse.

About fear and sorrow

For someone who firmly believes and lives according to God, nothing is scary.

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We do not tolerate various hardships, sorrows, wounds to our pride, and we do not thank the Lord for helping our spirit to grow through these things.

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Every Christian must save himself and lead others to the salvation through faith, suffering, patience, and submission to the will of God. This calm enduring of suffering by a person inspires others around him and leads him to Christ. We try to be at enmity, to quarrel with others - this is not what true Christians are like.

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A true, firmly believing Christian is not afraid to cross himself when passing by a church, and is not afraid to enter a church - if there are any acquaintances there, no one would see.