What a Covenant Looks Like

Thoughts based on Highly Favoured, chapter 6:

God created marriage to show us covenant. And marriage describes our relationship with him. In these verses, Paul gets very emotional about the marriage between Jesus and his people in Corinth.

He starts off asking the believers to put up with his foolishness! Preaching, teaching, and praying, Paul had seen God start a church in the bustling port city of Corinth. Instead of idols, people were worshipping the one, true God and following Jesus as Lord and Saviour. But there were lots of problems. After Paul left, he wrote letters and sent messengers, trying to sort things out. But other people showed up too, with different ideas. Some of them had some very harsh things to say about Paul himself. They called him foolish, so Paul says, “Let me be foolish! But at least listen to why I am upset.”

Next Paul uses strong language: he is jealous and God is jealous, too! 

But isn’t being jealous bad? Not always! There is a way a husband should be jealous for his wife’s attention and respect and there is a way a wife should be jealous for her husband’s love. Each has promised the other something that isn’t for anyone else. The church in Corinth, or anywhere else, belongs to Jesus as his bride and owes him loyalty beyond any other.

Reflect and discuss: 

Is there something you “happily put up with” that makes you disloyal to Jesus? Is there something you do or don’t do, that makes him jealous or that shows him he doesn’t really matter to you?

Ask him to tell you. But first, tell him how his love makes you feel and what you are going to do about it.