Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Luke 20:34 ¶ Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Luke 20:34 ¶ Jesus said to them, "The sons of this [world and present] age marry and [the women] are given in marriage; |
Bible Question: In John Elderidge's book "The Sacred Romance" he talks about the ultimate relationship with God as being much more than a Father/Child relationship ... i.e. God loves us with a romantic love. As a man, I cannot even begin to imagine this. Can you help clear my thinking on this point? |
Bible Answer: May the Love of Our Lord be with you, Whitestone. I have not read Elderidge's book, so I cannot comment. However, in light of what the Lord said in Luke 20:34-35 [34) Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35) But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage,...] one might speculate that God's love for us is something beyond our understanding. We are incomplete beings. Gender is part of the dynamic of being incomplete. God being purely spiritual will take us to another level of existence. "Eyes have not seen, etc" what God has planned for us. Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:14-16). Jesus told us to love one another as I have loved you. Every line of the Lord's Prayer tells us something about what that means. Particularly about forgiving trespasses. It is all about being one with one another -- on a level beyond the physical. I have to laugh a little because we humans are so dear. The closest explanation that I can think of is something I read a long time ago. It was written around 1965 and is called the 'Vision in Louisville': “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.” *** ...[discussion of a separate ‘not of this world’ holiness and how it does not entitle one to be considered better or holier] “This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: ‘Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.’ To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our [holy] thinking.” “It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. “I have immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. “This changes nothing in the sense and value of my solitude [writer was a hermit], for it is in fact the function of solitude to make one realize such things with a clarity that would be impossible to anyone completely immersed in the other cares, the other illusions, and all the automatisms of a highly collective existence. My solitude, however, is not my own, for I see now how much it belongs to them—an that I have a responsibility for it in their regard, not just in my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone they are not ‘they’ but my own self. There are not strangers! “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the SECRET BEAUTY OF THEIR HEARTS, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the PERSON THAT EACH ONE IS IN GOD’S EYES. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. THERE WOULD BE NO MORE WAR, NO MORE HATRED, NO MORE CRUELTY, NOR MORE GREED.” [pp 157-158, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, T. Merton]. Hope this helps. |
Up | Down View Branch | ID# 28981 | ||
Questions and/or Subjects for Luke 20:34 | Author | ||
|
whitestone | ||
|
Motherturtlewood | ||
|
Mommapbs | ||
|
Emmaus |