Casual sex can refer to one night stands and non-relational sex,
where there are no strings attached. How often do people approach God in
similarly casual ways?
Biblical prophets write of how God’s people often play the harlot (See Ezekiel 16, for example). The problem becomes so bad that God tells Hosea to take for himself a prostitute as a wife. Their marriage involving her various adulteries and Hosea’s faithfulness in the midst of her infidelities symbolizes God’s relationship with his people, Israel. Instead of remaining faithful to the God of the covenant who had blessed them, Israel turned to Canaanite deities and worshipped and honored them as the source of their plenty (Refer to Hosea).
How do these Old Testament realities bear upon the New Testament church? Old Testament allusions ring out in Paul’s words to the church in 2 Corinthians 11:
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:1-4)
Continued, here.
Biblical prophets write of how God’s people often play the harlot (See Ezekiel 16, for example). The problem becomes so bad that God tells Hosea to take for himself a prostitute as a wife. Their marriage involving her various adulteries and Hosea’s faithfulness in the midst of her infidelities symbolizes God’s relationship with his people, Israel. Instead of remaining faithful to the God of the covenant who had blessed them, Israel turned to Canaanite deities and worshipped and honored them as the source of their plenty (Refer to Hosea).
How do these Old Testament realities bear upon the New Testament church? Old Testament allusions ring out in Paul’s words to the church in 2 Corinthians 11:
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:1-4)
Continued, here.
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