"Parody" is perhaps not the right word...I think I would choose "Metaphor".
God speaks of his relationship to his people in terms of the relationship between a husband and his "Bride". I believe that the "love" demonstrated by a man for his bride is in MANY ways, much the relationship God has with his "BRIDE".
It's a literary device. The only way to explain the reasons for God to have treated his idolatrous and adulterous Bride as he does is because he loves her that much. Books like Hosea are designed to teach us that very real facet of how God "feels" about his bride.
Without bothering to "Google" it...there must be HUNDREDS of places throughout the Old Testament where God speaks of his bride betraying him, ignoring him, "playing the harlot", disobeying him, and being altogether un-lovely and un-worthy and frankly.....breaking his heart. And yet, his response is to die for her, redeem her to himself and purchase her purity with his own blood.
The picture painted for us in Scripture (<---you see this is a metaphor folks: the Scriptures don't literally "paint pictures") is that if God had parents.....then when he brought his prospective bride home to meet mom and dad, they would advise him that that girl is not good for him, that she is not good enough for him and that she seems like the kind of girl who would use him and then run around on him and break his heart, and that he should drop her like a bad habit.
What was God's response, KNOWING that this was true?
Love her and marry her anyway.
I think it is important to understand that God gave us these literary devices and uses them himself for a reason. Because they explain in picture for us what mere words often don't.
The response by some was to (IMO) fail to see the use of metaphor and "word-painting" to demonstrate a deeper point.
I found some balk at my use of those metaphors. I think the reason for that is that there are many who have been taught that the SOLE purpose of God with creation is to glorify himself.
While that is certainly an important facet of God's purpose, it is rather MORE than that as well.
An important, I daresay the MOST IMPORTANT purpose God had had nothing to do with his glorification, but to have an object for his infinite and boundless love. :love2:
Do I believe that that love God has contains an almost "romantic" :flower: facet to it?
Yes, I absolutely do.
Ministers blithely repeat that "marriage" is designed, in part, to be a "picture" of the relationship between Christ and his "bride", but it seems that they then ignore the fact when speaking of how God feels about the object of his affections. They might then maintain that God's sole purpose with his "bride" is to glorify himself. Is that a man's purpose with his wife? I believe we are missing out on MUCH if we refuse to meditate on those things.