3/17/2004 02:34:00 PM|||Andrew|||Kevin posted an interesting article written by a guy at Cedarville. My first impulse was to write a long polemic, not upset that he might "taint your view of love," but upset that he missed the point altogether. Quite simply, and maybe I will permit myself to rant a bit, none of what he described is love. He describes infatuation, crushes, and the crappool (brought on in large part by Josh Harris's book) that is Christian dating. None of it even approaches love. Be afraid, be very afraid of the pop-Christian notion of romance and love. It is not godly, even as the world's notion of romance and love (which boils down to sex, in the long run) is not godly.

One passage in particular comes to mind, Song of Songs 3.5:

I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles and by the young does of the open fields:
“Do not awake or arouse love until it pleases!”

In fact, the whole book of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is worth reading for some good perspectives on love. Really. You don't need to be afraid of the sexual imagery. God preserved this book's place in the canon of Scripture for a reason; it is useful for the man or woman of God. Go read 1 Corinthians 13 also, while you're at it, for perhaps the definitive Biblical perspective on love. And I've written on this subject myself before.|||107956288868634957|||