One of the most powerful images that appears in the Bible is that of God’s people acting as an adulteress by turning their backs on God and choosing idols over Him. Prophets sometimes called Israel a prostitute and often wrote startling pictures of how God viewed their behavior.

1. Read Hosea 1:1-3; 4:1-14. What is Israel doing that makes them like Gomer?

2. Why would God ask Hosea to marry a prostitute? Was faithfulness necessary for Hosea or God to act? How well would you rate your faithfulness to your relationship with God?

3. The hope of this story is that, in the end, God restores His relationship with Israel and us and pursues us with faithfulness and love. Have you taken steps to restore your relationship with God? Don’t wait, talk to him now and ask for a new life with Him.

In the following verses in Romans, Paul uses widows remarrying as an image of our relationship with Christ. This is yet another way that marriage can symbolize the position Christ has in our lives as well as His amazing redemption.

1. Read Romans 7:1-6. What is it that Paul says we were once married to in these verses?

2. According to these verses, when is the only appropriate time to marry again? How do we get out of our marriage to the law? Who are we married to now?

3. Make a list of things that characterize your “old husband” of sin that you have died to, and contrast them with your “new husband,” Christ. Thank Him for these wonderful traits.

In yesterday’s text, we saw that Jesus proposed and bought us at a price. The Bible also gives us an image that Jesus has gone to make a place ready for his bride (the church) and will return to take us home.

1. Read Revelations 19:6-9. How do these verses describe the joy that Jesus has in coming to take his church to heaven?

2. What makes the bride so beautiful in these verses? If you and I are the saints, then what is it that we do that makes us appear “bright and pure” to God? Does your marriage or pursuit of marriage reflect this purity?

3. Marriage is obviously a huge deal to God. Take some time to thank God for marriage and what it represents and ask for your own value of it to reflect God’s view of it.

The image of marriage used by God can be displayed in what Christ did for in His story of redeeming us. In Jewish culture, when a man proposed to a woman, he first had to purchase his bride at a price.

1. Read Mark 14:12-26. How are these verses similar to a marriage proposal? It was not uncommon at the time for a man to offer his bride to be a cup of wine symbolizing his body being offered in marriage.

2. What is the new covenant that Jesus is talking about? What was the price Jesus had to pay for his bride? How do we dishonor what Jesus did when we do not take our covenant of marriage seriously?

3. Take some time to pray today for marriages today, especially for your own and ones that seem to be struggling and need God to strengthen the covenant.

Marriage is very dear to God because of how it represents the very nature and idea of who God is. When we act out marriage as it should be, we represent to the world the wonderful life that flows from God.

1. Read Ephesians 5:21-33. In what way is the relationship in a marriage compared to how God relates with us?

2. What character are men compared to in these verses? Women? How far was Christ willing to go to show his love to the church? How much have you been willing to sacrifice for the love of your wife? How are wives to respond to their husbands?

3. Men, take some time to go out of your way to show how much you love your wife. Women, let your husband know how much you respect him.