Sermon Central
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The Three Loves (Maybe Just One:)
Contributed by Ken Henson on Jan 31, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: God loves us. He calls us to love each other in the same way. He also designs us to love and appreciate beauty, and to live beautifully.
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Bhakti, the Beloved, & Beauty-The Three Loves (k, Maybe just 1)
Valentine's Day? :)
I began a previous message saying God is probably angry at you.
Today I’d like to talk about why.
Love.
Love is powerful.
Song of Songs of Solomon 8
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its ardour unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
(Obviously, this is a song expressing the love of a bride to her groom-soon to be husband. We’ll come back to this later.) Clearly, the Bible teaches that LOVE is powerful. & because the Bible contains far too much to cover in one message, I’m going to focus on only three types of love:
For those of you who like to keep things simple, remember Three B’s
Bhakti, the Beloved, & Beauty.
But we'll get even simpler before this message is finished.
There is so much in the Bible, and, really, all human literature, about love that I’d like to focus on music.
Bhakti
The most ancient musical text including partial musical notation is among the Hurrian Songs- Amorite/Canaanite city of Ugarit 1400 BC – H6 the Hymn to the goddess of fruit, Nikkal
In the Gita-the great story is, of course, a Gita.
& it proclaims the value and importance of & Bhakti Dharma, Devotion to Duty in service to god.
6th Century BCE Pythagoras discovered the profound connection between acoustical phenomena and mathematical symmetry-that a Perfect Octave vibrated at a ½ ratio (C1 is created by a vibration at 64 cycles per second, & C2 is produced by 128 cycles C3 by 256 cycles per second & so on…). A Perfect 5th is produced by 1/3 ratio-the next simplest fraction-and Pythagoras developed the Western 12-tone system based on the relationship between these 5ths. He surmised from the mathematics of sound that if we all could just learn to get our souls in tune with the “music of the spheres” would could achieve enlightenment as individuals and as a community.
Much of ancient human literature focuses on human love and devotion to God. But the Bible takes a VERY different approach. It focuses more on God’s love and devotion to us (!)
David, quite possibly as a young boy, watching his father’s sheep, wrote a song of worship
Psalms
.??????? ???,????? ?????? (the Hebrew is backwards! It should read Jehovah roi, lo etsar Right to Left, but Word keeps it left to right for reasons I can’t fix) God is my Shepherd, I shall not lack anything.
When God revealed Himself in a special way to Moses, He described Himself:
Exodus 34:5 Then the LORD
came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. Exodus
34: 6 And he passed in front of
Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD,
the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to
anger, abounding in love
and faithfulness,Exodus 34:7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion
and sin.
Psalm 136
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
5 who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
6 who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
7 who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
8 the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
9 the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.
17 to him who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel.
