I am grateful to be home relaxing today!
(Excerpt from hand-written Journal entry, dated December 1st, 2024)
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. (John1:1-2, 14)
Me: Good evening, Father!
Abba: Good evening, Jon!
Me: [My wife] expressed concern that I commented that as a man, I didn’t have an emotional understanding of what it means to be ‘the bride of Christ’. There are many things about it that are obscure to me. Such as, there being many of us, whereas we understand proper marriage to be monogamous.
Abba: Then, let’s start with that!
John:17
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
So, Jon, not many, but one, in love.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24 (See also Ephesians 5:31, Mark 10:8, Matthew 19:6, Ephesians 5 (all))
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:30-31
Me: Thank You Father! I love You!
Abba: You are welcome! I love you!
Missionary Sojourn 
I love the connection you draw between the two passages, beautiful!
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I heard someone describe John’s writings as not being repetitive, as they can seem. Rather, each iteration is like an airplane circling and rising. Yes, you’re going over the same ground, but seeing it from a different perspective. And that way of seeing his writings has helped me appreciate scripture like you quote. “Isn’t he just saying the same thing over and over?” “Well, yes and no…”
Which reminds me of what a pastor told me once, about how he structures his sermons. “I tell them what I’m going to tell them, then I tell them, then I tell ’em what I told’ em.”
And as to the bride, I’ve understood her to be the church universal – not your congregation, not my denomination. No, I don’t know what being a bride is like. But I do remember “and I’ll say Yes, Lord, Yes, to Your will and to Your way” – that has to be part of it.
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Thanks, Steve, for your thoughtful observations! We have a way to go, it seems, to depart from congregations and denominations and “depart from Me, I never knew you” to the full answer of Jesus’ prayer that we would all be one with Him. I take solace in the opening of John’s Gospel, knowing that the words that went forth from God made all there is. (!) We can expect, then, that Jesus’ prayer for unity will likewise be completely fulfilled. Incidentally, I have long wondered if the denominational divisions that exist now are not God’s way of confounding the designs of men, as at the tower of Babel.
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