Summary: For several years when I was a young pastor, I taught a fifth and sixth-grade Sunday School class, and I would often ask my students if they knew what a covenant was. "A covenant is a promise," they would answer, in unison--those kids had been well taught! "Just any kind of promise?" I would ask. "No, a special kind of promise," they would answer. "Can you give me an example?" I would ask. "Like a wedding," they would answer. And they would be right. A covenant is like that very special promise made by two people when they get married. "John," the minister asks, "will you have Jane to be your wife?" "I will," John answers. "Will you forsake all others and be faithful to her only as long as you both shall live?" "I will," he says. "And Jane," the minister continues, "will you have John to be your husband?" "I will," Jane answers. "Will you forsake all others and be faithful to him only as long as you both shall live?" "I will," she says. And at the end of the ceremony the minister pronounces them husband and wife. It is not unlike that covenant made between God and his people at Mount Sinai, that "wedding in the wilderness," where God took Israel by the hand and said, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not bow down to idols or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God (Ex. 20:2-5). Do you understand?" And the people of Israel, like a bride blushing behind her veil, said, "We do."
