2) This choosing involved two authorities, bound up in one person:
a) God the Father of Christ finding and choosing for Him a bride,
b) God the Father of the Church creating a bride for Christ.3) In Scripture the first step in a betrothal is for the father of the groom choosing a bride for his son. The expression is ‘take a wife for your son’. the flip side of this, which also applies to God the Father, is ‘give your daughter’ in marriage.Thus how I read this is that that initial choosing was the first step in Christ’s betrothal… a betrothal that continued with his coming to Earth and purchasing us; and now He prepares a place to bring us home and is currently washing us in His Word (Eph 5).

I am stating that when God chose a bride for Christ before the foundation of the world, Jesus chose (while on Earth) to emphasize that God the Father ‘gave’ him that bride. I hadn’t yet gone near the issues you raise. So, again, specifically:

) The Godhead for their own glory chose the church for Christ: a choosing which Christ specifically emphasized metaphored as God His Father choosing the church for Him.

2) This choosing involved two authorities, bound up in one person:
a) God the Father of Christ finding and choosing for Him a bride,
b) God the Father of the Church creating a bride for Christ.

Are we still agreed?
If not, what part of what I wrote do you disagree with?

If you are asserting that there is a relationship here, we are not yet in agreement. 

1) The Godhead for their own glory chose the church for Christ: a choosing which Christ specifically emphasized metaphored as God His Father choosing the church for Him.

2) This choosing involved two authorities, bound up in one person:
a) God the Father of Christ finding and choosing for Him a bride,
b) God the Father of the Church creating a bride for Christ.

Are we still agreed?

OK, my answer will be in several sections, as each depends on the other.

Your statement above is perfectly true, however it is important to note that Christ specifically emphasizes a particular part of that ‘conspiring’”

Joh 17:6  I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
IE Christ Himself was very emphatic about the ‘father/son’ ‘gave/recieved’ aspect of this particular way of bringing glory.

Do we agree?

Adam, the free son of God is created and is joined to his wife Eve. Prior to this point, Christ could not betrothed to us, because our first husband has not yet died (spiritual death). When he does sin and dies spiritually, his wife, and we corporately being in him, are sold by him, as a slave to sin and are places into the household of Satan.

At this point, Eve is not free to be betrothed, because her slave master, sin, and her father Satan, are unwilling to let her depart, and her desire and nature make her unable to to desire it as well. God does how promise that he will redeem her in the future.

I see Abraham as one of the the first solid picture of corporate betrothal, both of God’s future betrothal to Israel as a nation and those that are faithful as the eternal bride, as a covenant is made between God the Father and Abraham, the father of Israel, and the father of all those who have faith.

Later, when Israel is taken into captivity and God frees  them to come and serve Him, Israel is brought into the household of God, is betrothed to Him and raised as a daughter and is cleansed and ornamented, until the point that God looks upon her and coventants with her and takes her as a wife Then, Israel plays the harlot and she is put away  (as described by God in Ezekiel 16) and is sent out as a free nation, and will never be taken corporately as a nation/people again.

Can you see why I would argue along these lines and say that how things play out in time cannot be ignored?

Again, I think we are having definitional issues:

1) The Scripture never speaks of any of the acts of Chapter 2 as being in pursuit of marriage.

2) The Scripture speaks of Naomi initiating the process, indeed she says ‘shall I not seek rest for thee’… indicating that she saw the process she initiated as being ‘her’ process.

3) Boaz expresses surprise, and intense pleasure, that she was willing to marry him, an older man. I intrepret this as Gill does:”for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning; that is, to her husband’s family; she had shown much love to her husband living and dying, and to her mother-in-law, in leaving her country and kindred to come with her into a strange country, and in labour to support her, as she had done, all which was great kindness; to which the Targum adds, her being proselyted; but the kindness she now showed exceeded all the former, in that she was desirous, according to the law of God, to build up her husband’s family, to marry the next near kinsman, even though an old man, to raise up seed to the name and memory of her husband:” ~John Gill, commentary on Ruth 3:104)

He states that while he was willing to redeem the land and thus take her to raise up a son for his dead kinsman; there was another nearer who, if he was willing, would have her.

Those four points fly in the face of pretty much everything I have ever read about courting:”

1) Courtship is typically seen as a desire to at least explore marriage.

2) Courtship typically speaks of the young man, or possibly his father, initiating the process… not the young woman or her mother in law.

3) Courtship is typically seen as the young man and woman trying to figure out if they are ‘right’ for each other (I don’t mean to be sarcastic there, just to express it in shorthand. each author has a different way of expressing this God glorifying ‘right’ness.) Indeed Boaz almost seems to be saying that, given her own choice/inclinations, he would not be someone that Ruth would want to marry.

4) Courtship makes it an absolute that we are not talking about marriage in general, but one particular marriage.So that is how I don’t see any ‘courting’ in Ruth. I see two Godly people, one older, one younger, pursuing marriage in a very God glorifying way: initiated by the young woman’s mother in law, and bounded in their relationship by the law of redemption and leverirate.I see them marrying not because they were ‘right’ for each other, but in order to obey God’s law, to provide a house for Ruth, and to raise up seed for Ruth’s dead husband (and/or Father in law, depending how you interpret that).

The core of the modern process of courtship is that it is the young man who (either with our without the guidance of his parents) takes the initiative to seek the girl, and then he seeks to win her heart.

The father sending the servant with impressive gifts, while I fully agree would tend to win even an unGodly man’s heart, does not seem to fall into the definition of anyone I have ever read of what they are teaching their children to do.