Devotional on Song of Songs

2003 – Garden of the Gods, Colorado

Night at the opera
Song of Songs 1: The Song — best of all — Solomon’s song!
I confess here and now that I don’t know what I’m going to do with Song of Songs. I can tell you this; my devotional journey through these eight chapters isn’t going to take long! As my beloved wife will tell you I’m not the most romantic fellow in the world so this portion of Scripture doesn’t really resonate very well with me. I can write about the technical side of things though. Song of Songs is, basically, an opera. There are different characters and they interact in telling of the passion of two lovers. The woman, the man, and a chorus sing to one another all through the opera. The KJV doesn’t make this very clear, so, for us who were introduced to this book by that translation, this was a very confusing book. The Message, and most current translations tell us who is singing when and that helps a bit. Some have “Christianized” Song of Songs by making it an allegory of Christ’s love for the Church. I’m not knowledgeable enough to debate the point but it seems to me that it’s more of a celebration of God’s gift of human sexuality than anything else. To be honest about it, I’m a lot more comfortable with the sexuality of Song of Songs when it’s left in that realm and not made into a spiritual allegory so I intend to leave it at that. Finally, Solomon is the writer and apparently the male character in the opera is based on him. Because of that, this book is also called Song of Solomon. When I remember how many wives Solomon had I have to smile and wonder which of his wives inspired this opera. However, I do understand that many of his marriages were political in nature, basically arraigned to seal some treaty between Israel and a neighboring nation. The actual identity of the woman is, so far as I can see, unknown to us.
Take Away: We believe this book of the Bible is the inspired Word of God, so we read it and consider it even when we don’t fully understand it.

Devotional on Song of Songs

2003 – Colorado

Don’t just fall in love with being in love
Song of Songs 2: Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe — and you’re ready.
The woman, who co-stars in the opera, is speaking to her “sisters in Jerusalem” and she has some good advice for them. She tells them to wait for the right time and for the right person to be sent into their lives before falling in love. Sometimes young women are more in love with the idea of being in love than they are actually in love. They get emotionally involved with someone who has a very different agenda than they do and the result is, at best, disappointment and a feeling of having been used and cheapened. Song of Songs is a celebration of human love and sexuality — and the two are very much linked. The woman who is loved by the King says, “The real thing is worth waiting for — don’t sell out too soon.” Young women across the ages have faced the temptation to do otherwise but to do so is to accept a cheap imitation that won’t last. In Song of Songs, the opera about love, we’re told: “wait, you’ll be glad you did!”
Take Away: The real thing is worth waiting for — don’t sell out too soon.

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