1. Lessons from Solomon?s Song of Songs
We are now looking at the most sensual part of the Bible ? Solomon?s Song of Songs ? and we are in the fifth of a six part series. We must ask ourselves what we have learned so far from this book, and how has our thinking changed?
There are four areas to think about:
Firstly, our view of sex should have actually changed. It?s not a hundred and eighty degree change ? just a couple of degrees, but a few degrees? change has big implications.
I knew from the New Testament that God was positive about sex.
That statement in the New Testament states,
?The wife?s body does not belong to her, but to her husband. The husband?s body does not belong to him, but to his wife. Do not deprive each other.?
I have agreed with that, and I have taught that.
I have been struck with how God is so, so, so positive about the physical relationship between the man and the wife. It?s caught up in the line in Song of Songs chapter 7:10
?I belong to my love, and his desire is for me?
Secondly, I think as a result of these studies that I have a better grasp of the Biblical simile ? the relationship between Christ and his people ? the church ? and the parallel between the husband and the wife. I think I also have a better handle on the sense of delight in both those relationships.
I am looking beyond our earthly marriages to the heavenly marriage, and I have, (and I hope you have), picked up a sense of a deeper aspect, a deeper delight and joy as I reflect on the relationship I have with Christ.
Thirdly, I don?t think (until recently) that I had realized how deeply Platonic thinking, and its divorce between the body and the soul had affected me. Plato had the idea of a good soul trapped inside an evil body. I have known from the Bible that it is not right.
God made the man and the woman ? in Genesis ? and it was good. I know that that isn?t right, but I hadn?t realized how deeply that worldview is ingrained in me, and I suspect in you, and I keep falling into the trap of thinking like Plato ? not like God. Song of Songs has been a really helpful challenge to me.
Fourthly, I found that, still tucked away inside me, is a wrong belief that Augustine was right ? when he taught that sex was somehow sinful! I know that?s not right. But when I see God in Song of Songs portraying sex making within the marriage relationship as so good, as so positive and so to be delighted in ? I baulk at it and I ask myself why. Do I baulk at it because Augustine has so screwed with my thinking here?
2. ?I belong to my love, and his desire is for me? Chapter 7:10
I have selected a summary verse ?
?I belong to my love, and his desire is for me? which basically captures the idea or the theme of what is going on in these chapters. We will start with his desire is for her, and then we will go to ?I belong to my love?
3. His desire is for her alone. Chapter 6:4-10
We pick up the narrative in Chapter 6, sentence 4.
To recap: ? Earlier we saw their wedding, and the wedding night. Then in Chapter five ? there was a turn for the worse ? both man and woman acted selfishly ? and her girlfriends pointed her back to the relationship with her husband. We start the snapshot this week ? with them back together ? kissing and making up!! I think it?s later in their relationship ? they are now in settled relationship.
Just listen to him as he speaks of his wife?.
He describes her wavy, glistening hair and magnificent teeth ? physical attributes ? and it?s similar language to some of the things he has said previously. That?s fair enough ? the language of love bears repeating. The language of praise oils relationships!
But jump down to sentence 8, and he is clear that his desire is for her exclusively:
I am married to the best! I have the best girl in the world. I could have a beautiful queen ? there are 60 queens. I could have a princess? there are young women without number. But I want my girl! In fact, queens and princesses are looking at my girl and thinking ? wow ? she is fortunate! She is amazing!
Husbands ? this is to be our mindset about our wives. This is to be how we think about them. This is to be how we speak to them. Whoever you are married to ? she is an order of magnitude better than any other woman in the world.
I want to just ask husbands a question ?Is that the way you think about your wife? Do you have her on that kind of pedestal in your mind? This might be the place where God is teaching you, correcting you, rebuking you and training you in righteousness!
She belongs to her love 6:11
She comes to the garden 6:11-12
Wives, just imagine that your man does think about you like that ? that he would rather be married to you thank the Queen of Egypt. When he thinks that way about you, you are free to totally trust him, to let yourself go in belonging to his love.
She comes to her garden, and then she dances for her man ?
She is visually generous, she dances for her man 6:13
The young women say ?
It?s hard to tell whether Shulammite is a proper name ? her name ? or the place she is from!
?Come back, come back, that we may look at you!?I don?t think they just want to see her ? gaze upon her physically, rather: it?s ?Come back come back ? that we might ? see you with insight and understanding!? There?s a little interaction with the man as he queries why they are looking at his girl?
? Why are you looking at the Shulammite, as you look at the dance of the two camps??I am thinking that this is his beautiful girl dancing with athleticism and grace, whirling her limbs around, and moving her torso. She is alluring ? riveting! I am thinking that he is looking at his woman dance, and he compares her footwork to the movement of armies camped on the battlefield ? the movement of troops back and forth on the battlefield.
And you know what ? as he looks at her dance ? she is visually generous to him.
And she can be ? because it?s secure!! It?s safe to let him look. He?s her man, and she trusts him. She wants to please him.
I just wonder if, as husbands, we have we been able to create an environment at home where our wives would feel safe and secure in themselves, so affirmed by us, that they would feel free to dance ? to give us a ?visual gift.?
4. He enjoys her appearance 7:1-7
As she dances, he is fixated on her moving body.
The commentators speculate on whether this was a naked dance or maybe she was veiled. Who knows? It doesn?t matter. She is giving him a gift ? a gift of enjoying looking at her body.
Now the bit of us that has been influenced by Plato and Augustine is saying, ?this can?t be right. This can?t be in the Bible.
Actually I also heard that the fourth century Catholic thinker Jerome would throw himself into thorny brambles so that the pain would overwhelm his desire for the female body.
So, if you bumped into Jerome and he was covered in scratches, you would know he was going through a rough patch!
Actually, (the Bible College Students will love this) it is said ?When this method failed him ? it is said he took up the study of Hebrew.? (Apparently that managed to distract him sufficiently!)
So the part of our minds influenced by Plato, Augustine or Jerome says ?What!!!!?
But the part of me that has been reading this healthy, God endorsed view of sexuality between a husband and wife says, ?Yes!?
I reflect, as a creature, a human, a man with sexual desires, that it is so good and generous of my creator to give me a wife to delight in!
Listen to Solomon describe his wife?.
He is amazed at the beautiful craftsmanship of her thighs!
2 Your navel is a rounded bowl; it never lacks mixed wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat surrounded by lilies.
3 Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is like a tower of ivory, your eyes like pools in Heshbon
Down to verse 6:
6 How beautiful you are and how pleasant, my love, with such delights!7 Your stature is like a palm tree; your breasts are clusters of fruit.
It is a graphic and sensual, extraordinarily positive, physical description of her ? by her man.
My suspicion is that every woman here would love to have a man who thought of her like that ? who desired her like that. And, married couples, this is being held up for us ? not as a directive ? but rather that this is a good and godly example of how a married Christian might enjoy their relationship together.
(Just note that it is not said here that because of the proliferation of porn in the society, the wise wife will be visually generous to her husband ? to help in reducing the temptation to turn to porn).
What is said is that this is a good and godly relationship ? where he is totally devoted to her ? and she enjoys bringing him delight. He is not deviant for enjoying the appearance of his wife?s body ? and she is not immodest for being visually generous to her man!).
It is interesting that in verses 1-7 he seems to be focusing on her actual body, rather than her clothes, jewelry or adornment, which is why I guess people have speculated that he is enjoying looking at her naked body.
Does this contradict what?s said in the New Testament? Two passages that are often quoted are 1 Timothy 2:9,
I don?t see a contradiction. She dances before her man. She is not dancing before all men.
Her man enjoys her naked body. He is not praising her for an elaborate hairstyle, gold, pearls or expensive apparel.
The other passage of comparison is 1 Peter 3:1:
Lets go through it a little more slowly. Peter is speaking to a Christian woman who is married to a non-Christian man.
1 Peter 3:1 ?Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that even if some disobey the message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live.?There would be a temptation for a Christian wife who knows the truth, to attempt to nag her husband into the kingdom. That?s not the way to go. If you live rightly in God?s way, if you submit yourselves to your husbands, and if you live ?pure, reverent lives?, they may be won over. Now here is where Plato and Augustine are wrong. A pure reverent life is not a life that is sexually repressed. A pure reverent life is a life where you are visually generous for your man ? where you dance for your man ? where he enjoys your body and your appearance.
But significantly ? It?s not about the external clothes.
It?s the character that causes her to trust God ? and to trust her man ? and to want to love him and give him pleasure!
People have raised concern over the emphasis on the physical side of things in Song of Songs. They have baulked at the extreme sensuous and physical content. They were not concerned that it was contradicting other parts of Scripture, but the emphasis is so different. I think that?s part of what I have really appreciated about reading Song of Songs _ this emphasis on him enjoying her physically, and her enjoying him physically. I enjoy that it is something that Scripture teaches and trains and encourages us in?.that is a good thing. If we delight in the physical appearance of our wives, then it?s not that we are debased or crude, but this is part of the beautiful way God made his creatures so they would enjoy each other.
Some women may say, ?but my self-image is low, I don?t want my husband to look at me. He will just be disappointed, he will look down on me, I am not adequate physically.?
I want to say (very gently) that?s an issue in your head ? not an issue with your body ? and you need the Bible and your husband to correct you.
This description that he gives of her, and the description that we read last week that she gave of him, were not physical dimension descriptions ?(in that it?s not that the Bible holds out a plumb-line of ideal physical dimensions of breasts, waists or thighs.) It is not that here is the ideal woman ? in the Bible?s eyes ? and you women here all measure up to varying degrees ? depending on how far you vary from this idea.
That?s not it. That?s the kind of thing women?s magazines do. That?s a culturally imposed thing. Sometimes culture and women?s magazines say you must be super slim. Sometimes they say you must be roly-poly or in the middle. But God says that the man is saying that the woman who has the ideal appearance for me ? is the woman that God has given me.
The man here delights in the appearance of his wife. Just as the wife in the previous chapter delights in her husband.
You are a creature made by God. They were naked and there was no shame!
5. I belong to my love, and his desire is for me 7:8-13
He is committed to her. She gives herself to him. It is a lovely picture of them making love in complete security.
8. ?I said, ?I will climb the palm treeand take hold of its fruit.? May your breasts be like clusters of grapes, and the fragrance of your breath like apricots.
9. Your mouth is like fine wine?flowing smoothly for my love, gliding past my lips and teeth! 10. I belong to my love, and his desire is for me.
His desire is for me! This word ? the word translated ?desire? here ? only appears three times in the Hebrew Old Testament. Once in Genesis 4:6-7: -
?The Lord said to Cain, ?Why are you furious? And why are you downcast? 7 If you do right, sin is crouching at the door. It?s desire is for you, but you must master it.??
There the word ?desire? is really negative. It is a strong urge, longing to do the negative ? to control, to rule and to dominate. Half a chapter earlier in Genesis 3:16, the Lord says to the woman, as he administers her punishment for sin.
?Your desire will be for your husband yet he will dominate you.?
And that verse, Genesis 3:16, marks the starting point in history of ?radical feminism? and the start in history of ?male chauvinism.? But her desire in Genesis 3:16 is a strong urge and longing to do the negative ? to control, to rule and to dominate her husband.
However, here in Song of Songs, it is the same word. It is a strong urge and longing, but in no way does the context allow the connotation to be negative. It is a strong urge and longing to do the positive ? to express his love physically for his wife. And her response is, ?I belong to my love,?
She reaffirms that she is her man?s. She gives herself to him eagerly, willingly and with gladness. She is aware of her own attractiveness in his sight. She is the object of his desire.
The sense of desire here has a strong sexual element. Here is the man?s strong sexual desire for his wife, and she wants him to come and do something about that?.
11 ?Come, my love, let?s go to the field; let?s spend the night among the henna blossoms. 12 Let?s go early to the vineyards; let?s see if the vine has budded, if the blossom has opened, if the pomegranates are in bloom?.
This is all happening in a dream. If it were reality, there would be nettle rash, soldier ants, bees and stony ground. But that doesn?t happen in a dream.
When they get to the vineyard, in the outdoors and the springtime, she says,
?There I will give you my love?.
They have reached the heights of fevered anticipation and stimulation. and she takes the initiative. She is not like Lady Hillingdon ? thinking of England. She cannot wait for her man to make the next approach ? she prepares a feast for her man.
13 ?The mandrakes give off a fragrance?,
(Mandrakes are an aphrodisiac)
?and at our doors is every delicacy? _
(Previously her door was closed. Now the door is ?our door?!)
?New as well as old.?
Listen to this last line:
?I have treasured them up for you, my love.?
I give myself to you. I have treasured up everything ? and I give it to you ? my love.
The picture is of him totally committed to her, and her totally committed to him. Giving themselves completely to each other.
I heard the story once of the woman who had sex with a guy, and gave herself to him. But then he dumped her and moved on. So next time, with the next guy, she gave a little less.
And the next time, less again. So it went ? till she was working as a prostitute ? and gave almost nothing of herself.
The Sydney Morning Herald?s Sam de Britto wrote a year or so ago ?
?The prostitute whom I visited most recently told me her name was Shannon and as she took her clothes off and I observed her body language, we fell into dismal syncopation; when I saw she didn?t want to be there, neither did I.
? An entire soundtrack of mumbled bedroom clich?s couldn?t convince me Shannon was excited about our coupling. It was, in short, the unsexiest experience I?ve had in about 10 years. But when I woke alone the next day, my conscience was clear. I knew there?d be no midweek recriminations because I didn?t want to see Shannon again. Shannon didn?t want to see me again either; in fact she?d probably forgotten me before I?d even reached the staircase of her Darlinghurst terrace.?
Now, here?s my thought. I suspect there?s a continuum. Some of us will have been so damaged and hurt by people and relationships. Probably, to be honest, some of it was at least partially our fault ? in that we took the wrong idea into the relationship. We may even have taken the average Australian position into the relationship -
?We will be fair. We will spilt 50/50. We will split chores, split work, spilt money ? everything 50/50.?
The more hurt we have been by relationships in the past, the more we are likely to want to give less than that to the next relationship. Hence, at the far end of the continuum, there is the prostitute who gives next to nothing!
At the other end of the spectrum is the couple here in Song of Songs Chapters 6-8. The man is 100 percent for her and gives his all ? and she delights in giving her all to him.
6 If only the world could know ? 8:1-2
If they are giving themselves to each other they will want the world to know about the depths of their love?.
?If only I could treat you like my brother, one who nursed at my mother?s breasts,
I would find you in public and kiss you, and no one would scorn me.?
Apparently there was a cultural thing that it was okay to show affection for a sibling in public ? but not a spouse. She wants to show affection in public ? like she can show love for her brother, but then she says, ?I want to love you in a much deeper way than love for a brother?:
2 ?I would lead you, I would take you, to the house of my mother who taught me.?
My suggestion here is that it is picking up on an image that we saw earlier in the book.
I will take you to the house of my mother. I will take you to the place where motherhood originates. I will take you to my womb. I will give you my love.
?I would give you spiced wine to drink from my pomegranate juice.?
7 I belong to Christ, and he is for me!
Now, I talked about the continuum ? and how much you are prepared to give to your spouse. Some, who have been really bruised and used and where trust has been broken, will want to give very little. I know there are people who have been really hurt, and so are really wary of trusting.
Why wouldn?t someone give her self 100 percent to her husband? Would it be because she doesn?t trust him? Would it be because she is not sure he will act for her good? Would it be because she thinks she knows better?
The picture we have just read is an idyllic picture, because there is no perfect man who will be 100 percent committed to his wife.
The problem is that we carry that over to Christ ?
Why don?t people give themselves 100 percent to Christ? Would it be because we don?t trust him? Would it be because we are not sure he will act for our good? Would it be because we think we know better?
But Christ is so, so, so, much more reliable than any husband.
The husband of this passage is devoted to his wife ? she is better than princesses, queens, all those concubines?. he sees her as perfect. An earthly husband might be really reliable, but all of that is trivial when you look at Jesus. He expressed his love for us ? in his death for us.
?Just at the right time, while we were still powerless ? Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good man, someone might dare to die. But God demonstrates his love for us, while we were still sinners Christ died for us.?
Now you know Christ loves you. Christ?s desire is for you ? he is committed powerfully to you in the most positive of senses. You can say ? ?I belong to Jesus Christ.? You are secure in this relationship ? and to be honest ? much more secure in this relationship ? than in any other relationship with a spouse.
And not just do I belong to him, but I give myself to him.
His total gift is 100% to us. This calls on a total response ? 100% ? from us.
Christ, I give you my love. I give myself to you.
In the song ?Jesus Thank-you? it says,
?Lover of my soul?
I want to live for you ?
Your blood has washed away my sin
The father?s wrath completely satisfied.
Once your enemy
Now seated at my table
Jesus thank-you.?
ndamukong suh ndamukong suh aptera aptera national defense authorization act national defense authorization act seven days in utopia
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.