Rev. Don Campbell
Song of Solomon
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, June 2, 2019
“A LOVE SONG FOR THE INHIBITED AND THE PROMISCUOUS”
Probably because it extols the blessings of erotic love, the Song of Solomon is often ignored or allegorized, applying it to Christ and the church. Even if that were Solomon’s intention, we would still have to deal with the content of the song itself, which clearly sees erotic love as a part of marriage. The imagery is not that of modern western society, and a bride may not find it very romantic if her groom said her teeth were like a flock of shorn sheep (4:2). Even from this distance, we can still see the romance. Consider just one such passage: “Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing, my love, how full of delights! You are slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit.’ May your breasts be like grape clusters, and the fragrance of your breath like apples. May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine” (7:6-9, NLT)
Sex without marriage is destructive, but so is marriage without sex. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge,” says the writer of Hebrews (13:4, NKJV). On the same subject, Paul wrote: “But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:2-5, NLT).
When God created animals and humans, he said the same thing: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22, 28). However, it was only to humans that he said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). When Jesus quoted this passage, he added, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6).
Clearly, Jesus is speaking of the breaking of the marriage bond, but God has also joined something else together: love (including erotic) and marriage. When we separate the two, we do so to our own peril. Sometimes Hollywood gets it right in theory if not practice. The late Doris Day sang,
Try, try, try to separate them
It’s an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
Dad was told by mother
You can’t have one without the other
CONNECTIONS
1. Many confuse a divorce decree with divorce (putting away). Would you agree that the divorce decree is like a death certificate—it doesn’t kill the marriage; it just certifies its death?
2. All of this suggests that sex is supposed to touch us on a spiritual level, not just a physical one. Would you agree that many have turned sex into a sport and television and movies have turned it into a spectator sport?
