Theological Bites
The theology of the book of songs is one that should be appreciated from the angle of human sexual love. A theology that can only be understood by evaluating the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. I emphasize ‘between a man and a woman’ because we are in a fallen and sick world where men have erotic feelings for fellow men and women to women. What we have in the book of Song of Songs is the reality of love attraction. The different genders characteristically presented in the poem communicate that love is a business of ‘difference’ and not of ‘sameness.’ Romantic love is misguided and lost if it attracts its kind in gender; you are designed to intimately love not your kind but a different one.
The romanticism that you experience for a fellow man or woman is a disorder in you that need to be rectified. It doesn’t matter, whether science proves it is an inclination you were born with, in a sinful world, there are many born crippled. Our role is to fix the fixable lameness and if it is not fixable, we are to treat it as a disease and abnormal. Sexual love was designed to be restricted between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:18-25, Mathew 19:4-6). The Song of Songs asserts this truth firsthand.
What’s the big idea?
The big idea of this wisdom book is LOVE. In this book before love is understood divinely, it is appreciated in the perspective of human intimate relations. The feelings and principle of love between man and woman are at the core of human functionality. We all are loved, in love or pursuing to be loved at least. We do many things (good and evil) in life purposely to be loved or even win a certain love.
Love is something we human beings cannot survive for long without. Love is the essence of our being and living. Love is the power of power (Songs 8:6), in other words, what we know as power is powerless without love and is always subject to love. Love knows no laws and no limits, love is sensitive to colour and race that is why it goes with all colours and races. Love is what we need to be saved. I want us to take a moment and understand the song of songs in the eyes of 1Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The Love that the lovebirds share in the book is the same love experience most of us have gone through. It is unfortunate that we live in a very disappointed and exhausted love generation. A few people are emotional about love and a few people express their feelings to each other in words. The book challenges our romantic lives and reminds us that however busy we are, however much let-down we are, regardless of how many times we have failed at love, that doesn’t change the beauty of love. Failing again and again in love doesn’t change what love is, it only changes you. When God created man in his image (Imago Dei) it meant nothing but two fundamental things:
- Man is an absolute volitional being (free to choose against himself and his creator as well) and
- Man is originally a love being. Love is not something that comes from an outside man but love is what is originally in man, love in man is what he can give throughout his life and die before he exhausts it.
The fallenness of man has affected his distribution and implementation of LOVE. Because of our limitedness in the knowledge we are sometimes deluded that we are in love yet actually it is lust. The romantic language in the Song of songs is how love sounds, every word there is meant and it is drawn from love as the framework of the communication. The language of lust is artistic and crafted for the appeal of the other person, however, the Language of love is born of the internal reality that seeks to express itself. Whatever the lovers in the Song of Songs say about each other, they mean it. Love is not the following things:
- It is not stupidity in which people are very passionate and committed to the point of committing suicide,
- It is not a mere romantic venture where two individuals are passionate and intimate enough for regular outings and conjugal activities.
- It is not ‘support me I support you’ business where individuals who are intimate are just committed to helping and supporting each other achieve their goals.
What we see in the book of Song of Songs is what God revealed to Psychologist Robert Sternberg when he came up with what he called; The Triangular Theory of Love’ allow me to share it here below
The man and woman love presented to us in the Song of Song is a coherent and comprehensive trinity of passion, intimacy, and commitment. The love relationship between Solomon and the Shulam-mite maiden has a chronology that says way too much about the quality of their love. The love we are face to face in the book of Song of Songs is a mission-oriented love. The stages of a mission-oriented love are beautifully illustrated in this wisdom poem as follows:
- First is courtship (1:2–2:7),
- then betrothal (2:8–3:5),
- the wedding day (3:6–11) and
- the consummation night (4:1–5:1).
The Bible has no place for intimate relationships that do not intend to culminate in marriage and permanently staying together as marrieds. Song of Songs lovers are not friends with benefits, they are not cohabiting, they are not just living together, they are after one thing and that is loving one another and staying together for good. The book becomes realistic when it argues that love is not without challenges. If it is Love, it will always suffer problems and if it is love, it will survive. This too is presented in the following chapters:
- In chapters 5:2–6:3 the couple suffers a marital conflict, and
- then from chapter 6:4–8:4 the couple overcomes that gaining experience
- In chapter 8:5–14 after the struggle, the language of love resumes.
Love is a big idea in the Song of Songs. Love is a matter of the heart and we love with our hearts, not with our heads. The biblical love poem in the book of Song of Songs has two lovers that speak their mind. The love they share is not one that comes from any outside experience but from who they are. Sometimes (most times) we attribute what our HEAD wants to be what our HEART wants and by this crooked process we conclude we are in love yet LOVE is not a ruling of the BRAIN (psychological, mental and cerebral faculties) but of the HEART (mind, and Spirit).
Because we live in a warzone (fallen world) and the sobriety of our mind and spiritual faculties is dethroned, we now love with our HEADS, yet love is not a cleverness venture but one of wisdom. For this matter, we have the issue of love addressed in the wisdom book. Love is not mere intellectualism but a wisdom case. Clever in love is knowing what to do and how wisdom is knowing why and when. The word of God does not want us to be just clever lovers but wise lovers (Proverbs 1:7).
Next, I will further this theological view as it is presented in the book
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON, and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Priest Isaiah White (+256-793-822833/+256775 822833 for further inquiries)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
@Think & Become
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 