Song of Songs 1:1, 1 Kings 3:5-12, 4:29-31 How an Immodest Culture Ruins the Song of Songs for Us and What We’re Going to Do about It.
I. Introduction A. Author is Solomon. A Sinner.
B. This is a Song. Song of Songs. Poetry that is unmatched in all of human literature. - Solomon was endowed with wisdom above any person on earth - Wisdom isn’t knowing a bunch of facts - It is the ability to interpret life and place it into the Mosaic of What Can Be Known. - It is the ability to know what is Beautiful, and the words to describe the Beautiful.
C. Why preach this book? 1. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17 - All Scripture is given by inspiration of God - to equip the man of God. God’s book on worship - Psalms God’s book on life - Proverbs God’s book on the marriage relationship - Song of Songs
Song of Songs is Scripture. Song of Songs is contained in every extant list of the Old Testament Canon (Melito of Sardis 170 AD, Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius…) Jewish Rabbis assembled in Jamnia in AD 70 --- and recognized Song of Songs as part of the Canon, while rejecting Ecclesiasticus (an apocryphal book).
2. The sad neglect of it. The sad results of neglecting so sweet a book as Song of Songs: a. An inability to appreciate the idea of Relationship, that cannot be expressed through propositional statements, as well as in Poetics.
One theologian: “Love in the eastern mind is warm and passionate even while purer.”
b. Let’s reject non-relational language like “sexuality.” The Bible word for Marital intimacy is “know:” Gen. 4:1, 4:25. God is a relational God. Dt. 34:10 c. A titanic problem in our day - a warped, twisted perspective of conjugal love. The world is clueless on relationships. They quickly lose the distinction between phileo and eros. Not unusual - Romans put Christians to death because they loved the brethren.
d. A brief history of conjugal love. Puritans preached it: Keep the marriage bed hot. Victorian age… introduced ungodly, patently unbiblical attitudes towards intimacy. e. An immodest culture sours us on the topic. First the scientists have to turn “sex ed“ into a how-to manual God put it in poetry. God also requires modesty of language and appearance. Remember: Modesty is “kosmion” - Appropriateness of dress and language - This doesn’t happen when lingerie and underwear are no longer confined to the bedroom. - Young men have been carefully trained to respond to certain visual stimuli, and it’s a perverted form. - Young women have been carefully trained to control their little lap dog men by visual stimuli in dress and facial expressions. - We are overwhelmed with Cheap romantic look-alikes… novels, movies, television soap operas… Wasting emotional integrity on two month flings… and break ups. Either real or pretend.
The Perverted and the Dysfunctional will do one of two things… - Turn people off of the functional because they are used to the dysfunctional. - Or turn people off of the functional because they are turned off by the dysfunctional.
If the Church isn’t preaching the normative, the pure, the proper understanding of life -- then it will leave them alone to live with their Secret Impurities…
D. My Goals: 1. That you would LOSE YOUR APPETITE for the Cow Dung of the World.
2. That children would get the message. Dad loves mom. Mom loves dad.
3. Strengthening of the marital relationships of this congregation. Never, ever, walk away from a sermon without a commitment to apply the Word. No exception here.
4. Singles and Fathers of Daughters. a. If you have a call to a lifetime of singleness… well and good. Then this book will awaken nothing in you to encourage you on to marriage. And take the application as a picture of Christ and the church. b. But if you are called to be married, then may this stir a cadre of young men and young women (and their fathers) to get off the dime.
II. Three theories on how to take Song of Songs A. Allegory B. Parable - Don’t allegorize the parts of it. Take it as a whole, and you will see a type of the church. Eph. 5:27. C. Love Poem for a Marriage, which has implications for the church. - It is as much a type of the church as my marriage is a type of the church. But I need to understand my marriage, if my marriage is a type of the church.
III. How to Take the Book: - This book will give you a proper view of marriage. - Unsanctified minds can do a lot of things with the Bible - take the story of David and Bathsheba… as David was on the rooftop… and turn it into an R-rated movie. - I will do the best I can to guide your minds to the proper applications. - It is true that married folks can make fuller applications and should probably spend a little more time in the book that children and youth. - But… may this beautiful poem add more warmth to our homes and hearts… and at least a meager understanding of Purity and Love.
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