Songs have been written about every topic imaginable, but undoubtably the most common topic is love. We want to give voice to the experience of love: the capacity to delight in physical beauty, the desire to form secure and intimate relationships, the heartbreak of unrequited or failed love, the emotional rollercoaster of the ups and downs of love.
Think of the irony in the words of that classic song from Queen, “This thing called love I just can’t handle it. This thing called love I must get ’round to it. I ain’t ready. Crazy little thing called love”. Love can occupy so much of our lives – our thoughts, desires, worries – that it’s no “little thing”.
The Song of Songs is an unabashed celebration of these deep desires for love. In beautiful poetic language, the Song explores the whole gamut of emotions experienced by two lovers as they work out their commitment to one another. From the aching desire for intimacy, to the delight of consummation, from the tensions of separation and the fears of loss; all these are traced out in the ebb and flow of a growing relationship of mutual love.
learn how to use the good gifts that God gives us
If you’ve ever read the Song, you’d know it can be intense. It’s common for people to avoid reading it (and preaching on it) for a variety of reasons. For starters, it makes for sometimes awkward reading. The lovers are often explicit in communicating their feelings and desires for one another. You feel like you’re the unwelcome intruder on a very romantic date between two people who are very keen to be alone together. Moreover, the Song is often hard to understand. It’s not just comprehending the metaphors that the couple use to describe each other, it’s also grasping what’s happening in their story.
But more deeply, the Song is often difficult to read because of the hurt we’ve experienced with romantic love. Many of us have craved the intimacy and love that’s expressed in the Song, but it’s a longing that’s been painfully unsatisfied. For others, our experience of marriage does not look like what we see in the Song. Instead, there’s coldness and distance, betrayal and breakdown. Our most intimate relationships often bear the biggest scars of living in a broken world.
So given these difficulties, why are we studying the Song of Songs on Sundays and in our Growth Groups? God has given us an entire book in the Bible that majors on the intimate love between a man and woman. We need to learn what the Bible teaches about this important area, otherwise we’ll by default be discipled by our world, which gives a very different message about love, sex, and marriage.
As a community of Jesus followers, we need to constantly learn how to use the good gifts that God gives us, so that we can serve one another and glorify God in every part of our lives.