Song 1:1-4:16, 2 Corinthians 8:16-24, Psalms 50:1-23, Proverbs 22:22-23
Today is the 6th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure and a joy to be here with you today as we take the next step forward, stepping forward into the back of this week for sure but stepping forward in the Scriptures and we’ve reached another special point in our year where we’re encountering some territory in the Old Testament that we haven’t encountered before. So, today and tomorrow we’ll be reading a book known as the song of Solomon or the song of songs, which is indeed a radical departure from the territory that we’ve been spending in Job and Ecclesiastes, which definitely took us deep into the idea of endurance and the reality of suffering as well as meaninglessness and chasing the wind. So, we’ve been in some unique territory that has allowed us to actually open up and think some things through that we normally avoid. However, moving into the song of Solomon is like putting on a completely different hat, like we’re going into completely different territory.
Introduction to the Song of Solomon:
This little work, this poem is short but it’s potent and its potently beautiful, and its part of the wisdom literature in the Bible. So, in this Song of Songs we’ll discover that human sexuality is indeed a celebrated part of the biblical narrative but this poem as many other layers. So, like from a literal perspective it’s the story of the passionate consummation of love between a man and woman who are completely lost in each other. And just…if we just left that alone, if that’s what this book means then it is a witness to marital love and the bliss of passionate physical relationship. So, it stands alone that way, but the ancient Jewish tradition looks at the poem allegorically. It’s poetry, right? So, you can look at it poetically. So, from this perspective, the story that’s being told in the Song of Solomon reveals God’s passionate love for his children, who are the Hebrew people and this view is totally, totally supportable in other areas of Scripture in both the old and the New Testaments. In the Christian tradition, the Song of Solomon’s is an allegorical look at Christ’s passionate love for His church and a foreshadowing of His desire for His bride. So, in this case, all of those can be true and we can just allow the Holy Spirit to lead us as we approach the Song of Songs because there’s a number of lenses that we can we can look through. So, invite God as this is being read. But no matter how we approach the Solomon it’s a very meaningful portion of Scripture that speaks to us on different levels. And since it is love poetry, it’s become a tradition around here for my wife Jill to join me in the reading. There are male voices and female voices that occur in this poem. And, so, let’s drink deep of the beautiful poetry that we find in the Song of Solomon.
Prayer:
Thank You, Father. Thank You, Father for Your word. Thank You for the way that it just continues to touch different things in us, and it comes to us as a live thing as a friend who speaks the truth to us no matter what’s going on in our lives. And, so, so many times we may come to the same passage and find it speaking something so much more poignant to where we are on any given day, and we thank You, we thank You for this guidance. And as we spend this time moving through the song of Solomon, come Holy Spirit, reignite our love, our love for our spouse, our love for You as our Father, our love for Jesus as our Savior knowing that as passionate as we can imagine being, our passion pales in comparison to Yours for us. And, so, we walk into Your embrace and it feels safe and it feels like home and we invite Your Holy Spirit to continue to lead us into all truth as You promised. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.