Read: SS 8:6-10; Gen 2:7, 24; Rom 5:5; I Th 4:3
The Royal Love Song:
The Song of Solomon, is this a metaphor for how God is with His bride, the Church, or is it a celebration of what it means to be created male and female–to be sexual beings reflecting the passion implanted by the Creator as a part of His original plan?
Key Texts:
- Song of Solomon 8:6,7 – Close your heart to every love but mine; hold no one in your arms but me. Love is as powerful as death; passion is as strong as death itself. It bursts into flame and burns like a raging fire. Water cannot put it out; no flood can drown it. But if anyone tried to buy love with his wealth, contempt is all he would get.
- Genesis 2:7 – Body plus breath of life or spirit equals a whole person.
- Genesis 2:24 – A man is united with his wife, and they become one.
- Romans 5:5 – God has poured out His love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us.
- Song of Solomon 8:8-10 – Will Shulamith be a wall or a door to her garden when a young man comes courting?
- 1 Thessalonians – God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality.
Questions for Discussion:
- What does the Song of Solomon teach us about the Scriptural view of human sexuality?
- Greek dualism has fostered a split between the mind and body. The woes of this split are many and include a disconnect between affect and cognition, which has led to extreme aestheticism on the one hand and the destructive indulgence of the five senses on the other. We live in a hedonistic age where life is governed by the pleasure principle. If it feels good, do it. How do you see the Hebrew view of human life as a corrective to both extremes?
- How do we protect ourselves against cultural and moral forces that depersonalize and reduce us to body parts on the one hand or stigmatize us with guilt and shame that puts a taboo on any openness about our sexuality?
- Where does the responsibility for educating our children about their sexuality lie, with parents, with the church, with our schools? Can you recall how that early learning took place for you?
- What does the old English euphemism of “knowing” each other suggest? How well should we “know” each other before marriage?
- Is it possible to commit adultery with one’s own spouse within the bounds of one’s own marriage? If so, how would that be possible?
- What should be our attitude toward those in the Christian family whose sexual orientation is toward persons of the same gender? Does it make a difference whether the cause is heredity or early learning?
- What hope is there for marriages where the spark of the first love has gone out?
- What hope is there for those of us who have regrets for sexual sins, especially when the consequences seem so permanent and unalterable–pregnancy, aids, destroyed marriages?
