Song of Songs.
"The
Bible will be the poorer without the inclusion of the Song of Songs,
which celebrates the love of husband and wife?"
I
am agree with the statement above that the Bible will be the poorer
without the inclusion of the Song of Songs. My reasons is first, the
song of songs is a poem that celebrates the love of man and woman,
which is a beautiful gift from God. Second, the song of songs
reflects about the deepest love of God toward man which demonstrate
through Christ who loves us and died for us. Without the book of song
of song it is difficult for us to see the picture of the depth of
love between man and woman, which reflects the depth of God's love
toward His people. Third reason, this book is also useful for
generation to generation to see what is true love in the midst of
distorted meaning of love and sexuality in human life. Especially in
our time now, where love, gender identity, sex are distorted and
misunderstood (homosexuality, transgender, free sex, pornography, sex
abuse, etc). This book will help us to find and celebrate the beauty,
richness and the holiness of love that God created and gave as a
beautiful gift for human life. The bible become richer with this book
along with other books in the bible. As the world will be tasteless
without love likewise the bible without this beautiful book of poem
about love. This book is the only one genre which the whole book
describe about the richness and beauty of human love in our bible.
First,
the song of songs describe about celebration of the dynamic of love
between man and woman. Through all the human history, love songs is
the most often created and sung by people through all the season and
time. Agur in his saying at Proverb 30:19, said that there are three
things that are too amazing for him to understand, four things that
he does not understand and one of them is the way of a man with his
maiden. Love is a mistery, and this book pictures out the mistery of
the relation which called : love.
Why
the love between man and woman is important to be exposed the bible?
Love between man and woman is a gift from God. From Song of songs we
can see about the longing of the woman for the man, her anxiety, the
confession of her weakness (deformity), how she adores his beloved
and her struggle about him. And the response of the man that he
loves her as His precious jewels, he adore her beauty with the
beauty of creation. From this book, we learn about what is love. We
learn about how man and woman long to know and understand each other.
Love is the basic element which unite man and woman.
Love
describes as a long for each other, to have each other, mutual
giving to each other, feeling secure, trusted and accepted, adore
and desire for each other. This book give us a scetch of how strong
love is, which is mentioned that love is strong as death. The love in
this book also involve their friends (community). Love is something
that can be seen by people, it is between man and woman but it is
also related to the relation with other. God gives this love to man
and woman to enjoy, celebrate this love in the institution of
marriage.
Second,
the song of songs as the picture of God's Majestic love to His people
through Jesus Christ. Human souls
are longing for the union with Him.
When I read this book in the perspective of God's love to His
people, I realized that God's love is so undescripable deep toward
His people. In other side, God's people are long for the love of the
redeemer of their life. God can see the church's beauty in the midst
of our deformity. God accepts to us in His love. In Ephesians stated
: “Wives,
submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord”,
“Husbands,
love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it;” , “This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.” Eph
5:22,25,32.
One thing interested me when I read Hudson Taylor book about Song of
Songs, he stated : “Our attention is here drawn to a danger which
is pre-eminently one of this day: the intense activity of our times
may lead to zeal in service, to the neglect of personal communion.”
1
Third,
we live in the world which has distortion about the concept of love,
marriage, and sex. The distortion of sexuality because of sin. The
pevertion of human self-image and sexual identity. We faced a lot of
cases of homosexuality, transgender, adultery, divorces, etc which
caused by the pervertion of humanity by sin. This book song of song
is an important book to bring to its place the meaning of man and
woman love to its original place. This helps us to see sexual
relationship is holy. We are now bombardired by negative image of
love by advertisements, movies, books, etc which give the image of
love related to lust. Especially the images of lust love in
pornography which is open to public and easily to access by internet
and other media. The beauty of love as God's gift destroyed by these
porn images. The pronographic images always tend to humiliate sex ,
make it dirty with human lust. But this book is different, it is a
painting out love of man and woman in a beautiful art language and
image.
How
this book helps us to see the beauty, richness and the holiness of
Love? The physical relations in this book expressed in the
institution of marriage. It is not only physycal, but also mental,
emotional2.
This book song of Song will help us to have a healthy self image
about our selve andto help spouse to build their self image better
(full acceptance, to be loved and love, to give and receive, to
complementary each other). Song of Solomon also teaches us to be
sensitive to the needs of spouse, sexual love is more than simply
physical but consider the needs of other wholistically and with
purity3.
Footnotes:
1J.
Hudson taylor, Union and Communion, (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship
Inc) p.25
2Don
Anderson, Song of Solomon, Make Full My Joy, (New Jersey: Loizeaux
Brothers, 1987). p.79
3Don
Anderson, Song of Solomon, Make Full My Joy, (New Jersey: Loizeaux
Brothers, 1987). p.128
