Song of Songs and the use of Erotic Images

Posted on June 22, 2018 by Don Merritt

Who can argue with the assertion that Song of Songs contains strong erotic imagery? For this reason, many have considered this book to be “too hot to handle” in churches over the years, while others see it as a book about “godly eroticism”; it is neither. More than any book I can think of, the Song conveys the yearning of both God and His people for a closer relationship, with the hope that such relationship will come, and for us, this glimmer of hope is all the more awesome because that hope has indeed come to pass.

First, let’s consider the use of imagery in general. Imagery is used in Scripture primarily to convey a concept, idea or truth for which human vocabulary or frames of reference are inadequate. Clearly, passages that attempt to describe such things as heaven or hell must use human imagery that would be understandable to those who read it, for we do not have vocabulary or frames of reference to describe such concepts in a more technically accurate way. Imagine for a moment that we had a time machine and went back to the first century and we picked up the Apostle John and brought him to the 21st century and put him on a flight from New York to Los Angeles on a 747. After the flight, we send him back to his time and give him the job of writing a letter to the churches describing his adventure. How is he going to do it?

Even if we gave him our words for things, nobody would understand them. The only thing he could do is to use references and words that existed in his time and place and say things like… “It was as if…” and “It was like…” He couldn’t even tell them where he flew from and to, for his readers have never heard of North America.  Therefore, whatever he would come up with would be written in highly metaphoric language and could not be taken literally… just like Revelation can’t be taken literally in its description of things he saw in heaven.

Thus, if you were Solomon nearly 1,000 years before Christ, how can you write about the love and yearning between God and His people a thousand years before Christ, and not try to do so using human comparisons that the people could comprehend? After all, everyone understands human attraction, and what human attraction is more powerful than love?

That, dear reader is exactly what Solomon did in the Song of Songs, and that is also why there is a danger in letting a literal understanding of his work overwhelm the actual message he is trying to convey; a message that is ultimately more amazing and awesome than human intimacy.

With an idea of why the erotic imagery is used, we can now deal with what we can infer from its use. First and foremost, we need to see the message being conveyed in this story about God and His people, and the ultimate arrival of the Bridegroom for His Bride the Church. Next, we can infer from the imagery that such attraction between Brides and Grooms is OK and not a shameful or sinful thing. How sad it is that so many people think of physical intimacy in marriage is shameful or wrong to enjoy. It is a gift from God; it is a blessing, not a shame. In fact, feelings of shame for sexual intimacy in marriage are as ridiculous as feelings of shame about the human body itself!

Where do we get such notions? They certainly are not from Scripture, where humanity is taught to be the very pinnacle of God’s Creation, not something of the gutter.

Thus, we recall Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:32-33:

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Just as Paul was teaching a larger spiritual truth in Ephesians 5 that also contained a practical human element, so also is Solomon teaching a larger spiritual truth in the Song that has a practical human element to it. As such, it is a wonderful book that we should all read and treasure for what it actually contains and avoid wild speculations about its imagery.

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A Little Aside

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Don Merritt

Yesterday I ran paulfg’s comment in this space in which he offered the idea that we could possibly make lists of the things we don’t like as a starting point to figure out what worship should look like in our colony. In some comments, people have offered dislikes, while in a couple of others people have been a bit hesitant to buy into the idea, and I offered in a reply to one of them that if we make a list of our deal-breakers, then we are not very likely to make a deal.

I really enjoy comments that get us thinking, don’t you? After all, that is the point of the exercise so, a big thanks to Paul!

All of this reminds me of a couple that my wife and I know very well. They are a delight for the most part and we love them to death, but there is one little thing…

You see, they are very committed Christians, why they can hold forth on all kinds of topics and tell anybody what a Christian (a “real” one, that is) would or would not do in any situation. Actually, that can go on and on…

Yet they never attend church, outside of a wedding or funeral. The reason for their non-involvement is that they cannot find a congregation that is acceptable to them− there’s always something they do or don’t do, or that someone said one time or… something, that keeps our couple away.

They have very exacting standards.

There’s a small church a short distance from their home and once I asked if they’d ever attended there. “Oh no, they are really weird.”

“How do you know that if you’ve never attended?”

“Oh, you can just tell.”

Once we drove past a church building not too far from their home and one of them mentioned that they had friends who attend there and I asked if they’d ever visited that church. “Oh no, we don’t like their kind of music.”

You see where this leads, right? Our friends don’t have exacting standards at all, they just have excuses to cover the main fact: They just don’t want to go, which is their choice to make.

So often discussions of worship are filled with personal preferences, likes and dislikes− how can we do that? To worship God in community with others is supposed to be all about love: Love for God, love for one another. Love that is godly love counts others as more important than ourselves, so how can we seek to impose our personal preferences on other people and call it love, not to mention worship? The short answer, obviously, is that we can’t.

Consider…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

Well, that’s my turn, and looking around the table, oh, you’re up!

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Finding the Last Piece

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Don Merritt

Here is the last piece to the puzzle that is the Song of Songs:

The Old Testament has “types” of a Bridegroom; the New Testament tells of the coming of the Bridegroom.

If you get this, then you will get Song of Songs. Yes, dear reader, in the fullness of time the Bridegroom comes to rescue God’s people from the chains of this world, setting her free from captivity to sin, death and the ways of men.

But then you already knew that.

So why the confusion about the Song of Songs? Why would some say that it isn’t quite suitable for church, you know, because of all of that nasty sex that isn’t even there? Why the studies saying that it portrays the ideal Christian marriage, when the characters are not, and cannot be married? Why the scholars who argue about whether it is literal or figurative, when the medium itself isn’t literal?

I don’t know for sure… maybe I’m just nuts.

Rather than being confused, we should be marveling at the fact that there were men like Solomon, David, Moses and Abraham who saw part, or maybe even all of what was to come in Christ, more than 200 years before Isaiah would pen Messianic prophecy. Maybe we should sit back in amazement at the way God’s people often yearned to be in His presence, when that presence wasn’t available to them as it would be when Jesus, the Bridegroom came. Yes, dear reader, let us gaze at this story in awe and wonder at what God has done for us, and rise up in unison to sing His praise with thanksgiving in our hearts!

If I didn’t know better, I’d think that we have traditionally allowed the presence of erotic imagery throw us off the path to understanding. Did not Jesus say that the Old Testament Scriptures (the Law and the Prophets) spoke of Him? In these Scriptures that speak of Jesus, in the Bible that is God’s revelation of Himself to Mankind, we must not allow ourselves to be thrown off track by the idea that there might be an erotic image used to illustrate the fervent desire of God’s people to have an intimate relationship with our God, who has created us for just such a relationship.

No, we will not be thrown off track, for we seek His presence above all things, do we not?

All right, that’s about enough ranting for one day. In the next post, let’s take a short look at erotic imagery and how it could relate to our relationship with God: See you there!

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Photo of the Week: June 20, 2018

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Don Merritt

In the peace of the Garden

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It’s About to Get Real

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Don Merritt

I must say that this little experiment has gone better than I hoped: Thank you all for reading, considering and participating!!

So far, I’ve tried to avoid chiming in with my views on all of this, to just let the conversation flow along naturally. I’ve had a couple of little prompts dropped in of course, but that’s it.

There are a couple things I would offer today, however. First, we seem to have a number of colonists with us who like the idea of taking our worship assembly back to what it was at the beginning, before we picked up so many bad habits, before we developed so many traditions and customs that seemed to divide us. I must say that I see this the same way; it’s a chance to begin anew. I would add to that the fact that I’ve spent the better part of my adult life serving in churches that have that ideal as the fundamental reason for our brotherhood’s existence. Yep, my background is in a unity movement based upon the idea that we should worship on a first century model, using the Scriptures as our only guide.

Our Movement began in the early days of the 19th century, and by mid century it was the second largest Christian group in America, but since then it has split at least twice in disagreements about they way worship was conducted in the New Testament. That’s the short version anyway…

If this were a Seminary class, this would be the point where I said, “For next time review the New Testament and make a list of all Archetypical imperatives concerning the worship assembly, and be prepared to share your list next time, when called upon.” Sadly, this isn’t Seminary, and I’m not your professor… and a fair number of you probably aren’t quite sure what I just asked you to do. If you went to the New Testament to make a list of everything it tells us that we must do in a worship assembly, it would be a long search for a very short list. Here’s a hint, if you find 5, you have one too many. Even then, their imperative quality is inferred, not expressed.

That is what makes this challenging, and what makes division over worship absurd.

With in mind, I’d like to share a couple comments for your further consideration and discussion…

 

Beth Ann wrote:

I like the first comment by Kathryn and I said on the first round that I would only bring my Bible. With a bit more thought I might bring a hymnal just so we could remember the words to the old favorites. No instruments needed (even though I play one!).

I believe that everything you do everyday is worship to God. If we live our lives directed toward God then that is who we worship, everyday. I have to say here that as sinful broken people, we don’t ever do this perfectly, but every day is a new day to keep on trying!

Having said all that (I will get to the point soon, I promise!) I feel that if we all come together with this in mind, we wouldn’t need the “structure” that the church has now (church-think?). We could meet together, share a meal, pray together, read scripture, sing a hymn and there you have it.

There isn’t any way that as a group we wouldn’t bring our experiences with us so it may be a bit strange at first, but if we all keep Jesus at the center it should smooth out.

paulfg wrote:

I wonder if we are approaching this back to front. A list of “what works for me” is what we are ach presenting – which is a list destined to become as divisive as all the lists across all the churches right now.

Might not a better way be to list our “divisive dislikes”? To identify what we do not want to take, and to find through such a list commonalities of dislike – which might point us all towards a commonality of like.

After all, we will be preaching to the converted!

And once again it’s your turn; what are your thoughts?

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Putting the Pieces Together

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Don Merritt

In the last post, I asked the question about how the story of Songs of Songs ends if “She” represents God’s people and “He” represents God, and I promised to give my thoughts on the question now… so here goes.

First, if “She” represents God’s people, then we have revealed for us a great longing for closeness to God, even an intimacy with God. Her continual yearning for her beloved (God) is demonstrated time and time again through the book, and yet there is always an edge to it: Where is he, when will he come to me, please beloved, COME TO ME!

He came to her in one of her dreams, the second one as I’m sure you recall. He knocked at her door and pleaded with her to let him in, but she hesitated, complaining that she wasn’t dressed. He reached out and finally she goes to the door, but by then he is gone; and so it so often is with the people of God who yearn for His presence and then hesitate when He comes to them.

“He” yearns for closeness with His people as well; He yearns with desire for intimacy with His people, and is responsive to their pleas, yet there seems to be an impediment; they never quite come together as one. King Solomon seems to come between the lovers, God and His people. This brings us to another question; if “He” represents God and “She” represents His people, then what is the role Solomon plays in the story?

An earthly king normally represents the power of this world in Scripture that is in an allegorical form, yet Solomon is one of the great characters of the Bible; we wouldn’t normally ascribe this role to him. Yet, that is clearly the role he is playing in the drama of this book. Recall the scene in the last chapter, where her brothers have made arrangements with Solomon for her when she comes of age, arrangements that cannot be broken and that are entirely against her will. We need to recognize the fact that back in the day, women were not viewed as independent people, but more like a man’s possession. Marriages were often, perhaps usually arranged early in the person’s life, and people did not usually marry for love. Of course, I must point out that as a rule, nobody asked their son’s permission either. If you doubt me on this, then I would suggest you take a look at the Old Testament histories and see how often people married for love, and should you find such cases, make a note of whether they are recorded as normal or quite noteworthy, and you will discover that in the few cases you can find, the man is either the king who can command such things without the woman’s consent, or they are portrayed as amazing and unusually wonderful.

Of course, it isn’t entirely clear that “She” has been promised, sold really, to the king as a wife, as a concubine or as another kind of servant; the text does not actually say.

God’s people want to find a way to undo what has been done on the earth, God does too, but as the story ends, they still remain apart in spite of their mutual yearning. Yet there is one slight hope left for the two lovers; “She” calls out to “He” and urges him to come to her…

Before I can move on, I want to briefly address the historical context in which this was written. Solomon was the second king of the house of David, who is generally considered to be a “type” of Christ. Solomon reigned at the very height of old Israel’s power and glory on this earth, and after he left the scene, things began to slide to eventual disaster. David was “a man after God’s own heart” yet it was David’s yearnings for closeness with God that are recorded in the Psalms, and when the time came, David was not permitted to build God’s Temple because of sin: Solomon built it instead. Solomon, unlike David, was considered to be the wisest of all men, and most likely understood as well as any man of old what would one day come in the Person of Christ, and so he would have understood better than anyone that it hadn’t come yet. Solomon examined everything under the sun through the microscope of his great wisdom, and as you will recall from our study of Ecclesiastes, that all was useless. Why was everything useless? Because Solomon knew better than anyone what would come, but had not yet come; thus, what was in his day was useless. Is it any wonder then, that his great love story of the yearning for intimate relationship between Man and God should end as the Song ends, with an unbreakable impediment, and a hint of a game changing future?

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Back to the Mars Mission…

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Don Merritt

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a hard time waiting to get back to our Mars Mission. Thank you all so very much for your participation in this so far; you are all amazing!

paulfg posted a wonderful comment the other day, and since it came on Saturday, I thought that a lot of people might have missed it, and frankly, Paul came right to the heart of where our discussion about our plans for worship should probably go at this point.

Here is what Paul wrote… thank you Paul!

Dear fellow colonists, may I be allowed to make an observation of love and affection?

One of us asked a question based very much on current “church think”. Yet all of us fell into line and followed suit. If we are to begin again as colonists of Mars – then either the current earthly church-think is the best that “corporate worship” can be, or we are too ingrained in that tradition to leave our comfortable “habits of form” behind.

I have a suggestion.

That we are as “shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” in this debate – or else we may find we also – unintentionally – take all the division and dissent of current church-think with us as well. Thank you.

Everyone sits quietly for a moment. Then all eyes turn to you because you are next up. What are your thoughts?

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Picking up the Pieces

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Don Merritt

In looking back at our adventure through the Song of Songs, I’ve been thinking about some of the different ideas that people have about the book, many of which I mentioned before we got into the text, and some others that were suggested in comments. God’s view of perfect love and intimacy in Christian marriage is a popular one. God’s book of sex in marriage is another popular idea. Too dirty for the church; doesn’t belong in the Canon is an old traditional one.

There are more of course…

Now that we’ve all read through the book, what is actually contained in it?

What is actually in Song of Songs:

Lovers’ fantasies, dreams of romance, erotic imagery, verbal expressions of romantic passion, sexual innuendo, women treated as possessions, frustration.

What is not actually found in Song of Songs:

Betrothal, marriage, sex, physical union, physical proximity, passion fulfilled, anything dirty or pornographic.

Interesting, isn’t it? I might be wrong, but I almost have the impression that people write books about Song of Songs without ever reading the whole thing. If anything, it is almost a romantic tragedy along the lines of Romeo and Juliette.

Well, before we go much further, there are a couple factual details to clean up. First, you will recall that “She” was somehow promised to Solomon by her brothers, with the strong implication that there was a cash payment involved. So, was “She” to marry Solomon? Don’t answer too quickly!

Some commentators over the years maintain that this is the actual historical story of Solomon and one of his many wives, so maybe this could be true… except that Solomon can’t really be “He”. I will admit that if he was “He” it would be a tidy little package at the end. How could Solomon be both “He” and the impediment that keeps “She” and “He” from getting together? Maybe if he had multiple personality disorder.

Isn’t it possible that “She” could have been promised as a concubine in return for royal favor? That would explain why “He” spent so many of his lines talking about how “She” was so much more special than all other women… but this solution would give us a messy ending to say the least, and we can’t have that.

Here’s another possibility: Maybe “He” bought her from the king and they ran off and lived happily ever after in a beautiful castle in the Swiss Alps… yes, maybe there is a sequel that is lost to history.

What? That’s stupid?

Maybe so…

OK, fine. We don’t know what happened because the story ends and leaves this hanging; maybe that’s on purpose. There is one thing we can be quite sure of, in my view: This story is not history; it is not telling of real people and their real historical lives. No sir, because it is written in a style of Hebrew poetics that is used to present allegory, not history, and that much we do know. That doesn’t mean that the author might not have based some or all of it on a real-life experience or personality, but the story itself has a deeper meaning than just relating historical facts.

When we began our adventure, we had a working theory that “She” represented God’s people and “He” represented God. Let’s just say, just for fun, that our working theory was correct. How does the story end?

Please share your thoughts… and I’ll give you mine in the next post.

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TLP Living: 6/18/18

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Don Merritt

My First Attempt

Last week I wrote about vintage cooking and told you that I was going to try my hand at recreating some old dishes. This week I can report that I followed through. Looking through Thomas Jefferson’s Cook Book, I selected the recipe for “Bean Soup” that Mr. Jefferson obtained from Gouvenor Morris ‘The Elder’. Gouvenor Morris, Sr. was one of the Founding Fathers of our Nation, and he and Mr. Jefferson would have first met in the Second Continental Congress where both served. Morris signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, but he is best remembered by history as the man who actually wrote the Constitution in that clear language of simplicity and elegance that only a lawyer or Federal Judge could ever fail to understand.

Like the Constitution, the bean soup recipe is clear and easy to understand, unlike so many old recipes, and yet leaves a little room for creativity. Its main ingredient is “beans”. Since the beans must soak overnight, I assumed that they should be dry beans… but there are many kinds of dry beans. My guess is that back in the 18th century, they had the kind that they had… and so the kind that I happened to have was Navy beans, so that’s what I used.

The remaining ingredients were carrots, turnips, parsnips and celery. I was amazed at the lack of onions. Carrots, celery, 1 part each, and 2 parts onions are the basis of most Western soups… but not this time.

What you do is simmer the beans for about an hour and then add the root vegetables and simmer for another 3-4 hours. Then, you force the soup through a colander, return it to the pot and add the celery, simmering for another hour or so before serving it over croutons. You’ll have to pardon me, but I just used an immersion blender for the puree…

I wasn’t sure I would like the finished product, not being a carrot or parsnip fan, but the result was nothing short of amazing. The addition of the celery at the end gave it a real flavor boost, and the carrots, having been cooked for so long, rendered a sweetness in the background of an earthy flavor that balanced out perfectly in the final product. I must say that this one is a total winner, although for me, it’s more of a fall/winter dish that one for a hot and muggy summer’s evening.

Unless of course, you decided to give it a spicy Southwestern flair… but I always follow the recipe before I make it my own.

One last note: I had some left-over goat cheese in the fridge, and I used it for a garnish… That little departure put the soup over the top, and if it hadn’t been for the garnish, this dish would have been entirely in keeping with my wife’s “forks over knives” diet kick…

This week, the menus are the creation of She Who Must Be Obeyed, so it’s all “forks over knives” which has taken away every last bit of fun in the kitchen, replacing it with the fait and fleeting hope of one day being able to achieve the lofty goal of mediocrity.

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TLP Inspiration: June 18, 2018

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Don Merritt

An Empowering Relationship

Good Monday Morning from the Heartland

Our relationship with Jesus Christ is an empowering relationship.  This relationship provides us with all that we need to walk with Him through this life, and no matter what may happen to us along the way, no matter how many trials we might endure, to go through this life victoriously.

Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right
    and teaches them his way.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful 
    for those who keep the demands of his covenant. 

Psalm 25:8-10

Our Lord empowers us by giving us comfort in rough times. Our Lord leads us in His ways, He is merciful and quick to forgive when we ask, and all of this is incredibly empowering.  It empowers us to live as God would have us to live.  It empowers us to live free from sin and shame, and it sets us free from the traditions and ways of this world.  Finally, it changes our entire outlook on life and our priority system.

There is no greater blessing in all the universe than to live in relationship with Jesus Christ and living according to his leading will surely improve all of our human relationships.

Why would we ever wish to neglect this relationship?

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