Cultivating Love
Notes
Transcript
Warren Brosi
May 18, 2025
Dominant Thought: Love sings the way to a new world.
Objectives:
I want my listeners to understand the value of the love poems in the Song of Songs.
I want my listeners to feel the power of God’s gift of love whether you are married or single.
I want my listeners to long for the day when God’s love will permeate every relationship.
To begin, I want to play a version of name that tune. I’ll quote the lyrics of some popular love songs, and you call out the singer and the song title. Ready?
“Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you.” (Elvis, Can’t Help Falling in Love with you, 1961)
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego
Baby, why don't we go?
Jamaica (Beach Boys, Kokomo, 1988)
I was lost
You found a way to bring me back
Needed forgiveness
You always gave me that
Girl, I'm a witness of your love
'Cause you don't be giving up
And it's crazy
How you saved me
Hand on the Bible
Don't know how I got you
But I couldn't ask for more
Girl, what we got's worth thanking God for (Kane and Katelyn Brown, Thank God, 2022)
If I should stay
I would only be in your way
So I'll go, but I know
I'll think of you every step of the way And I will always love you
I will always love you
You
My darling, you, mm-mm (Whitney Houston, I Will Always love you, 1992)
We were both young when I first saw you
I close my eyes and the flashback starts
I'm standin' there
On a balcony in summer air
See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns
See you make your way through the crowd
And say, "Hello"
Little did I know (Taylor Swift, Love Story, 2008)
“I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day
When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May (ooh)
I guess you'd say
What can make me feel this way?” (The Temptations, My Girl, 1965)
I found a love for me
Oh, darling, just dive right in and follow my lead
Well, I found a girl, beautiful and sweet
Oh, I never knew you were the someone waitin' for me (Ed Sheeren, Perfect, 2017)
Our culture seems to have an unquenchable thirst for love songs. Some of the lyrics are beautiful. Others are silly or don’t make sense. And others are flat out inappropriate. What may blow your mind is that we have a collection of love songs in the Bible called, “Song of Songs.” It’s in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. The Song of Songs is the Hebrew way of saying, The best of the best. It’s like saying King of Kings or the Holy or Holies in the temple which was the most Holy Place. The best of songs. And it’s all about love. Love is the lead description of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.
In our pursuit of becoming Spirit-filled, we want to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit is found in Galatians 5.22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
During the next few months, I want to trace this fruit through the wisdom books of Solomon: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. In Proverbs, we saw Lady Wisdom described as a tree of life. We need the wisdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to become fruitful followers. This week, we look at love from the Song of Songs. This book is often neglected because people don’t know what to do or how to read it. Before we get into the Song of Songs, I want to highlight four reasons why we need this book.
We need this Song for four reasons.
First, we need a healthy view of love. Our culture uses love in a variety of ways. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my dog and my car. I love chocolate. In the Song of Songs, we encounter the words for “love” 58 times in the 117 verses, almost a half of the verses.
Second, we need a healthy view of sex. We live in a world that idolizes sex and sexuality. As followers of Jesus, we need to avoid to extremes in regard to sex. One extreme is sex is bad. The other extreme is sex is everything. One extreme minimizes the beauty and gift of sex in the context of marriage for a husband and wife. The other leads to lust and perversion that does not honor God or one another.
“Love and sex have important roles in our lives, but they should always be subordinate to our devotion to God...Love and sex are not the final answer to life troubles and meaning.” (Tremper Longman, Song of Songs—NICOT, p. 61).
Third, we need a healthy view of marriage. We live in confusing times with people trying to define marriage in ways that are not God’s intention of one man and one woman. The Song of Songs gives us beautiful images of a couple as they prepare for marriage and as husband and wife. People have asked throughout the years, is the man and woman in the Song of Songs married? At times, he calls the woman his bride, (Song of Songs 4.10; 5.1). In that same verse he calls her his sister, which is a poetic image of intimacy and not to be viewed as incestuous. If you read Song of Songs in the context of all of Scripture, then it is safe to say that the sexual relationships described are between a man and woman who are married. There are poems that described their courtship and others in marriage. In the Song of Songs, we have descriptions of the garden that lead us back to that first couple when everything was right before sin entered the world. We need a healthy view of marriage.
“There are only two relationship that are mutually exclusive to humans. We may have only one spouse and only one God” (Tremper Longman, Song of Songs-NICOT, p. 70).
Fourth, we need a healthy view of words. We need help communicating. We need some words for our feelings. The Song of Songs is a collection of love poems between a man and a woman and their friends. These words can help us celebrate and caution us about love, marriage, and sex. We need this Song.
So, let’s read some of these love poems beginning in Song of Songs 1.1.
Over the years, people have read this Song from a few perspectives. Some have seen these love poems describing the love between God and His people Israel. Throughout the Old Testament, God describes Israel with marriage and wedding imagery, but I think there’s more than the big view of God and Israel.
Other’s have seen the Song of Songs describing the love of Christ for His Church. The church is called the bride of Christ.
The Apostle Paul gives instructions to husbands and wives in his letter to the Ephesians.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
because we are members of his body.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
A third way people have understood these love poems is to see them as a collection of poems between two lovers pointing back to Eden and forward to a new world. As you read through these poems, you read so many images of: garden, vineyard, fruit, tree, grapes, apples, honey, spice, lilies, incense, perfume...
These poems reflect on the divine gift of love. We think back to that first married couple, Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-2. Genesis 2 closes, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2.25). That’s the last picture of husband and wife relationship before sin enters the world.
The way I’ve chosen to summarize the message of the Song of Song is to say, Love sings the way to a new world.
Love Sings of...
1-Security. (Song of Songs 2.16; 6.3; 7.10)
Three times, we hear the phrase, “My beloved is mine and I am his.” It’s recorded in Song of Songs 2.16; 6.3; 7.10.
She speaks of safety and security of their relationship.
In Song of songs 2.4, the woman shares, “Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love.” Later in Song of Songs 6.4, 10, the man sings about her beauty as an army with banners or sun, moon, and stars in procession.
The banner image comes from the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe had their own banner or flag. It represented their identity. It was also used in battle. It’s a symbol of strength.
In our culture, we sing the national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner” often. We sing about “rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Bad things may happen, but the flag was still there. The star-spangled banner.
One of the more powerful images of the banner is the photo of the United States Marines raising the banner/flag over the island of Iwo Jima in 1945.
The Song of Songs sings of security in a love relationship.
In our Men Uplifting the Gospel (M.U.G.) group, we are studied through a book by Brant Hansen entitled, The Men We Need. He titled one chapter, “Don’t Live with a Woman Unless She’s Your Wife” (pages 158-160). Brant hosts a radio show and recounts a conversation with a man who called into the show. The man told Brant, “I live with my girlfriend and our son. We know we’re going to get married someday. So what’s the difference really? It’s just a piece of paper.
Brant replied, “Okay, so, honest question, What’s stopping you from getting married?…What stopping you from marrying her right now? You say you’re committed to her. You’re giving her your body, and taking hers. So why not take a vow in front of her family and friends and yours?”
“Finances, I guess.” “But you live together. What’s more expensive about living together as a married couple?”
“I don’t know, I mean I just want to make sure I can provide for her and my son.”
“So you’ve got a son with her?”
“Yeah. He’s two.”
“You say you want to provide for him. Why not provide him and his mom with the security of a man who is never going to leave?” I asked. “Why are you writing checks with your body that your soul won’t cash?”
The man replied, “I think you’re right. I think I just didn’t want to take responsibility. I need to step up.”
Hansen replied, “I think you’re my new hero.”
2-Beauty (Song of Songs 1.15-16; 4.1-10; 5.10-16)
In this Song, the man and woman both sing of the beauty of the loved one. These are some of the more beautiful, confusing and racier parts of these poems.
We’ll read some portions and let them speak for themselves.
In Song of Songs 1.15, the man speaks, “how beautiful you are my darling...your eyes are like doves.” Then, the woman speaks, “How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how charming! And our bed is verdant” (Song of Songs 1.16). The word verdant means green or leafy...life giving.
In Song of Songs 4.1-10, the man speaks again about the beauty of his woman. Your hair is like a flock of goats...Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,...each has its twin...” He works his way down her body complimenting her beauty.
In Song of Songs 5.10-16, the woman praises her husband, “My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is purest gold; his hair wavy and black as a raven...” She works her way down his body complimenting his strength. If you read the footnotes of your Bible, you can see just how explicit some of these images are.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 begins,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
The Song sings of the beauty of their spouse. My friends, one of the 5 love languages is words of affirmation or encouragement. When was the last time you truly complimented your spouse. Our words are powerful. Consider how you can use your words to build up your love relationship.
3-Responsibility (Song of Songs 2.7; 3.5; 8.4)
Three times in this Song, the woman speaks to the “Daughters of Jerusalem” (Song of Songs 2.7; 3.5; 8.4). This could be one of the messages to singles found in this book. Her message? “Do not arouse or awaken love until is so desires.” This book celebrates love, but it also cautions about love.
Another way she could say it is to be patient. You don’t need to go pursuing the man. Let him pursue you. It’s okay to be single. Don’t force it. Wait for love to blossom. Don’t be in a hurry. (See Tremper Longman, Song of Songs, p. 115)
In Matthew 22:23-30, Jesus teaches that in the New Creation, there won’t be marriage. So single can’t equal unfulfilled, because the New Creation will be perfection.
In fact, going into a marriage thinking that person will make you complete is putting an unreasonable weight on them that they will never be able to carry. No one can completely you. Only Jesus offers you all you need.
The woman talks about being sick with love (Song of Songs 2.5; 5.8) and drunk with love (Song of Songs 5.1). Love is a powerful emotion and action. Wait for the right time.
4-Power (Song of Songs 8.5-7)
The Song closes with the more powerful images of love. Again it is set in a garden, “Under the apple tree...” (Song of Songs 8.5). “For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave...Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned” (Song of Songs 8.6-7).
Love is described like a fire. Many waters cannot quench it or sweep it away.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
The Song concludes in Song of Songs 8.14
Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains.
It’s opened ended. Do they live happily ever after? The readers get to choose how they respond to the truth of these beautiful love poems.
It concludes in the spice laden mountains. Another reference back to the garden of Eden where the man and his wife were naked and felt no shame.
Many of us have experienced the shame and guilt of sexual sin or broken relationships. Others are still waiting for the right person to come along for marriage. Still others need the voice of our beloved, our groom, Jesus, to remind us that we are valuable married, single, divorced, or widowed. As followers of Jesus, we are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. The Song of Songs helps prepare us for that day in the new creation, a restored garden, the new heaven and new earth.
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Are you ready? Love sings the way to a new world.
NOTES not for the formal manuscript:
One way people have understood these poems is to a description of the love between God and His people Israel. Tremper Longman shares how the Jewish Targum written between A.D. 700 and 900 gives an allegorical interpretation to the Song of Songs (see Song of Songs-New International Commentary on the Old Testament by Tremper Longman III, pp. 24-28). He cites the following examples: “The woman, Israel, begins by begging the man, God, to kiss her.” “Israel desires relationship with God. She praises his reputation and asks him to take her into his private room. The bedroom is Palestine, the promised land.”
As you read through the Old Testament, many times God confronts Israel’s unfaithfulness as adultery or prostitution. One can read Hosea 1.2; 2.2; Jeremiah 2.1; Jeremiah 3.6, and Isaiah 54.6-7.
Another way people have understood these love poems as a description between Christ’s love for His church, His bride. This is similar to the first way, but takes these poems into the New Testament and the love between Christ and His bride, the church.
The Apostle Paul gives instructions to husbands and wives in his letter to the Ephesians.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
because we are members of his body.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Eden Themes:
1-Naked and unashamed (Genesis 2.25): Song of Songs 1.15-17; 2.1-7, 8-17; 4.10-5.1; 6.1-3, 11-12; 7.6-13.
2-Desire (Genesis 3.16): Song of Songs 7.10. One desire is negative. In the Song it is positive.
3-Problems of intimacy still exist in the Song (Cautions): Song of Songs 2.15; 3.1-3; 5.2-7.
love of a couple whose relationship is untainted by selfishness and sin. Love is a transcendent gift to point us to something greater--God’s love..New world.
“We must read the Song within its broader context, which means the entire canon, and it this context the intimacies described between the man and the woman must be understood within the bonds of marriage” (Tremper Longman, Song of Songs—NICOT, p. 60).
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
Celebrating and Cautioning about human love are two of the themes of Song of Songs.
Hippolytus (ca. A.D. 200) understood the two breasts of the woman in Song of Songs 4.5 to refer to the Old and New Testaments. Others saw the sachet of myrrh between her breasts in Song of Songs 1.13 to refer to Christ who transcends the Testaments (Tremper Longman, Song of Songs-NICOT, p. 28).
Bernard of Clairvaux (twelfth century) was the abbot of a monastery. He wrote 86 sermons on Song of Songs between 1135 and his death in 1153. He only made it to Song of Songs 3.1. If you do the math, that’s about 2 sermons per verse. His sermons were addressed to fellow monks. (Source: Song of Songs-New International Commentary on the Old Testament by Tremper Longman III, p. 32).
Jerome (A.D. 331-420) wrote a letter to his disciple Paula on how she should raise her daughter in the faith.
Let her treasures be not silks or gems but manuscripts of the holy scriptures; and in these let her think less of gilding, and Babylonian parchment, and arabesque patterns, than of correctness and accurate punctuation. Let her begin by learning the psalter, and then let her gather rules of life out of the proverbs of Solomon. From the Preacher let her gain the habit of despising the world and its vanities.2 Let her follow the example set in Job of virtue and of patience. Then let her pass on to the gospels never to be laid aside when once they have been taken in hand. Let her also drink in with a willing heart the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. As soon as she has enriched the storehouse of her mind with these treasures, let her commit to memory the prophets, the heptateuch, the books of Kings and of Chronicles, the rolls also of Ezra and Esther. When she has done all these she may safely read the Song of Songs but not before: for, were she to read it at the beginning, she would fail to perceive that, though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal. And not understanding this she would suffer hurt from it.
Eve was formed from Adam’s rib.
So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Carolyn Custis James, When Life and Beliefs Collide, “The woman is man’s help, his ally in battle, not is competitor, his critic, or his adversary. Her mission is to build him up in God, to stand with him in truth and to oppose him whenever he veers onto the wrong paths.”
Caution: 3 times we read: “Do not awaken or arouse love until it desires” (Song of Songs 2.7; 3.5; 8.4).
“Relationships, broken by sin, may experience the healing of redemption, but it is an already-not yet phenomenon” (Longman, Song of Songs-NICOT, p. 66).
New Testament images of marriage as a metaphor between God and His people: Ephesians 5.21-33; Revelation 19.6-8; 21.1-3.
The Big Idea: Even though our relationships are often distorted by selfishness, love is a transcendent gift meant to show us something greater—the gift of God’s love that will one day permeate and transform his beloved world. (From Bible project Song of Songs video)
Suggested Resources: Iain Provan, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (The NIV Application Commentary)
Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament)
J. Cheryl Exum, Song of Songs (The Old Testament Library)
Song of songs is a Hebrew way of speaking like Holy of Holies or King of kings. The Song of songs is one way of saying, “The Greatest Song.”
“We believe that the Song’s primary intention is to address the issues of human love and relationships. According to the Song, love is mutual, exclusive, total, and beautiful” (Tremper Longman, Song of Songs,-NICOT, p. 62, quoting D. Hubbard, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Communicator’s Commentary, 1991, p. 260-263).
“Love” is found 38 times in 34 verses in the Song of Solomon.
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
See Keil and Delitzsch: It is a love poem.
