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Romance in the Song of Solomon

Lest anyone suppose that the Bible is opposed to romance, we have in the Bible not only some romantic narratives and counsel but a love song. Granted, Song of Solomon is not the way we would probably write a love song today. Generally, we would not praise the desirability of our beloved by saying, “You look like a horse.” But once we get the idea of romance, we can learn to communicate in the romantic language of our culture (and maybe love languages of our spouse). (If you’re single but think you might someday marry, treasure up this idea for later.)

Song of Songs communicates in the romance language of its day. That language included depictions of what was considered a romantic setting: the fertility of spring (apples, the voice of the turtledove, etc.) They didn’t think of candlelight dinners; different cultures (and families, and individuals) have different ways of expressing romance.

One time at a Bible study I read from an ancient Egyptian love song and asked the attendees from what book I was reading. They concluded that I was surely reading from the Song of Solomon. That’s because both songs used very similar sorts of romantic language.

That’s even true when comparing one’s beloved to a horse. Some scholars contend that “a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots” (Song 1:9) relates to an ancient battle practice of releasing a mare among enemy stallions, to distract them in battle. At the very least, Egypt was known for its excellent horses. Pharaoh’s mares were the best and the most beautiful.

Obviously we miss the point if we think too prosaically. If you try to draw literally what either partner looked like, you end up with a monstrosity, but the images work wonderfully figuratively. Describing a neck like a tower of ivory or eyes like pools of Heshbon were just graphic ways of praising the beauty and desirability of the features of one who is loved. The lily of the valley and the fairest of ten thousand (which our songs today apply to Jesus as the most desirable of all) were poetic ways of affirming the desirability of the partner.

With the point of such images in mind (you can get the point without understanding all the details), try reading the lines to each other, the husband’s lines to the wife and vice versa, looking at each other’s desirable features. One warning: if you’re just engaged, don’t try this just yet, or at least not for very long. The song is great for getting a couple turned on.

Of course, the song can teach us other matters as well. The song may depict times of misunderstanding and strife between the couple (5:2-6), which does happen sometimes in a marriage (e.g., Gen 16:5; 30:1-2). Appropriate marital passion burns like a fire (Song 8:6). The song has value for marital counseling and the like.

And then there are tidbits here and there that may bless some individuals in their personal relationships with their spouses. For me, since my wife is black, I have special appreciation for Song 1:6, where the bride is said to be black. (Even if in this bride’s case it specifies that she has been in the sun a lot, it means that she started with a fairly dark complexion. By contrast, if I stay in the sun a lot, my skin turns red and peels off!)

Through history, many allegorized this song and applied it to believers’ relationship with Christ. (Keep in mind that some of those doing this allegorizing were celibate clergy. I’m glad they were able to put the song to good use.) And of course Scripture does tell us that we are Christ’s bride (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:31-32; Rev 19:7-8), developing imagery for God and his people already in the Old Testament. So I do not have a problem with praising our Lord’s beauty and desirability most of all. We do, however, need to be careful in how we envision it, since the Song sometimes goes beyond mere praise of attractiveness to figurative depictions of intercourse. It describes the beloved’s breasts; coming into the garden and enjoying the fruits probably connotes intercourse; and so forth. Some apply “his banner over me is love” to the posting of the bloody cloth that proclaims the bride’s virginity after successful first intercourse.

In any case, while one can use it devotionally if one does so with wisdom, those of us who are married should not neglect its original purpose. We should enjoy one another’s beauty, and become accustomed to seeing our spouse as the most beautiful—the standard by which we define beauty. This is not the language of scientific objectivity, but the language of deep subjective commitment. (Perhaps, in more scientific language, we get neurochemically addicted to the welcome sight of our spouse, thinking about the spouse in ways that nourish neurochemical enjoyment.) Granted, we might consider that difficult today than in ancient Israel; today we are inundated with media images that define standards of beauty for our culture, images that imprint too readily in our minds. Still, Solomon was no Christian monogamist: he had many wives (not everything in the song transfers readily to Christians today!) so his depiction of this bride’s beauty is not based on lack of acquaintance with the other gender!

The greatest beauty, of course, is of the heart, what is beautiful in God’s sight (1 Pet 3:4), not the mere beauty of external ornaments, plastic surgery, or what we see on the surface. Scripture praises this other side in Proverbs 31:30: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (NRSV). Whatever our spouse’s attractiveness, we can focus on that, rekindling the desires that may have first brought us together. In the case of arranged marriages, of course, the couple may grow on each other over time.

In either case, biblical marriage is based on firm commitment. Others may have attractive features and praiseworthy attributes, but those are irrelevant to the marriage. Within the firm commitment that protects against betrayal, intimacy flourishes and we are free to explore one another’s beauty. Sharing oneself at the most intimate makes one vulnerable to the deepest hurts in another’s words, but also to the greatest affirmations. Let’s learn what we can from the Song of Solomon and kindle more deeply the flame of romance in our marriages.

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Women in Ministry: egalitarian position (1-hour video interview)

I don’t usually blog on this topic (I wrote Paul, Women & Wives 27 years ago and I am usually posting on topics on which I have been working more recently), but Remnant Radio interviewed me on this topic on July 22. The lead interviewer has some reservations about women in ministry, but I affirm it and seek to explain the cultural setting that the passages in question were addressing. Obviously in an hour we couldn’t cover every passage or argument in detail, but we could begin the discussion ….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u9iMvvvqTc

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What does it mean for the younger to submit to the older in 1 Peter 5:5?

After calling on fellow “elders” to look out for the needs of other believers in 1 Pet 5:1-4, Peter calls on the younger to submit to their elders in 5:5, “in the same way” (Gr. homoiôs).

This is not the first time that Peter has called on people to submit, or the first time that he has enjoined a level of mutual concern. In 2:13, he offers a general invitation to “submit” to human authorities in general, going on to illustrate this with submission to kings, governors, and finally, again, kings (2:13-17). He invites slaves to “submit” to slaveholders (2:18). He recognizes that these are human structures (2:13) and that they can be abusive and unjust (2:18-20).

Most ancient household codes didn’t address slaves directly; these were usually written to elites who ruled slaves rather than served slaveholders. But in the unjust setting that slaves could not easily escape their holders’ social control, Peter empowers slaves by affirming their own moral volition and identifying them with Christ (2:21-25). (This resembles some Stoic arguments as well.) Unlike some other NT letters, 1 Peter does not address slaveholders, probably because he expects few Christian slaveholders in the communities that it addresses.

Peter goes on to urge wives of nonbelieving husbands “in the same way” (Gr. homoiôs) to “submit” to their husbands according to the expectations of their culture so as to win their husbands to Christ (3:1). That is, submission becomes an expression of mission, of evangelism, in a setting in which verbal evangelism became impossible. Most husbands expected their wives to submit to the husbands’ religion. Here Peter invites believers to choose our battles: give way in what we can so as to reduce the hostility we face where we cannot compromise. (Peter is not speaking to physically abusive relationships here, in contrast to his explicit advice to slaves. Slaves could get free only by earning money on the side and buying their freedom, or by their holders’ choice. In the Greco-Roman world, nothing legally prevented wives from leaving abusive husbands, despite the uncomfortable situations that such an action could create.) Peter then addresses believing husbands “in the same way” (Gr. homoiôs) to value their believing wives as sharers in the things of Christ (3:7).

Ancient society expected younger persons to respect their elders and defer to them wherever possible. They should offer them better seats, greet them respectfully, and, when feasible, heed (and at least respect) their counsel. In general, even today we recognize that age often offers a greater breadth of life experience from which we can draw wise lessons. (And as someone in my late 50s, I now appreciate better seats, in that I can no longer sit on the ground as easily as I could in my teens and twenties!) So there is some general wisdom here, even though many of our cultures today do not revere age as did those in antiquity. (They also valued the vigor of youth, as we do, but were often more explicit about the reasons for which they valued different age groups; cf. 1 John 2:12-14.)

Yet after this brief exhortation to the younger to submit to the elder (1 Pet 5:5a), Peter goes on to urge all believers to clothe ourselves with humility toward each other (5:5b). He has already instructed his fellow elders to look out for the younger (5:1-4). In many synagogues, as in ancient Israelite villages, “elders” ruled. In Christian circles, too, elders could be appointed to lead (Acts 14:23), so named because they were normally chosen from among older members with more life experience (cf. the connection in 1 Tim 5:1-2, 17; but exceptions existed for those otherwise qualified, as in 1 Tim 4:12).

Now, having exhorted both the older and the younger, he urges all to clothe ourselves with humility. Most people in antiquity appreciated gentle and merciful rulers. Jewish tradition further valued leaders who humbled themselves to serve their parents or fellow leaders. But the mutual humility for all believers here reminds even leaders that we are to be servants. Leadership is one way of expressing our service, but rather than lording it over others, we are to be examples for them (5:3). If we do this, we will be rewarded by the chief shepherd who is our own example (5:2a, 4), who sacrificially served all of us (2:21-25).

–Craig is working on a 1 Peter commentary tentatively planned for Baker Academic.

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How do we relate to members of the Trinity?

Since there are theologians who spend their entire careers studying the Trinity, I dare offer the following only as a thought experiment in Johannine theology. It is, however, one that helps me to relate to the One God in Three Persons.

Whoever has seen Jesus, has seen the Father (John 1:18; 14:7).

Whatever Jesus hears from the Father, he reveals to his own (John 15:15); whatever the Spirit hears, he reveals, revealing Jesus (16:13). One cannot have the Son without the Father or the Father without the Son (1 John 2:23). Through the Spirit, we experience the Father and the Son (John 14:23). Old Testament passages about YHWH (e.g., Isa 25:8; 49:10) are applied to both the Father and the lamb (e.g., Rev 7:16-17).

Rather than picturing this as three persons side by side, to whom we relate in succession, I picture this more like three figures, one in front of the other, but transparent so that seeing one reveals to us the other. Although they are distinct persons, in prayer we relate to them together. As we pray in Jesus’s name, we pray through him to the Father. But we cannot truly invoke any member of the Trinity without implicitly relating to them all.

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Lifestyle Apologetics and 1 Peter 3:15

People often quote part of 1 Pet 3:15 to support the need for apologetics: always be ready to offer a defense (Greek apologia) to whoever asks you for an account of the hope among you.”

The context may suggest that the asking involves unbelievers questioning a movement of which they are suspicious; being a Christian was certainly an object of slander (2:12), and may have already been subject at times to prosecution (cf. 4:15-16). Being able to offer a defense meant being able to show that the charges against Christians (or at least against the Christian movement as a whole) were untrue.

First Peter 3:15 does apply to an apologetic, or defense, and it is certainly not alone. The final quarter of Acts, for example, probably functions as Luke’s apologetic (based on sound information, I would argue) for the innocence of the leading figure behind the gentile mission. But what kind of apologetic is it? Certainly early Christians did appeal to evidence, such as the eyewitness testimony of the apostles and continuing miracles. But the appeal here also appeals to something else.

The context of 1 Pet 3:15 is slanders against believers as wrongdoers (2:12: “they speak against you as wrongdoers”; 3:16: “those who speak against you and abuse you”). When the arguments against the Christian message are the alleged behavior of Christians, Christians need to work all the harder to live an apologetic that undermines the charges. Of course, in a culture where there is less social cost to being a Christian, lots of people claim to be Christians without living a Christian life. This undermines Christian witness.

I experienced this firsthand because, when I was an atheist a few decades ago, I was more hostile toward Christianity than toward other religions, because it seemed to me that most “Christians” didn’t live like Christ made a difference for them. Still, there were some committed Christians (such as my Dad’s sister’s family) who didn’t fit my skeptical paradigm, Christians that I had to respect despite my dismissal of Christians as a whole. That enigma wasn’t enough to change my paradigm, but if more of the “real” Christians had openly self-identified as Christians, perhaps I would have noticed a different pattern. (Yet even after conversion I discovered that even “real” Christians aren’t perfect, and could certainly profit from Peter’s advice.)

Their apologetic responds to charges that Christians are subversive against the empire. (What would you expect for a movement begun by someone executed on a cross for high treason against the majesty of the emperor, by pretending to be a king?) Thus, for the sake of the gospel, believers should, under ordinary circumstances, submit to every “human institution” (2:13). An emperor (2:13), slavery (2:18), and husbandly rule over wives (3:1; calling him “lord” in 3:6!) are human institutions and not part of every culture. But by submitting to social demands where possible (Christians often had no alternative except to be in those situations), Christians, who were a tiny and misunderstood minority, could silence such misinformed claims (2:15) and even win over some nonbelievers (3:1-2). They could challenge the charges of subversion leveled against them.

There are certainly intellectual apologetic issues worth discussing today. But some of the turnoffs to Christianity are the public personae of Christians. Sometimes this stems from misrepresentation. Sometimes it stems from public fixation on scandal, which allows the worst representatives of Christianity the most airtime. At least we don’t have people accusing our movement of cannibalism, as some of earliest Christianity’s critics did (misunderstanding what Christians meant by eating the body of their Lord).

But like Peter’s original audience, we live in a world where people often challenge Christianity because of how they think Christians live. Peter can’t tell us how to change what we can’t control. But he does advise us about what we can control: live in such a way that refutes such accusations, at least among those who know you personally. As Peter advised Christians who were subordinate on other fronts, choose your battles. We don’t have to fight and quibble about every situation or every social stance held by others, even if these are not the values that we live by. But we do need to live in such a way that people can see a difference.

A year or two before my conversion, I heard one of my cousins singing in a youth choir. They sang, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” That was a kind of Christianity I didn’t feel the need to despise. This group also seemed genuinely committed to Christ. I despised the intellectual dishonesty of people who claimed to believe that a God created them yet didn’t live like he was the most important thing in the world. I could respect those who at least lived consistently with what they believed. That didn’t stop me from making fun of Christians generally, but it did plant a seed that later bore fruit when I was confronted with the gospel.

The sentence doesn’t stop with “offer a defense to everyone who asks you.” It elaborates on the attitude with which this defense is given, one that does not match some apologetic broadsides available on YouTube or elsewhere. (Blasting atheists by calling them names, for example, is not a very good way to communicate Christ’s love to them.) Peter says to give an answer, but (and here he uses the stronger Greek word for “but”): do it with gentleness and respect.

Part of our defense of the faith is thus how we live the values of Christ, the example to whom Peter appeals (2:21; 3:18). As Christ went to the cross, he did not respond to insult with insult; he left his honor in the Father’s hands (2:23). Our natural, fight-or-flight instinct is to defend ourselves. It is difficult to do otherwise. As we retrain ourselves to follow Christ’s example, however, we want to show grace even to those who are hostile to us, so they can see more of the heart of the one who died for his enemies—even for us, when we were his enemies. May the Lord help us to defend the faith—and especially with gentleness and respect.