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On our journey through the Bible, we find ourselves at the curious book named The Song of Solomon. It reads like a love sonnet. But is there more? 

I was listening just this week to a piece on national radio about a new book. This book explores the inevitable effects that social media has had on us now that we have a good, solid fifteen-plus years to reflect on. 

One of the negative results among the good ones is that social media has furthered the isolating effect that our culture was already subject to in an electronic consumer culture. Using their words, a phenomenon of “loneliness” has been perpetuated in this new digital age. 

It would be nice enough if the obvious, surface portrayal of romantic love were the point. We need healthy models of committed love. We need the hope that a romantic portrayal gives us. 

When couples lose touch with those basic elements, when couples become rivals under the same roof, when a marriage becomes so toxic or indifferent that the players need to part ways, that truly is a sad and grievous result. 

Just like a church membership can, a married couple can essentially fall asleep within the relationship. I don’t have to tell you that this can have terrible results. 

But I’ve always been among those who, when we take a serious look at Song of Solomon, eventually come to the conclusion that there had to be more behind it that got it included in the biblical canon. 

There was no small discussion among the ancient rabbis. Those who gravitated toward Shammai, the great leader of a school of rabbis, believed that it didn’t belong. 

The Babylonian school of rabbis led by Hillel, however, supported it. Eventually, it became accepted by all for inclusion in the Hebrew Bible. That’s because beginning with the Talmud and extending forward with gathering momentum came a more allegorical view.

That is, a notion that the bridegroom here in Song of Solomon is actually best understood as God. Yahweh, the Creator and Sustainer, is found here now portrayed as a yearning lover. 

If we have a bridegroom, we must also have a bride. That would be Israel, in the older views. Creation or all of humanity in a more expanded and timeless view. 

The portrayal of a patient and dedicated love. One that will roll with the twists and turns of a relationship. One that will withstand the tests that life can throw at a relationship. 

From the Exodus down to the coming of a Messiah, this relationship holds through all its trials. In good times and in bad, a faithful and dedicated Bridegroom holds the central place in his heart for an unending love. 

God’s love for you and for me, despite our sometimes fickle and distracted natures, would seem to be on display in a story told in such breathtaking beauty. You name one of the early or later Christian Church Fathers: Origen and Jerome, Augustine and John Wesley, even Bernard of Clairvaux. They all have eventually come to similar conclusions and weighed in on the necessity of embracing this loving and laborious book. 

I don’t want to be tone deaf to one reality. Somehow, and it defies explanation for me, but somehow not all of Christianity really likes this portrayal of a loving, patient and grace-filled God. If that’s you, you have my pity. 

What some fail to realize is that the only way a model of an angry, fiery and judgmental God holds up is if you are willing to do two amazing things: 1) to ignore not just the entire New Testament covenant founded in Christ’s grace and love,– but also a good bit of the Old Testament, too. 2) assume that you yourself are free of sin and therefore don’t need God’s patient, determined forgiveness yourself. 

What the world most needs, and what the Bible on balance more portrays, is the meandering love story of a mighty God who has doggedly hung with the fads, the foibles and the fickleness of humanity. A remarkable love story, you and I get a turn at living, when you consider the whole thing. 

What is here for you and for me in this beautiful scripture? It could be an affirmation of the strongest force in the entire universe. The unending, boundless love of God intended for humanity. Unleashed in a thousand small ways and occasionally in big ways. Always, though, with the very best of an entire world at its heart.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.