The Song of Solomon is one of the oddest books to be included in the bible.  From the fact that to this day we can’t agree on a name (“Song of Solomon?”  “Song of Songs?” or even “Canticle of Canticles?”), to the fact that it is hard to find any teaching about God in it, this book is often ignored in preaching, bible studies, and discussion.  So we have to ask why it is in there at all.

Many have posited that it is a rather risque description of the deep love we have for God and that God has for us.  We collectively are the “she” of these verses and God is the “he”.  But even this feels forced, like we’re trying to Christianize (though being OT, it’s probably more accurate to say, “Yahweh-ize”) a Jewish love letter.

Many find it hard to preach this text due to its “PG-13” elements, frank discussion of lovers in love, and romanticism of our holy relationship with God.  But in reality, I believe that it is simply hard to find moral lessons in this book, and without a moral, it is neither parable, proverb, nor teachable poem.  So how does one preach it to a congregation looking for one more moral lesson to work on through the week?

The truth is, I don’t know.  But I do love things that shake up our traditional, staid and stoic view of God and faith, so we’re going to talk about it in the days to come, learn what we may.

¹⁰ Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

After Paul was called by Jesus Himself on the road to Damascus, he began his ministry by traveling to a number of churches in an area called Galatia.  This was just north and west of Antioch, his home base and sending church.  After traveling this route, Paul returned to Antioch to share his ministry and at some point wrote a letter back to these churches.  This letter is our book of Galatians.

As Paul begins his letter to the Galatian churches, he spends a lot of time defending himself from the complaint that he just made up this gospel he preached to win the favor of the people around him.  This complaint came from Jews who followed him from church to church, city to city.  Once he left a place, these Jews came in and began unraveling his teaching, his reputation, and even his gospel.  So in his letter back to the churches, he has to begin by defending his ministry.

In doing so, he states that pleasing people is in direct contradiction to being a servant of Christ.  I hear this touted regularly yet have not met a pastor who didn’t wrestle with this reality.  For younger pastors, it is often a matter of standing in the congregation or popularity.  While we all like people to say nice things about us, as we age we come to see that these things are pretty meaningless, to use Solomon’s phrase.  For older pastors, it is far more often about keeping a job since most churches are looking for younger pastors and jobs for 50+ year old pastors are hard to come by.

Would that we could all be like Paul, traveling and planting churches and bound to no individual church but rather to the goodness of The Church.  It would free us to preach the truth without fear of reprisal because we are too progressive, too conservative, too boring, or not a Leader.  Yet who of us has the faith to face all Paul faced in his ministry?  Lord, may we trust you more.