Dr Paul Allen

Song of Songs 2:10,15 – My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away…Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards…” There are probably times in every romantic relationship or marriage, especially early on, when you can’t imagine the other person ever hurting or annoying you. But because we’re all human and sinful since the Fall in Genesis 3, this changes at some point in every relationship. In Song of Songs 2, the woman (who we are referring to as Abbi) is making deposits into their relationship by the words she speaks, as the way we speak and act towards each other can be described as deposits and withdrawals, similar to a bank account. We want to make many, many deposits so that the withdrawals, or tough conversations, can be in a more relational context and hopefully not sting so much. She calls Solomon “my beloved” (2:8-10) and says things like “…your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” (2:14) In the very next verse, ...

" Husbands , love your wives and do not be bitter toward them."  (Col.  3:19 , NKJV )  When God says, "Husbands, love your wives," he speaks of the woman as a complex being. He calls every man to love his whole wife just as every man loves his whole self (Eph.   5:29 ). This means that a husband must do all he can to understand his wife's world. What follows are eight admonitions to love our wives with respect to their various facets. 1. Love Her Heart—Emotional Love The Bible uses the word "love" over 350 times. Almost 10% of these times are in the Song of Solomon (which comprises less than 0.5 percent of Scripture). One thing we learn from this is that a husband should use words to express his love for his wife. "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away! O my dove…let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely" (Song  2:10 ). I know of no woman who wouldn't love to hear her...

Capital from the Song of Solomon in Winchester Cathedral. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) " Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." ( Song of Solomon 8:7 ) The Song of Solomon , as part of God 's inspired Word, is much more than an ancient erotic poem, as some have interpreted it. Solomon was given great wisdom by God, so that he "spake three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five" ( 1 Kings 4:32 ). Of these latter, he apparently considered this to be his masterpiece, his "song of songs" ( Song 1:1 ). It can best be understood as a pure love song describing the courtship and marriage of Solomon and his first bride, long before he later married "many strange |that is, 'foreign'| women" ( 1 Kings 11:1 ), who "turned away his heart after other gods" ( 1 Kings 11:4 ). Another interpretation...

Image via Wikipedia The Bible is brutally honest about human sinfulness in all its forms, including sexuality . Nevertheless, the Bible presents a consistent and clear sexual ethic. The issue is not a lack of clarity. Has the church misunderstood the Bible’s teachings on sexuality for over two thousand years? The current issue of  Newsweek  magazine reports on “new scholarship on the Good Book’s naughty bits” that is supposed to turn our understanding of the Bible’s teachings on sex upside down. Lisa Miller,  Newsweek ’s religion editor, wrote the article entitled “What the Bible Really Says About Sex.” Well, the one thing you need to know up front is that the article falls far short of its title. Miller bases her report on two recent books — Michael Coogan ’s  God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says  and Jennifer Wright Knust’s  Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire . Neither of these books breaks new ground. Inst...