IS HE SWEETER THAN HONEY TO YOU?

I would like to join the Lenten Bible Study. Kindly add me to your email list for this. Thank you!

Melinda Roepke from Ashland, OH

I am sad that more of us didn’t respond with comments on the audio by James Hamilton.   Last week I wasn’t able to get to it at all.   This week I got through about 36 minutes of it.    I was already at 13 pages of handwritten notes!    There was a lot.    I still want to finish listening!    Then I would need to boil it down before I posted.   I may post it at the beginning of next week.   I hope that wouldn’t be too much of a no-no!     

I would like to participate in the Lent Study.
Thank you.
Paula P. Martin

James Hamilton sermon: I really do love how he brought out the human relationship first-for God designed marriage to illumine our relationship with Him, and how beautiful it is when it truly reflects Him and us- I like the beauty of the intimacy Hamilton brought out-but it is all Him bending toward her and her responding. At first she felt dark -was almost ashamed…then later she says she is the rose of sharon, a lilly of the valley-a HUMBLE CONFIDENCE is there now but He wooed her and drew her into that humble confidence. SHe would recount what he said to her-how beautiful she is-her eyes like doves-then she believed it and trusted Him…and then when she recounts it-he comes back and adds more!! I LOVE THAT. 
 
This is changing my marriage too-kind of weird how that is happening. ;~)
 
He woos her, provides for her and protects her. The flower in the garden responds and makes the garden fragrant.
 
I love how Hamilton harkens back to the garden of eden when they were walking in the cool of the day with God before the Fall. HE had me with that-and with this last word:
 
The SOng of SOngs is about how the love is depicted between Yahwh and Israel and then Christ and the church. God in Christ has come to us and overcome the barrieers-reconciling all things to himself then woos us with these winning words…There is no better protector and provider than Jesus.

What we long for as the shulamite maiden longed for in the consummation of marriage: Jesus will take those who belong to him to the marriage supper of the Lamb. He describes his coming in those terms. We can trust when the time is right God’s purposes will come to pass..It is better then than if things had happened earlier than God planned. 

I didn’t quite make it in time, but I am now posting here my notes on James Hamilton’s message on the Song of Songs.  I boiled down 17 pages of hand-written notes into a little more than two pages typewritten.  The message was 48 minutes long!!
 
Where are we to look to find the inspiration and the transforming power of God, so that our hearts and desires are re-oriented and re-calibrated so we expect and want what we should want rather than the distortions that the world offers to us? 
 
He addressed both the men and the ladies, asking if they want their spouses to be different than they are somehow.  He thought the ladies wouldn’t have any trouble imagining how the guys would like them to be different.  Then he says, “Guys, if that’s the case, anad if it involves them being a way they don’t want to be, I think that is your fault and you need to repent.”    He asks “Do you think of her?  Is she convinced that you care about her – that you care what she wants?”
 
Chapter 2 of Song of Songs shows us a woman’s response to a man who protects her, provides for her and woos her.  The Song of Songs is one united poem, which means we should expect multiple layers of meaning.  This is a song and it is in the Bible, which means that it is summarizing the Bible’s big story, and it is contributing to and it’s interpreting the Bible’s big story. 
 
In SOS 1:16, the woman says “our couch is green.  There is this idea of lush growth like a well-watered garden.  In 1:17, the man responds “the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine.   Its almost as though they are in the Garden of Eden.  What we see is a renewal of the intimacy that was lost when Adam and Eve sinned and were driven from the presence of God.  
 
 
In Chapter 2, vss 1-3, she likens herself to a flower (rose of Sharon and lily of the valley) and likens him to a fruit tree.  Those are not necessarily the most beautiful flowers out there in Israel. It is humble confidence she is communicating here.   We saw in Chapter 1 that she was nervous about her appearance, so her humble confidence is based upon the way the King commended her. 
In Chapter 2, the King takes it a little further by saying “as a lily among the brambles, so is my love among the young women.”   She is uniquely atrractive to him.   Hamilton references the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, that both Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester are actually ugly, but each had the opportunity to marry someone attractive.  In each case, they were not attracted to those persons.   Eventually it unfolds that these unattractive people come to view one another as attractive.   It is as if Charlotte Bronte is saying “Don’t you see to choose physical beauty ,over this relationship that these two people have would be a cheap and tawdry move that would demean them both and not give happiness to either. 
 
Hamilton says to the men in his audience. “If you do not look at your wife and see what the King says to the bride in SOS chapter 2 vs 2, you need to repent. You need to stop looking at your wife the way the world looks and start looking the way the Lord looks…Talk to her as if she is a lily among the brambles.  Don’t you dare tell other people that you wish she looked or acted some other way.”    This is a poetic, metaphorical depiction: she is not a flower and he is not a fruit tree.  But these depictions capture Biblical gender roles.   The man is to have strong, deep roots and leafy branches.  So when the winds blow, the tree doesn’t fall over, and when the sun beats down, there is shade.  The woman adds fragrance and augments the garden.  
 
Hamilton thinks we are moving toward the marriage in Chapters 1-4.  At the end of chapter 4 into chapter 5 is when the consummation takes place, and then they are married and enjoy all the physical aspects of marital union throughout the rest of the book.   He makes it clear that the consummation does not come in chapter 2, as some might suggest, but is in 4:16 and 5:1.  He says a book that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, a book that is in the canon of Scripture is not going to suggest premarital acts of physical involvement. 
 
One well-known pastor’s transcript suggested that 2:3 could be used to constrain wives to do something they might not otherwise want to do. Using this verse for that purpose is the OPPOSITE of what this verse depicts. This is meant to be a Christ-like intimacy, like the intimacy Jesus makes possible between himself and his people because he is so trustworthy and such a good provider. 
 
In verse 2:4, we are moving out of the agricultural imagery.   She is brought to the banqueting house – a huge hall where the wedding celebration would be held.  She states “his banner over me is love.”  In other words, she is describing the way the king has demonstrated his love for her for everybody to see it.  He has been such a gentleman. 
 
In verse 5, she is responding to his treatment.  She says “sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples.”   She is saying “I want this thing that is recognized as an aphrodisiac to stir up my love and longing for this man who is rightfully mine.  
 
In verse 7, she issues a warning to others, she charges the daughters of Jerusalem to preserve their purity for the day when they will be married.    In verse 8 she refers to a gazelle.  She may be saying, you need to be able to flee temptation quickly so you can preserve this doe-like purity that you possess. She is saying not to stir up emotions and feelings before it is time for the marital union.  She wants what is best for them.  She wants them to enjoy marriage to the fullest. Prior to marriage, love does not give pleasure – it might, but it is also going to come with shame, fear, guilt, and regret.   We want people to enjoy the comprehensive, interpersonal union of soul and body in the exclusive, permanent, monogamous covenant of marriage. 
 
In verses 8 &9, she describes her beloved peeking through the lattice outside the window.  In chapter 1 there was her self-consciousness of her appearance and standing in the community that stood between them.   Ad as it was the words of the King that removed the barrier of her self-consciousness, so again it is the words of the king that will overcome this physical barrier to intimacy between himself and his beloved. 
 
In verses 10-13 is a description of a new life in a well-watered land.  A description of flowers, birds, fruit trees, and vines – all fragrant with God’s glory.  He is evoking the universal freshness of spring, the season of love. 
 
In verses 16 & 17, “My beloved is mine and I am his.”  “He grazes among the lilies.”  Just as she has been protected by the fruit tree and provided for by its fruit, so now he is delighted and provided for by her.   “Turn my beloved and be like a gazelle or a young stag on cleft mountains.”  She is articulating a desire for the moment when the marriage will be consummated, for the love to be stirred up and awakened.     Hamilton tells the men, “If you want your wife to talk to you this way, she wants you to treat her the way the King has treated the bride. She wants you to protect her, provide for her, to show her public courtesy, and to woo her. She wants you to be someone she can trust with whom she can feel save.    May the Lord do it in our marriages!
 
Hamilton briefly addressed how SOS Chapter 2 might depict the love between Yahweh and Israel, and then is fulfilled between Christ and the church:    The King’s behavior is like an enacted parable of the way that God in Christ has loved his people.   He has removed the barriers.He has done what is necessary to remove divisions between himself and his people, reconciling all things to himself.   We can say there is no better protector or provider than Jesus.  
Jesus will take those who belong to him to the banqueting house for the great marriage supper with the Lamb.  His marriage supper.  He describes his coming in those words.  We can say that when the time is right, God’s purposes will come to pass.   It will be better for them to come to pass then than if things had happened earlier than God had planned.     In verses 8-17, where the groom woos the bride, think of the words of life that the King speaks for us to come to him and eat living food and drink living water.   We are His and He is ours.