Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Welcome Life Group leaders. Let it have you joining us on this series overview looking at Song of Solomon wisdom for your love life with the good man himself, where there's your pastor, Eric Geiger.
Welcome to the Song of Solomon. Amazing. Well, if you weren't paying attention yet, you are now. Love that we're jumping into this book.
I mean, you've got to joke a lead this weekend. Not joke a lead. It's like accurately you gave us a picture of kind of the thematic tones of this book. How did you describe it this weekend and invitation to like a spicy?
I mean, history tells us that you were baptized. Everyone has a perspective on what age it would be appropriate to read, but there was age appropriateness associated with the book of Song of Solomon because I mean the language depicting the honeymoon chapter four, and then the language depicting their sexual relationship later in their marriage. So chapter seven chapter seven language is really intense. So I'm asking Kay, my wife, as I'm prepared, I'm like, baby, should I explain this or just like go over it?
And there's this one section where basically I say, you know, I'm going to say something like here's what it means. And Kay is vetoed every other comment because it's really intense. And so why? You have to remember what we believe about the scripture that all of it has got grieved.
So this is not crude. This is not the Bible trying to grab somebody's attention. This is not, you know, edgy for the sake of being edgy. This is God's breathe word about how a couple of dates each other, about how they get married, about the initial attraction.
And then we see sex, but it's after the marriage. And then we see its purpose. We also see that it's for enjoyment. I mean, you see all that in Song of Solomon.
It truly is a book about your love life. Yeah, that's great. And you're tipping your hand a little bit because there have been some throughout church history that have answered the question of what is the book of Song of Solomon in different ways? What is Song of Solomon in different ways?
Is this an allegory? Is this a metaphor? Is this pointing towards Christ and the bride and the church? Yeah.
Like what is it? How would you man? Yeah, that's great. It's a great question.
There's three ways that it's commonly been interpreted. And I will teach in a way that the first two would be like, oh, this is great. And the third would struggle. So the first way that Song of Solomon is taught is that this is a book about Solomon himself and the wife of his youth.
And it's telling their love story. The second interpretation is this is Solomon writing about an ideal version of love between a man and a woman. So he's not necessarily the main character in the book. So he's not writing about his own love, but he's writing about the ideal love, its wisdom for your love life.
So first one is it's actually Solomon in the second one is Solomon writing about. Both of the first two of you are Solomon's definitely the author. And even the third of you, Solomon's the author. The third of you is the allegorical view, which is this is not a book about human love.
It is an illustration about God's love towards us. And you have Puritan authors and commentators who that's where they went really because they're so uncomfortable with how explicit the language is. The problem is if you try to read it only allegorically, you're going to get some passages that are like, this is weird because this is not describing me and my relationship with God at all. Let me start from verse one of Judgement.
Oh, that he would kiss me but the kisses of his mal. Yeah, I mean, that's not, I mean, I have to pretty clear. I've been growing my relationship with God, but I've never said that about God. We've never had that kind of relationship, right?
Now, here's, there will be moments in the sermons that we preach that there's some allegorical leanings in some parts of the text, but we don't believe the whole book is an allegory. And the reason you will see some allegorical leanings is we still do hold to the fact that all scripture ultimately points us to Jesus. So you get to the very famous verse, I am, I be loved, it's, and he is mine. That does remind us of the close relationship that we have with Christ.
We are his and he is ours. So there are connections that will make as we walk through the book, but we're not going to teach it from an allegorical standpoint as a whole. But this is an ideal vision of human love between a man or woman from their initial attraction to their marriage. Because not only would that be an unfaithful reading and application of the text, but also that reading that application of the text has some negative applications around our relationship with others, with God and ourselves.
If we curate the scriptures in such a way, then when we look at things about sexuality, it can have a disconnected view of that from ourselves. Well, it's disturbing that I was talking about it. We shouldn't talk about it. And that's not the view that scripture has.
No, scripture has a beautiful view of sex. So sex is not only sex in the scripture, sex is union between a man or woman in the beautiful covenant of marriage. And so while the culture tries to have a low view of sex, the scripture has a really high view of sex that it is, but it is more than just physical. It is the mingling of two souls.
It is the union of two of two people. So sex isn't just sex. It's union and marriage isn't just marriage. It's actually a picture of God's marriage to us.
And so the reason that we want couples at our church to have really thriving and healthy marriages is I care about the people in our church. I want them to have a healthy, thriving marriage for their own joy, but also from a Christian standpoint, our marriages really are a testament to the world about our relationship with God and God's love towards us. So sex isn't only about sex, it's about union and marriage isn't only about marriage. It's about pulling people to the ultimate marriage that we have with God.
I want to just talk for a moment about in either those first two views, the starting that Solomon is the author. We mentioned this a little bit in the series guide and like reporters make sure you pick those up, that all your congregations this week. There's a series guide that accompanies this. You've got your survey discussion questions in there.
We're going to really help you get the most of the passage of the weekend, but also within your groups. And we talk a little bit about the author of Solomon and someone asked questions about, well, how can there be wisdom, a book about wisdom from a marriage from somebody who had, I can get this wrong. If you're a head wise, talk to the audience whenever count is. It truly is.
To me, the biggest struggle with the book is Solomon's ending of his life. So go back to those two views. If the view is that Solomon is right about himself, you then have multiple interpretations of that. You have some who say, hey, he wrote this before he messed up his life.
So you have David who wrote beautiful Psalms to God before he messed up. And then he writes great Psalms to God after. So you have some who say this is Solomon writing truth inspired by God before he made an absolute mess of his life. Some say like Danny Aiken, he's one commentator that I read.
He believes that this is Solomon writing at the end of his life, looking back of what he had and what he regrets not holding on to. Okay. So that's the first few second view. If Solomon is essentially writing about human love between two people, you can read it more of he's right at the end of his life.
And this is what he knows he should have held to but didn't or he's right in early. And this is all inspired from God. But either way. So now you're at now four different viewpoints.
Either way, you're still having to wrestle with a question. Okay. This is very ideal. This man woman relationship is Solomon Solomon.
And it's so ideal that Solomon couldn't even keep live up to it. He failed miserably at it. But you do you go back to other passages of scripture that says, you know, what's Solomon first? King God said, what do you want?
And Solomon asked for wisdom and God said, well, because you're in the answer of wealth and you ask for wisdom, I'll give you wisdom and I'll give you wealth. But Solomon was known as the wisest person who ever lived. It just shows how fragile and broken we are that even the wisest person who ever lived could live up to the wisdom that he wrote, which is why we, which is why we need grace and why we ultimately do need to be able to say I am I love it's in his mind because the only way that we'll be able to live up to any of the wisdom that we read in this book is because we have the grace of Jesus because we can't do this by ourselves because it's a very high view of it's an ideal view of I mean this couple and even the ideal view, they still have fights, right? But in this, so it's not I'm like this only romantic they have no fights, no, even in the ideal marriage in Solomon Solomon, there's still there's you will even see in one of the chapters are still a fight.
But you do have a beautiful picture of marriage in this book. So this practical relevant wisdom to every stage of our relationship. Oh man. Sometimes people wonder is this going to be applicable for those that are married?
What about my life group? We're not married. Like is this going to be something for us to take this series off? Right.
Because it's wisdom for your love life. It really is for everybody. And I mean, no matter what stage you're in, you're in this book and then there's the other stages you will be in in the future or you'll have a friend or a child or a grandchild in that stage in the future. So I encourage you to understand every stage in Solomon Solomon.
But it begins with the initial attraction between this this couple. So week one is will be and how do we help those who are single and those of us who have single kids or single friends? How do we help people to be attracted to the right things, you know, and how I'm going to challenge the singles? How do you get attracted to the right things to somebody?
Then we too is this pursuit and man, we need we need godly pursuits to happen, you know, where and you see a wise pursuit of somebody and then week three, it's intentional dating dating and deciding. So the first three, the first three weeks are already the marriage yet, right? So someone who's single or again, you have people, I've got two daughters who are single, right? And so the first three weeks are going to be really impactful for me thinking about how do I instruct my kids?
Same here. You know, how do I instruct my kids to do this? Well, and you're going to see some of the stakes that I don't maybe sure that I made them you probably do it. Yeah, no, I tell you make some mistakes.
Yeah, that's right. I wish I had song on song, I mean, it was there, but I didn't throw myself into it, you know, the book's been there for a long time. I didn't throw myself into it. And we'll see some wisdom in song on song and four singles and those dating that is different in the world.
So the world right now is very common to serial date, like date a whole bunch of people, just swipe swipe swipe, then tell yourself, well, one day you'll settle down as if all of the bad practices that you did in the serial dating aren't carried over, you know, I mean, think about it, like you basically I learned some skills or something bad happens in your life that you're expecting just a one day end. So the culture says that then the culture says date and then get engaged and have a long engagement, maybe live together, maybe just long engagement, then spend a ton of money on a wedding, a ton of money. And what I'm going to say is, hey, intentionally date, short engagement, cheap wedding, put the money towards the down payment. And so why would you say, I mean, that's, you get those principles, but there's no first song that's going to tell us.
You see it a bit. I mean, you see that there's, it's not serial dating. It's dating really in public. Yeah.
So the public that right now we've got the online dating thing and I'm not against online dating. The downside of online dating is it can be kept underground. Hey, let's keep this on the down low. Hey, let's meet the stuff our friends yet.
When you see a song of Solomon, it's very out in the open and public, which allows the community to speak into it, allows people to bring wisdom to it. So those who date online, I just would say, Hey, that's it. There's a potential downside. So you want to bring the community into it.
You want to get some people to be able to speak into the relationship. And then also the dating in public that you see in Solomon, it does allow them to stay sexually pure because they are, they are having deep longings for one another. I mean, the attraction is really, is really intense. We're going to read all about that.
But they're not, they're not Netflix in that too in the morning. I mean, in one of the, one of the verses, they're basically out, the cedars are the roof, meaning they're, they're outside. They're nature. They're, they're, they're being very disciplined to try to, to try to stay pure.
They're dating public. Even though there's this intense attraction for one another. And then I think there's a, there's a short engagement when they decide they, they go, you know, as opposed to, we're going to be, we're going to be engaged for four years and then we're going to spend $200,000 on a wedding. And yeah, I'd say, dude, when you know, ask or marry you, go quick engagement.
We're going to have our pastures do the wedding for you in the backyard, and then save that money that you would, that 200K, you're going to drop on filet mignon, chili and sea bass and put that on, on a down payment for a home, any psychosomeza, you know, saying like whatever. Yeah, that's great. That's really smart. Yeah.
Cause there is something in our culture about sliding into commitment about, you know, not jumping in, wanting to have everything all buttoned up and figured out and the absolute perfect person the whole, the soul of a. Oh, we got to knock that too. Like a whole, there is the one. Yeah.
That's bad because if you marry the one, he's not the one, we're all messed up because of what person messes it up. Everybody, it's just, it's not, it's all that. Why is it on the world who mess up? Yeah.
Yeah. So how, how is it that, that, that John from four generations ago, who was supposed to marry his one who was Susie, but he actually married, you know, Cynthia. Yeah. So that, I mean, Susie was supposed to marry John, but she came to me, John, because John married Cynthia.
So now Susan's got to marry Ralph and Ralph was supposed to marry Deborah, but now Ralph can't not marry Deborah. So Deborah's stuck to marry Jim Bob and then Jim Bob came married Jane and then all, all things, all things, all things, all things, all things, all things. And now we have Tinder because of it. That's it.
That's what I, that's what I'm marking behind. That's what I'm saying. All right. Really good.
So we're going to be running, we're going to be running that February 21st. We're actually going to do a one day version of that as well at April after the series for those that may not be able to do all five sessions. Other things that we're doing throughout the series. Of course, we got marriage matters equipping our married couples.
We got men's breakfast, which in burns, they come talk about sexual purity and integrity. Our Thursday night at Mariners is doing a panel in February on February 29th about dating and how do we date well with integrity. So the message is good. I forget to be fantastic and equipped.
So we've got other environments for entire life years to come in and help us and be a part of what's going on here. Great. And then sex and marriage, fighting for good, a vision for love. I'm really glad.
But this is time to walk through this entire book. And this is going to be really, but this is chapter by chapter. We'll be first by verse. We're going through it.
We are walking through a book on wisdom for your life. I did an Instagram poll in two days ago and said, hey, how many of you have studied Song of Solomon? Not just read about study. And it's like 85% have never studied it so obviously it's, you know, 85% of listeners if data could be extrapolated to this listening segment.
A bunch you haven't read, haven't studied Song of Solomon, but in your life, you haven't studied He's a book in the Bible. Give him my God for us. Let's study it. Great.
Let's study it. That's awesome. And now when we got to quit you through it, we want to either support you through what you're facing and what you face in the past. We know when you come to conversations about relationships and intimacy, there's for me.
It's a lot of our stories, probably all of our stories. There's brokenness and pain and regret and things that we've done or things that have been done to us. I think we're having two weekends of extended prayer. We've got over our great care resources available through this.
So this isn't just learn and support grow. Let's heal together through this. It'll be a great series. Glad we're jumping through it together.
All right. Last question for you. Favorite love song out of nowhere. It's what the leading questions for song is all in here.
The favorite love song is a guy B Christian. I'm Christian. I'm okay. It is unfair to put you up.
No, no, I can come up with him. I'm going to try to pull my five real fast. It's that original top gun. No, man, no, no, when Goose goes and like he basically Tom Cruise in Goose together and our maverick and goose together and he starts singing.
You've lost that love and feeling. Love and feeling. You've lost that love and feeling. Now it's gone.
Gone. Gone. Baby, baby. That's what you're going to like.
No, baby, baby. I get down on my feet. So let it join this. I have a whole singing voice.
I don't know that version of that song. Okay, similar. One of us was a worship pastor. I didn't sound great either on it.
You did play guitar. I'll picture of it. All right guys. I'm going to have a jump in.
Let's study guys. We'll see you next week for the vision of love that Jesus asked for us. All right. We'll see you on your next week.