SoS 4-5
Sigh…this love poetry still is not really resonating with me. I can see that the two lovers are highly praising of and devoted to one another and I can see that the bride is constantly searching for her beloved. What any of that means, I cannot say. I also see a lot of garden references. The article from The Bible Project that I read yesterday equated this to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, as that is the only other book in the Bible that refers to a couple in a garden.
The garden references in this book do seem to me to be a metaphor for intimacy. I found another article on the Song of Songs by the Bible Project today that suggested that the Garden of Eden was indeed a place of perfect intimacy. There was intimacy between God and man, woman and man, and creation and man. The article was discussing a perspective of this Book as a vision of relational healing on all three of these levels. Interesting.
The conclusion of the article mentioned reading the Song of Songs from the perspective of us as God’s beloved – a thought that had occurred to me when I started reading the book yesterday. It stated that as we develop this kind of ideal love with our creator, it will enable us to restore and develop our relationships with others and with the rest of God’s creation. Taking that thought back to my beginning statement for today, I, like the Bride in the poems, want to learn to see God with deep, sincere praise and devotion and to constantly seek to be in His presence.
Acts 7:1-21
In this passage Stephen, one of the seven chosen to serve in the Church from yesterday’s reading, has been falsely charged and brought before the high priest. Today’s reading is obviously only giving a part of the story, but there are two things I find interesting here. One, that Stephen, on being falsely accused and arrested, responds by…giving a history lesson? As with so many other instances in the Bible – not my first response!!!
It seems I need to take a good, hard look at what my natural, human responses to such situations would be (you know, like defending myself?!?). I need and compare those to how Jesus and His Holy Spirit filled followers responded to things. Then I need to strive to be less like the first and more like the last. Come to think of it, I might find a lot of similarities between that comparison and one comparing how Jesus’ followers responded to things before Jesus died versus after receiving the Holy Spirit.
The second thing I find interesting is that the high priest and the crowd there allowed Stephen’s lengthy speech!