Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 32:1 (Winter 2018)
Article: Mutuality, Mystery, And Marriage: Love In The Song Of Songs
Author: Dawn Gentry

PP 32:1 (Winter 2018) p. 18

Mutuality, Mystery, And Marriage: Love In The Song Of Songs

Dawn Gentry

Dawn Gentry holds an MA from Cincinnati Christian University and an MDiv from Emmanuel Christian Seminary. She has been active in church leadership, especially in children’s and worship ministry. She is on the faculty of Nebraska Christian College near Omaha, Nebraska, and also teaches adjunctly at Milligan College in eastern Tennessee. Dawn and her husband, Harold, live in Johnson City, Tennessee. Their daughter, Elizabeth Gentry, is the author of another sermon in this edition of Priscilla Papers.

A Sermon by Dawn Gentry

When I was a teenager, I wrote dozens of love songs. Sappy, insipid love songs. Actually, I shouldn’t even call them love songs, since most were about heartbreak more than love. As my young life progressed between various relationships (let’s just call them crushes), there were months of pining, dreaming of what could have been, mourning what was lost, or . . . you get the picture. I was educated in the ways of love by music, movies, and Teen Beat magazine. Perhaps I am not alone in this matter, which would explain the popularity of so-called chick-flicks and the Hallmark Channel. Love songs made up the soundtrack of my life and, more often than not, emphasized loss and longing over long-term relationships.

This emphasis on love songs should not be surprising, since poetry has been the universal language of love for centuries. The oldest known example of love poetry is a Sumerian text titled The Love Song for Shu-Sin. It’s from about 2000 BC, thus predating Solomon by about 1000 years.1 While the Song of Songs is traditionally attributed to Solomon, most modern scholars believe it is more likely a collection of poems assembled long after Solomon, perhaps between 500 and 300 BC. Commentators Athalya Brenner and Marvin Pope assert that at least one author is female2 and discern a “plurality of voices” as well.3 Whoever its author, the Song of Songs is a love poem in the tradition of other ancient near-eastern writings, and its provocative language (while sometimes guarded) leaves no question of the author’s intent.

While God is not mentioned in the Song,4 the book is one of the most theologized and preached in all of scripture. The long-presumed allegorical interpretation probably facilitated its acceptance into the canon.5 Additionally, Ellen Davis suggests the Song’s frequent use of quoted scripture texts, “in many cases connected phrases, vi...