Closer Day By Day

Are you in love?

Are you in love with love?

Reading the Song of Solomon as it is cannot fail to stir up the emotions of love within a person.  The rush of mixed emotions that accompanies a person when he or she is in love is wonderfully expressed by Solomon.  Let’s see what he writes today…

Bible Passage:  Song of Solomon 3-4

Love is Better Than Wine

It is hard to shake off the image of a glass of wine in the midst of a romantic movie.  Very often, the couple in love will have a glass of wine on their hands as they stare lovingly at each other to declare their undying love for one another.

Solomon himself was intoxicated with the love of his bride.  This was evident from what he wrote but in Song 4:10, he said…

How fair is your love,
My sister, my spouse!
How much better than wine is your love,
And the scent of your perfumes
Than all spices!

Solomon here expressively says that love is better than wine.

Unlike in our culture, the Bible exalts genuine love.  When we read the Bible with thought and reflection, we can discover the true nature of love as the Bible seeks to reveal love from many angles.  Song of Solmon itself describes love with vivid imagery of sights, sounds, and sensations of romantic love.

When you know God better, indeed, you will wholeheartedly agree that “Love is Better than Wine”.  Let’s just take a look at a few examples from passages we have read in this year…

• Moses called the Israelites to learn and practice the love of God toward all (Deut 10:12-11:22; 30:6-20).
• Remember reading Psalm 45?  It is a “Song of Love” that praises the marraige relationship.
• Or the Book of Hosea where God called the prophet to seek out, rescue and lovingly restore his adulterous wife.
• The teachings of Jesus concerning love is wide ranging - love between neighbours (Matt 5:43-46), loving the Lord (Mark 12:30-38), and the love of God the Father and the practice of love between brothers and sisters in the Lord (John 13:34-15:19).
• Pau;’s teaching on love between neighbours (Rom 13:8-10), love between fellow church brethren who are experiencing competition and conflict (1 Cor 13:1-7), and love among spouses, families and other believers(Eph 5:25-6:24).
• Elder John’s teaching concerning love among believers and how that love should operate in a hostile world (1 John 3:1-5:3).

We often lament that there is not enough love in the world and in the church.  Yet, the Bible invites us to discover what love really is.

The love that the world promotes tends to be a distortion.  People use it to make money, to hurt others and to oppress them, or to gratify themselves.  But following the love of Christ opens up a whole new world as we receive God’s love for us, learn to love our neighbours and develop a healthy love for ourselves.

In that way, we will truly feel that Love is Better than Wine and find no need to be intoxicated with it.