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On Sunday night, we came to the end of our journey through the Old Testament’s Song of Songs. Well, because of the repetitive nature of the Song, we actually finished dealing with the text the week before State Youth Games, but there were a number of questions that had been raised during the last few months that I thought we should address to close off the series. Here’s a run down of what we covered:

What does love look like for somebody not in a relationship?

While we did look at the experience and expression of love from both the guys and girls experience, there was always some bent towards that expression being in the midst of a relationship. But what if we are single? If Song of Songs says to not arouse love until it so desires, does that mean somebody who is single can’t experience love at all?

Of course not. We are created for relationship and thus have an inbuilt desire to love. We want to love and be loved and there is nothing wrong with that at all. The problem comes when we compromise our standards to get what we think will be a true expression of love. When we are single is the best time to start training ourselves to be good lovers. This means putting boundaries in place like being accountable to another about our thoughts, words and actions; being careful what we watch, listen to and read; and being sensitive to the ways we act around, talk to and touch others. Living a disciplined life that honours God, our own bodies and that of our future partner is the best way a single person can experience and express love.

Should a Christian go out with a non-Christian?

Sometimes being single sucks.

And when we’re really down about it, and can’t see any prospects for a boyfriend or gilrfreind in our community of faith, we start to look elsewhere. And this raises the inevitable question about going out with a non-Christian.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 is pretty clear that we shouldn’t be intimately bound with somebody who doesn’t shares our faith. I’ve seen this first hand in my couple and pre-marriage counselling - when the spiritual beliefs are different, the relationship is headed for the rocks. This sounds harsh, but our spiritual beliefs go to the very core of who we are. In a sense they define who we are and how we live our lives. For a relationship to be as strong as it can be, this core being needs to be shared between the two so intimacy can be it’s most powerful. But when one partner believes one thing and the other something else, those core beings are headed in different directions. And while they might start off on common ground, over time they travel further and further apart.

The only way that the realtionship can be a success is if one person compromises what they believe. In my experience, this has ALWAYS been the Christian person giving up on their faith.

Thus, if we say we are serious about being a follower of Jesus, then going our with a non-Christian is not an option.

When dating, how far is too far? What boundaries should we put in place?

This question was asked more than any other!

Sometimes I think it is asked because we are trying to justify what we’re doing through monopolising some loop hole or technicality. The Bill Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with the Lewinski woman” speech is a classic example! Adam was right when he suggest that a better question would be, “How can we get closer to God in our relationship?” Asking about the boundaries is really asking how far we can get AWAY from God but still keep a ticket to heaven…

Having said that, a life that seeks to maintain sexual purity and live in a way that honours God, needs to make sure that words and actions are appropriate. I think the Bible is fairly clear that sexual intimacy is designed for a marriage relationship. It is for the husband and wife only - not for anybody else to watch or experience or particpate in. Thus anything that will tempt us to do something with a partner that should be reserved for a married couple is too far.

An illustration that I find helpful is of the big, round bombs you see in cartoons that have a long, burning fuse. In a marriage, a husband and wife light the fuse and it burns along nicely until it reaches the bomb and explodes into a beautiful display of fireworks. Living in the sex-soaked world that we do, lighting that fuse is all too easy, and while we think we might be strong enough to put it out before it gets too close to the bomb, we can’t. We are weakened by our culture and have little self control once the fuse is burning. Even if we do put it out, next time we light it, it is closer to the bomb than it was before. If it explodes, instead of fireworks, there is untold damage and distruction, both to the relationship and the individuals involved.

So it’s best to avoid the temptation to light the fuse in the first place. And that means boundaries. Time alone together is dangerous. Time alone together in an empty house is even worse. Time alone together in your bedroom is asking for trouble. Double dating, group outings, and when you are alone, making sure it is very public places can help ensure we don’t light the fuse. As Owen said, we shouldn’t be touching anything we haven’t got, nor should we be doing anything that, if we were to be interupted with no notice, we would be embarrassed by or ashamed of.

While they sound hard, boudaries actually help us be better lovers, and thus better followers of Jesus.

What if I’ve made a mess of it already? How can anyone, including God, love me now?

Love is broken in our world. That is no secret. And the more we seek to fix it by giving ourselves to others in ways that should be reserved for marriage, we feel guilty, isolated and lonely. Life feels hopeless and paralysed.

When some people brought a paralysed man to him in Mark 2:5 , Jesus, said, “Your sins are forgiven”. Jesus says the same to us. We are forgiven. We are made new. God joins a new fuse to the bomb so we can love again.

Paul, in Romans 8:38-39 says that nothing, anywhere, can separate us from God’s love. We are forgiven. We are loved. And that love is the greatest expression of love any of us can experience. That love makes us clean and whole, free to express and experience love as God intended, and free to be the good lovers we were created to be.

We then finished the series the same way we started it. We watched the Lump DVD by Rob Bell, part of the Nooma series of DVD’s. In it he tells the story of one of his sons being caught doing something wrong and, once found out, hides in his parents bed for over two hours. When Rob arrived home, he sat holding his boy, reassuring him that there was nothing that his son could do that would make Rob love his son less.

God says that to us. There’s nothing we can do that will make God love us less. Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Regardless of what is in our past (or even our present for that matter), God can redeem us, restore us and set us back on the path of life giving relationships.

To me, that seemed like a fitting place to end our series on the Song of Songs. I hope that it has been helpful in someway to you now, but even more so, I hope that it will be helpful for you in the future, when you are in a relationship and are wanting it to be the best it can be for you, for your partner and for God.

Love well!

Links to the Song of Songs Series:

• What is Love?
• The Guy thing
• The Girl Thing
• The Together Thing
• Dealing With Sexual Sin in Our Past
• Answering the Questions