Sermon – A Festal Garment (Song of Songs)

Song of Songs Series Graphic

Do you love a good party? Go back a millennium and you may have found yourself at an Israelite party – or ‘festival’ to be more accurate. Israel as the people for God conducted festivals which celebrated or reminded them of what God had done for his people. At these festivals they would read out one of their (Old Testament) scrolls – Ruth at Pentecost, Song of Songs and Passover, Ecclesiastes at the Feast of Tabernacles, Esther at Purim and Lamentations at the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem. This custom was not continued by the Christian church.

Yet these little books exist in our Bible and it is not often that you hear them preached. So, in our Five Festal Garments series we are going to look at these little biblical treasure troves and see what Christians can learn today as we get dressed to live godly lives.

Let’s look at the Book of Song of Songs

Read the Bible text – Song of Songs

– Ben Smith

 

 

Sermon – Good Sex (Song of Songs#2)

In this, second of five sermons, Des Smith shows how Song of Songs vividly endorses God’s positive view of sex within the context of faithful heterosexual marriage. He also explains how God is “pro-creation” – that everything God created is good if it is received with thankfulness.

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Read the Bible text: Song of Songs 4:1 – 5:12 , 1 Timothy 4:1-5

Sermon Script

English Support Handout

Upholding Singleness

Song of Songs is a beautiful book that millions of Christians, both single and married, have read and studied with great profit. However, for some – and in particular those not currently in a relationship – it can be difficult.

In any church family there will be folk who are single – those who have never been married and those who have been married and are now single. Due to a breakdown in relationship, divorce, death of a spouse, a struggle against same-sex attraction, or other reason, Song of Songs may push some unhappy buttons.

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Sermon – True Romance (Song of Songs#1)

In this, the first of five sermons, Des Smith explores “the strangest book in the Bible”. In what appears to be a graphic and intense love poem Des explains how human romantic love points to a bigger love story for the whole world – between God and people. Song of Songs is indeed about one man and one woman, as well as men and women, and way they love each other. But that reality – romantic love and life-long commitment that is reflected in marriage – is a picture God placed in world to point towards the ultimate reality of his love for us. A love shown in the gospel as His Son died on a cross. In this sense Song of Songs is book for everyone because it ultimately points to the love of God for everyone.

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Listen to the Sermon

Read the Bible text: Song of Songs 1:1 to 2:2 , Genesis 2:15-25

Sermon Script

English Support Handout