Episode 1468: The Time of Singing Has Come

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1468 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Jeff Finney: I'm Jeff Finney, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talents, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to fire yourself and find freedom in your calling is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:25] the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer. Instead,

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: this reflection on this is the time of singing has come is not really about a season or a moment. It's about that pause that we take when we recognize the goodness of God and the benefits and the blessings that are in our life. And we lift them up and we say, it is Welcome and thank you [00:01:00] for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:03] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:31] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I begin talking about some wisdom literature with the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verses 8 through 13. I share how this is an exploration of the power of love, and I also talk about how this is about more than just this passage alone, but about the way it reflects on other scripture and on us.

[00:01:54] The Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verses 8 through 13 says, The voice of my beloved, [00:02:00] look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

[00:02:16] For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom. They give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. So over the next few weeks, I'm gonna begin some reflections on what is generally called to, called as the wisdom literature in the Bible.

[00:02:45] These are scriptures and passages and sections of the Bible that have something to do with what is considered life lessons or wisdom by many people or in different ways. This is about [00:03:00] looking and finding another path or another direction of looking at things in a different way. I think right now there's a lot in various seasons.

[00:03:09] This is the political season here in the U. S. and there's a lot of smear campaigns, violence, anger, exploitation, argument, and I'm looking to these to find a road less traveled. There's really nothing in many of these passages about Israel, or about the people of God, or even about God. In fact, there's many of these passages where you'll go through many books and not even see the word God anywhere inside it.

[00:03:38] It's a little different in a way. So these books, the Song of Solomon, the Proverbs, and Esther, are part of that section called the Wisdom Literature. The Wisdom Literature A lot of times these are looked at as more poetic and more reflective rather than history and moral instruction, which is what's present in [00:04:00] much of the Old Testament and the New Testament as loaned.

[00:04:04] It doesn't seem to have a particular agenda, but instead it's inviting us into a relationship with God and looking at all of the gifts that God has given us as tools to reflect back upon God's own nature, God's goodness, and desire for stewardship of the world. There are other books as well, Job and Psalms and others that are looked at as part of the wisdom.

[00:04:34] There's no real path in here to a particular Christian doctrine or denomination or a chronological or directional path towards spiritual growth. Instead, it's meant to be a lens through which we can look at the world and have the world reflect back to us and our relationship with God reflected as well.

[00:04:57] I think a lot of times when we look at these [00:05:00] things we're looking almost for a map or a direction or a pathway a self help book in a way. And yet, that's not really what the wisdom literature is. I think of the wisdom literature instead is looking up on Google or on Yelp or some other service, a set of reviews.

[00:05:20] If you think about it, if you want to know where to eat in a particular town. You don't pick up a map or look at your GPS on your phone and just start looking at the names of restaurants in the area, or at least most of us don't do that. Instead, you first turn to something, whether that's friends and families, or whether that's Google and Yelp, to find reviews, to get feedback.

[00:05:41] Because here's the thing, the restaurant may be the closest, but if it's got a one star review, that's probably not where you want to eat. So you look first for guidance, and then you find directions. The map comes second, and then you need this kind of [00:06:00] turn by turn GPS to help you navigate through it with traffic and changes and plans and all of those other things so that you can get there efficiently.

[00:06:10] So the prose and the poetry are not going to take the place of the laws and the liturgy. These scriptures don't take that role, they don't do that job, just like you might use a review differently than you would use a map, we should use these differently as well. The literature is there to come alongside other sorts of scripture and other experiences and inform and flavor those.

[00:06:41] So here we're starting with the Song of Solomon. It is considered great love poetry. It is about the intrinsic goodness and power of love. It never explicitly mentions God's names, and yet [00:07:00] we're looking at it through the lens of Christians and Jews, and they've interpreted that as being a message about the kind of love between God and humanity, us as people.

[00:07:12] The two lovers that are in dialogue throughout the book strive for each other with passion. But there's circumstances that seem to be keeping them apart. This first passage is when these first lovers first meet. The first moments where they know and admire each other somehow. That love at first sight kind of moment.

[00:07:35] It's mentioned that they've not yet spent time together. And yet there's in fact, a passage right before the one I read that says, I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or wild does do not store up or awaken love until it is ready. So there's even a passage in here about not going into love too quickly.

[00:07:57] And yet this romance [00:08:00] begins here in this next moment, in this context of the need for patient love. There's tons of imagery in the passage and sensory language. If you think about it, in these five verses, everything but the sense of taste is mentioned. There's sight, there's sounds, there's smells, there's all sorts of feelings and senses around them.

[00:08:27] It's not this sort of spiritual love that's nice in concept, but this is a real world love you can perceive. It's the strongest and purest love described in the strongest and purest of language. And of course, that's why it's taken to be connected to the kind of love that God has for us and that we are supposed to have for Him.

[00:08:56] At the same time, romance and love isn't [00:09:00] comforting for all of us. These ideas are sometimes will bring up negative emotions and feelings. Love and life don't often move at the pace we want for ourselves. They come up before we're ready and they go away before we're ready, oftentimes. And that's why one of the messages in this book is this idea of patience.

[00:09:20] This idea that time travels from one point to the next in a straight line is a very Western concept, but you also hear about cycles and spirals and spheres and circles for time, because this kind of time that God lives in doesn't really have a beginning and a middle and an end. Instead, this reflection on this is the time of singing has come is not really about a season or a moment.

[00:09:49] It's about that pause that we take when we recognize the goodness of God and the benefits and the blessings that are in our life and we lift them up [00:10:00] and we say, it. is good. Thanks for listening.

[00:10:11] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to Facebook. com slash Inspired Stewardship.

[00:10:36] And like our Facebook page and mark it that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there. Until next time, invest your time, Your talent and your treasures develop your [00:11:00] influence and impact the world.