Seems like the association with wine, and joy (gladness of heart) is a reoccurring theme in the comments here. :-D

(Which is why I enjoy these comments so much.You all help fill in gaps by bringing in other applicable scriptures, songs, stories, etc., and I always learn something.)

Speaking of, thanks for sharing your story with the Tina Turner song. I’m newly discovering such songs, and enjoyed going to YouTube and listening to it. (found this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqDZOekUDzE )

It’s incredible, really. No human love can remotely match such words that she speaks about. For awhile it may seem to – but only divine love never fails.

Our Lover IS simply the best, and yet how exciting it is to think too, as Frank Sinatra says, “The best (in Him) is yet to come.” :-D

I remember the time when my heart become powerfully affected by the love of Christ,
when, for the first time, realizing something of the preciousness of His love.
His love surpasses all. And so “ though ten thousand loves may be, Lord, You are the chiefest among ten thousand”
Many years ago, filled with the joy of the Spirit, one day I burst singing Tina Turner’s song “You are simply The Best” ( my version)

You’re simply the Best
Better than all the rest,
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Jesus you rock my world.
Oh, You set my heart free
I live in You and You in me,
And there is no better place
O You’re simply The Best!

“hints at the profound, the pleasurable, a wedding context, the best was yet to come, held at the end.”

WOW. If that string of words don’t summarize the Song of Songs, I don’t know what does! 😯🔥

Thank you for your comment. If anyone is a master of the nuances of wine, it would be you. ;-)

Here’s to speaking the truth in love! 🍷

C.S. Lewis described Eros as one of the Four Loves, that it can uniquely lead you to believe that it is the highest, most enthralling or esquisite of them all, but it was meant for bonding. Agape is above it, and we do understand that it these pleasures have their place, but God’s higher love transcends, and encompasses that rapture.

A point: one thing in common with drinking and the H.S. is the phenomena of speaking truthfully, without a self-protective filter. Only the one who has said “too much” from alcohol regrets it later.

Well said all.

Throughout the Song there are similar invitations to “hear his voice,” and “open the door.” So that connection to Rev. 3:20 is quite striking! And what you said in the first part of your comment jumped out at me, because just this morning I read the words of Jesus that talked about wine and wineskins. In the Passion Translations, Luke verse 5:38-39 says it like this:

“New wine must always be poured into new wineskins. Yet you [i.e. the religious leaders/law-keepers] say, ‘The old ways are better,” and you refuse to even taste the new that I bring.'” 😲

That’s yet another way to express why the Song is so hard to understand. Because it is wrapped up in such intimate, relational language, it especially need the lens of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom of grace to properly interpret it. It just cannot be put into old wineskins of traditional “churchianity,” as you talked about. It’s being tried of course, but it’s bursting out of its confines 🎉 Praise God!

Ha, that lens is a sure fire to trip up. While dancing, of course. ;-) And thank you for the insight into the wine being a symbol of joy. If wine needs pressure/pressing, and time to mature – then that makes joy much more than a shallow, fleeting feeling. I like that!

If believers – the body at large – were ever to take this fundamental truth to the heart – that of transitioning from externalized religious rituals that never do a thing – to taking the Holy Spirit to heart and yielding our unclean flesh to Him – the practice of our faith in this world would transform radically and look nothing like the traditional Christianity practiced today.

Far too much emphasis is put on “form” and too little on “content”. Habitually traditional Christianity externalizes and makes rituals of that which the Messiah intended for us to take personally and internally. It grieves me just how badly traditional Christianity has missed the point.

And thus Revelation 3:20, like the SoS, our Lover is there calling to us, where if we hear His voice and open the door, He will “come into us” … funny how it doesn’t say the Son will come into that church and unto everyone, JUST the one who hears His voice and opens the door – whereupon the Son enters into Him who hears opens the door. And that place He enters in? Our very being? The Kingdom of God – like a beautiful garden of delights – unfolding within our being?

Pam, doesn’t it seem like Revelation 3:20 is potentially another expression of the SoS? Of He who plants and tends the garden coming to us with intent to make a beautiful living and growing thing within us – with Him in the midst of it all?

Love you sister! Jack

If anyone else has any thoughts about this subject, or on the metaphor of wine, love, etc. please jump in. There is so much depth in the text, that I’m not able to cover in these posts, and it’s always helpful and refreshing to hear other people’s perspectives. :-)