This week, Scott Freeman, Community Group Pastor, answers a question from Katie in Greenville.
In
light of Matt's book....Understanding that
the Bible is God-breathed, aside from Solomon's wide range of experience (i.e. many wives and
concubines), what gives him credibility as the expert on how lovers should behave within a
committed marriage?
This is a
great question. There is no getting
around the fact that monogamy was not one of Solomon’s strong points. 1 Kings 11:3 says, “He (Solomon) had 700 wives
of royal birth and 300 concubines.”
Wow. Do you think he knew all of
their names and remembered all of their birthdays and anniversaries?
God had
warned Solomon specifically against marrying foreign women and verse 3
continues by saying, “in fact, they did turn his heart away from the
Lord.” While the thought of Solomon
having so many wives is difficult for us to comprehend, we can’t automatically
eliminate him as a credible source for us with regards to relationships. Throughout
scripture, we see a definite pattern of God using ordinary, sinful individuals
to teach us lessons about how we are to act.
Just over the past few weeks in our 1 Kings series we have learned great
lessons from King David, who was an adulterer and murderer. We would also be well served to model parts
of our lives after Moses, Noah, Paul, etc., despite the fact that each of these
men had obvious areas of sin in their lives.
Matt’s book,
Eden Derailed, goes into great detail about the biblical model for
marriage and how the idea of Oneness can be traced all the way back to the
garden in Genesis. There are also many
practical reasons that could be given for why a monogamous, committed
relationship is ideal. Ultimately however,
the reason that
Solomon has credibility is that God recognizes him as credible. As mentioned in the question,
the Bible is “god-breathed.” We are also
told in 2 Timothy 3:16 that ALL scripture is “profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” There are many other claims throughout the
Bible that the words of scripture are from God.
Jesus himself gives credibility to the scriptures by quoting them
repeatedly during his ministry on earth.
This lets us know that despite Solomon’s history of bad choices in
relationships, we can trust in the principles taught in Song of Solomon because
God ordains them.
By including the book,
Song of Solomon, in the scriptures, it is almost as if God is saying, “Solomon
had a lot of wives and made a ton of mistakes.
There were a lot of consequences for his sinful actions. He wasn’t perfect… but in this relationship,
the one described in detail in Song of Solomon, he finally got it right. This is how it is supposed to be. This is what marriage SHOULD be.”