Setting sail in the Song

Today i started reading the Song of Soloman in my quiet times. I've just finished Matthew, where i've slowly been since the middle of March... It's been a great ride, but before the new year and the new church reading plan hits, i wanted to spend some time in the Old Testament.

Mark Driscoll has, of course, just started to preach through the book at Mars Hill, taking the meaning of the book to be the face value 'man and woman, sex and marriage meaning'. And fair enough, he's got a much bigger brain and a much quicker spirit than i have, but i'm not totally sure i'm on board with his take on it. So that was the other reason for spending some time in the Song, using Daniel Newman's notes to see if i could discern what it is about. Of course this is aside to the reason Christians read the Bible each day, to meet Jesus, to warm the heart and inform the mind.

I guess my starting thoughts are these:
The book is about Jesus somehow, the question is how.
Christ and the church came first, not marriage, therefore Christ and the church should come first in every illustration, probably.
How is the book about Christ if it's about sex and marriage first?
What did Soloman think when he was writing it?

I read from 1:1 to 2:8 this morning. It was great. I love the way the man and the woman express their love for eachother, and it is quite exciting to be able to express our love for Christ in that expressive way. That we could have that freedom to be able to articulate our love for Him and His for us like that. The illusions to the temple and the Garden are many in the first chapter and a half. But then so are the illustrations to support a man and a woman reading. These are two people very much in love!

So it seems so far, that whatever your view is of the book, there is enough to support it. But i think there will be enough to draw conclusions one way or the other. Mark Driscoll's series is well worth listening to, whether or not his reading of the book is right, it's still packed full of wisdom and great advice. I'm looking forward to tomorrow...