Philip Graham Ryken

“The Song of Songs is like the box top for a jigsaw puzzle. When you dump the pieces on the table, they’re a total mess; you need a picture to help put them into place. The Song of Songs is a picture of love for people who are still figuring out how the pieces fit together. It doesn’t show us everything that’s broken, but mainly shows us the way things were always meant to be.”

Ryken undertakes one version of interpretation of the Biblical book Song of Solomon. He undergirds the book as a practical guide for relationships in light of KChrist’s love us especially centered on the love of Christ and the church as to that of the love experienced between a couple. One could call this Ryken’s mixtape on healthy love and relationships as there is a lot of direct application for married couples as well as those that are still single. Because of this, at times, it felt too pastoral though I can easily excuse this as he built it around his university context.

It is not a verse by verse commentary so much as a resource for contemplation and meditation than edification or preaching. In a few places, I felt it was tame and lacked the oomph in engaging with spiritual eroticism.

It is thick in experiential connection to Christ and even if you do not use the practical buide at the end each section lends itself to good meditation and contemplation.

Who might be interested: couples, single (healthy sexuality)

**This was a review copy**… (more)

Since 1 Corinthians 13 is one of my least favorite (=most guilt-inducing) chapters of Scripture, I wanted to read this book for a challenge. For some reason, though, I never particularly got into the book. I like Ryken's approach -- for each of Paul's definitions of "love," he does some basic exegesis, draws an illustration from the life of Jesus, and then applies it to the lives of Christians. His goal throughout is to demonstrate that Jesus is the only one who perfectly fulfills the definitions of love, and to drive us back to Jesus repeatedly as we are faced with our own failures to love. Only by knowing the love of Jesus in a deeper way can we be empowered to love others ourselves.

This Christ-focused reading of 1 Corinthians 13 wasn't new to me, but for someone who has never heard it before, I would think it could be very liberating and encouraging. Even though a lot of the book didn't stick with me (because of the writing style? I'm not sure why), I did find the "Love Waits" (love is patient/long-suffering) chapter beautiful. Ryken describes the unhurried way in which Jesus loves us, just as He tarried when He knew that Lazarus was dying, because He knew that by restoring Lazarus to life, He would be able to glorify God in a more complete way. "The delays of Christ turn out to be the delays of love." (81) He also makes the point, somewhere, that our impatience with others often says more about our need for sanctification than about our concern for what God is doing in them.… (more)

The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs looks at each verse of the Song of Songs, a book from the Bible. I always liked this book best, because I always saw it as a representation of an eternal and powerful love between God and a person. I believe it’s symbolically about a persons’ relationship with God. Our author goes a bit further. He describes some of the historical background and customs that are referred to in the Song of Songs, thus putting them into context. He also relates the Song of Songs to a monogamous love between a man and a woman. Although I do not agree with every single interpretation of the Song of Songs that he makes here, I find that this book might be a good one for meditation on these wonderful verses.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.… (more)