​Song of Solomon 8:14 (The Passion Translation)
 
   THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDE IN DIVINE DUET
 
     Arise, my darling! Come quickly, my beloved. Come and be the graceful gazelle with
     me.
     Come be like a dancing deer with me.
     We will dance in the high place of the sky, yes, on the mountains of fragrant spice.
     Forever we shall be united as one!
 
The Lord likes to speak to me mostly in visions. On several occasions He has shown me short clips of me dancing around the world with Him. But when I read “We will dance in the high place of the sky, yes, on the mountains of fragrant spice,” today I know He is speaking to me about my beloved Brittany, my first-born granddaughter. I know she is in heaven, that high place in the sky, because she surrendered her life to Jesus Christ weeks before her death. Just to be sure, I asked the Lord the day after she died, where was she right at that moment. He responded, “She’s dancing with me.” Then He expanded the vision not only to show His face speaking to me, but to show me the two of them dancing together.

​Song of Solomon 8:10–13 (The Passion Translation)
 
   THE SHULAMITE BRIDE
     10 But now I have grown and become a bride, and my love for him has made me a
        tower of passion and contentment for my beloved. I am now a firm wall of pro-
       tection for others, guarding them from harm.
       This is how he sees me – I am the one who brings him bliss, finding favor in his eyes.
    11 My bridegroom-king has a vineyard of love made from a multitude of followers. His
       caretakers of this vineyard have given my beloved their best.
 
   TO SOLOMON
     12 But as for my own vineyard of love, I give it all to you forever. And I will give double
       honor to those who serve my beloved and have watched over my soul.
 
   THE BELOVED
     13 My beloved, one with me in my garden, how marvelous that my friends, the brides-
​       to-be, now hear your voice and song. Let me now hear it again.

Song of Solomon 8:8, 9 (The Passion Translation)
 
   THE SHULAMITE’S BROTHERS
 
     8 My brothers said to me when I was young, “Our sister is so immature.
      What will we do to guard her for her wedding day?”
 
   THE BRIDEGROOM-KING
 
     9 We will build a tower of redemption to protect her.
      Since she is vulnerable, we will enclose her with a wall of cedar boards.
 
Oh, how I wish girls were protected today. God made us to have absolute bliss, joy and yes, even fun for our wedding day and forever after. But by the time most girls marry, they have lost their virginity and have had a variety of partners. The joy of discovery with their husbands has been ruined.

Song of Songs, 8:5–7 (The Passion Translation)
 
   A RELATIVE

     5 Who is this one? Look at her now! She arises out of her desert, clinging to her
     beloved. When I awakened you under the apple tree, as you were feasting upon me, I
     awakened your innermost being with the travail of birth as you longed for more of
​     me.
 
   THE SHULAMITE TO HER BELOVED
 
     6 Fasten me upon your heart as a seal of fire forevermore. My passion is stronger
      than the chains of death and the grave, all consuming as the very flashes of fire
      from the burning heart of God. Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire
     being. Rivers of pain and persecution will never extinguish this flame.
 
    7 Endless floods will be unable to quench this raging fire that burns within you.
     Everything will be consumed. It will stop at nothing as you yield everything to this
​     furious fire until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.

​Song of Solomon 8:5
 
     I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my love, until
     he please.
 
Look at the way our generation is stirring up love. Girls wear as little clothing as possible, exposing that which should be saved for the husband, the Beloved. Men also show off their bodies. In both cases they are advertising they are ready for sex anytime anyone wants to take them up on the offer. How society has cheapened this most marvelous gift of God. What will happen to these? Some say that with each coitus, a blood covenant is formed, and the participants of these blood covenants, are bound together, perhaps for eternity. Take note of where you are in this adventure of sex and change what needs to be changed in order to live out God’s delight in your intimacy and depth of love.

Song of Solomon 8:1–3
 
1 If only I could show everyone this passionate desire I have for you. If only I could express it fully, no matter who was watching me, without shame or embarrassment. 2 I long to bring you to my innermost chamber—this holy sanctuary you have formed within me. O that I might carry you within me. I would give you the spaced wine of my love, this full cup of bliss that we share. We would drink our fill until…  3 his left hand cradles my head while his right hand holds me close. We are at rest in this love.
 
This is the Shulamite’s response to the Beloved’s expression of love. God designed mankind, built us for our bodies, joined together, to be one, and He anticipates we will love each other like these two individuals.
 
Unfortunately, society has forced and endorsed sex outside of marriage. God’s plan was for a virgin man and a virgin woman to marry, and on the wedding night, begin the discovery of each other that is so intimate no one else can participate with them. All their lives the couple would design and practice more and more ways of loving one another, achieving the beautiful descriptions given to us in Proverbs 7 and 8. But with multiple partners and the furtiveness of their coming together, sex has become dull, nothing more than an act.
 

​Song of Solomon 7
 
Chapter seven of the book of Song of Solomon is a book of Passion. The greatest passion on earth, enjoyed by earthly beings, is the passion of lovemaking. This chapter is the best description of that passion that I have ever read. When I visited Tanzania, I took a safari and came across two lions making love. Up until this moment, I would have said it was unfair to make the female lion do all the hunting and the killing, the birth giving, and the child-raising, until I witnessed their love life.
 
The male gave five efforts and fell to the ground absolutely exhausted.  I learned later he had to service all the females in his tribe, which, indeed could be quite fatiguing. She, however, rolled onto her back and shook for at least fifteen minutes.  I changed my mind at that point; maybe it wasn’t so bad being a female lion.

​Song of Solomon 4–13
 
In chapter six of the book of Song of Solomon, verses 4-13 are the Beloved’s response to the Daughters of Jerusalem. He proclaims the Shulamite’s beauty once again. He challenges the chorus to find anyone as fine as this one. Jesus didn’t come to the earth to form churches. He came to earth to create personal, intimate relationships with each member of the Body of Christ, first with the Father, then with Himself, and then with the Holy Spirit. He finishes by saying the love between Himself and the Shulamite has the strength of two armies.
 

Song of Solomon 6:2
 
     “My beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the
​      gardens, and to gather lilies.”
 
The Shulamite has already confessed she doesn’t know where he is. She went hunting for him and couldn’t find him, yet she tells the congregation he has gone to work. Why does she keep this information from them? Perhaps so they will not outrun her and grab the goods before she can get to him. Some churches are very competitive. According to the Bible, the only race we run is against ourselves so that we will get better and better, becoming more and more His Masterpiece.
 

Song of Solomon 6:1
 
     “The Daughters of Jerusalem, where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women?
​      Where has your beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with you?”
 
The Daughters of Jerusalem may have been a chorus, a staging technique for writing in that day, kind of like a narrator of today. This choir is not necessarily a benefit to the beloved, though the church, the Body of Christ, should stand behind each one in the congregation with a problem in their lives. Don’t we all have problems in our lives? We need the church, that is, a good church.