Hey friends, Emma here. I've been out sick over the last few days, so good friends of the podcast, Nathan Wagnon and Hannah Stobbs, jumped in.

That said, throughout the next few days, you'll get to hear snippets of their conversations, and I'll add some of my own commentary, so the episodes may be a tiny bit longer.

As we start the Book of Song of Solomon, I wanted to give you a heads up that the

content is, in nature, very adult. In fact, during the days of the early church, young boys were not

allowed to read Song of Solomon until they had thoroughly studied and sometimes memorized

all of the Pentateuch, all of the historical books, all of the prophets,

except Ezekiel, and all of the poetical books. Once they had done this, then they could study

Song of Solomon. So that said, if you're listening with children or minors around or nearby,

we'd recommend you listen by yourself first before

listening with kids. And before we jump into Nathan and Hannah's conversation, here are three things

I want us to remember. Number one, some scholars believe Solomon wrote it, others don't. No matter

what you think in regard to authorship, we are certain the book belongs in our

Bibles. Number two, this book is full of poetry with a lot of springtime imagery depicting a romantic

relationship between a man and a woman. And number three, in the ancient Near East, there was a lot

of sexual dysfunction.

People operated outside of God's design, but this book celebrates God's design and the

book provides a clear standard of God's design for sexual love.

Let's jump in.

All right now, if we're honest, reading the Bible consistently can be a challenge, but it's never

too late to start, and we're in this together. This is the Join the Journey podcast.

So let's just jump into Song or Song of someone one. Why have a whole book of the Bible dedicated

to romantic love? Why do you think of that? Yeah, yeah, totally. So in the ancient

...