If Solomon Talked About Sex, Why Can't We?

What the Bible Says

While it seems no subject is off-limits in public conversation today, not that many years ago there were boundaries. Sex, religion, and politics were the big three that were reserved for private discussions—but not always for the right reasons. The Bible doesn’t shy away from any topic that is common to human experience and neither should we. The difference between the Bible and our cultural communication is one word: context. The Bible puts every topic in its appropriate context, providing reasons and results from God’s perspective.

In What the Bible Says About Love, Marriage, and Sex, Pastor David Jeremiah brings his well-known love affair with Scripture to the Song of Solomon and leads a verse-by-verse tour of the sacred domain of God-given love. Here’s what he has to say about the physical side of love and how God gave it to us as a precious gift!

Love Was God's Idea!

“Can you remember the first time you discovered there was sex in the Bible?” asks Pastor Jeremiah. “More than one young or new Christian has been shocked while perusing the pages of the Old Testament book called Song of Solomon. It says next to nothing about God and seems way too racy to be included in a book about Him. And that shock points out a problem: We’ve allowed the world to hijack something beautiful and God-given and to turn it into something tawdry.

In our reaction to what the world has done with sex and love, we have forgotten a biblical truth: Sex and passionate, romantic love are God’s ideas! And in the right setting (there’s the context thing), romantic love between a husband and wife is highly charged, amazingly beautiful, and unapologetically physical.”

Nothing to Be Ashamed Of

In today’s world, writes Pastor Jeremiah, you or I might be embarrassed to have a love story like Solomon’s broadcast it to the whole world in the Bible. But Solomon wasn’t. There’s not a thing in the Song of Solomon to be ashamed of. Indeed, you and I can learn a lot about human love and passion from the young king who not only knew how to romance his beloved but how to write about it as well.

“That’s why I love the Bible,” writes Pastor Jeremiah. “It doesn’t dress up for us; it wears the truth just the way we experience it in life. It deals with those topics we’re afraid to talk about in public or put into prayer requests. I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible rather than somebody’s proper old great-great-great aunt who lived in Victorian England, as fine a soul as that great aunt might have been.”

The Pinnacle of Christian Fellowship

If you or I had written the Bible, we might have taken great pains to make its characters look prim and proper—instead of human. The Bible pulls back the curtain in every area of life, whether sinful or graceful, and sets the stage for God’s grace to come in and sanctify the act or correct it. And in Song of Solomon, we get the God-blessed record of marital love in all its glory.

There are many common misconceptions about the biblical view of sex, love, and marriage. What God has wanted us to understand from the beginning is profoundly, breathtakingly beautiful. It was the apostle Paul, in the New Testament, who clearly delineated the relationship between earthly love and heavenly love. In Ephesians 5:22-23, he demonstrated that the bond between husband and wife is an earthly picture of a heavenly reality: the bond between Christ and His church. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves His bride, the church. Can you imagine how lovely our marriages would be if every husband sought to love his wife as Christ loves His church? Can you imagine what a passionate, lovely place the church would be if we brought to it the devotion of a young married couple deeply committed to one another? Marital love, then, is inherently spiritual, just as true Christian fellowship (and marriage is the pinnacle of Christian fellowship) is intensely passionate and committed.

No Apology Needed!

In teaching the Bible, we should try to say what God says without apology. But too often, as culture and tradition press their dictates upon us, we lose God’s voice; we tone down or ramp up His words. For instance, the early church leaders took Paul’s teaching about marriage from Ephesians to heart. They enshrined marriage as a spiritual sacrament that ennobles sexual intimacy between husband and wife, particularly for purposes of procreation. But church leaders lost or misplaced the idea of marriage as a holy sacrament— though they saw its value for the procreation of families and as a hedge against immorality.

As a result, the church lost that elevated image of sex as a good gift of God, an ongoing symbol of the depth of joy reflecting Christ’s powerful love for His church. People began to see marital sex as a matter of satisfying physical desires or procreation which were at best the simple baggage of being human. Sex in marriage became little more than a human means to an end; the notion of its divine heritage seemed to have been lost.

Marriage Is Honorable

Sexuality has become a very confusing subject, laden with anxiety, for Christians today. Hebrews 13:4 captures the two-sided approach to the subject: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” In his powerful paraphrase of the Bible called The Message¸ Eugene Peterson puts that verse this way: “Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.”

Have those two views (sacred and sinful) gotten equal time in church? Probably not. Most people I know would agree that it’s the second part, the part about casual and illicit sex, with which we’ve been preoccupied. Preachers (myself included) have done our job proclaiming the dangers of misusing God’s gift of sex, and rightfully so. But we’ve avoided saying all that should have been said about “the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband.” You could say we have thrown out the baby of beautiful, marital sex with the bathwater of immoral, thoughtless sex. In our attempts to guard against the one, we have left people confused about the other.

What the Bible Says

God blesses sexual love within marriage. And that’s not an isolated verse; this message is consistent throughout the Scriptures. Solomon himself wrote in Proverbs — again, in plain language that invites us to do likewise — about the basic goodness of sex: Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love.

God is the architect of everything, including sexual intimacy within marriage. It is at the very foundation of human design; where else could it have come from? He made it good, and He made it pleasing for us, and we should not try to cover up or forget that fact. It’s like looking at a sunset over the Rocky Mountains and trying to convince ourselves the view is ugly and unworthy. This is something God made, and to be frank about it, one of the most exciting gifts of all! Shame comes only in the misuse of the gift.

^{Artwork: “Le Belle Dame Sans Merci” by Genero Dicksee}

Context Is So Important

Why should we blush over this subject? God devoted a whole book of the Bible to present the context in which sexual love and romance find their fullest expression. The Song of Solomon is part of the Bible—the same Bible that houses the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, the Psalms, and every other inspired portion that we dearly love. It’s time to stop the blushing and find the blessing.

There’s an intriguing little reference in 1 Kings 4:32. It tells us that Solomon wrote a total of one thousand and five songs. From that large field, he selected his chart-topper, his all-time greatest hit. This is why, in Song of Solomon 1:1, Solomon himself refers to this song as “Solomon’s Song of Songs.” Whatever he found to write about in those other one thousand and four, this love ballad is the one he felt to be his ultimate. More importantly, the Holy Spirit inspired it for all of eternity, intending for hundreds of generations before you, and many yet to be born, to read its words. That makes it a number-one hit on my personal charts.

What the Bible Says

If we plunge right in and read the fervent words of devotion, we’re initially taken aback. But when we know who these people are, the words begin to come to life. So let’s meet the two protagonists in this romance. First, of course, is Solomon, the lover. He is the second son of David and Bathsheba, the king of a nation at its historic peak of power. As a young man he asked God for wisdom, and His wish was granted. And the object of his Song? Let’s go with tradition and give her the name of Shulamith. The root word means “the perfect, the peaceful.” We only know about her what we can gather from the meager scattering of clues in The Song.

We do know that she came from the village of Shunem, located in northeastern Israel, in the territory given to Issachar. She lived and worked among the vineyards there, her skin richly tanned in the manner of those who toil in the sun. We learn that she is Solomon’s beloved.

Solomon has already attained tremendous wealth and power, owning vineyards all over Israel. One day the young king happens to be in the vicinity of the Lebanon Mountains, the setting for one of his vineyards. He is there inspecting the vines when a young lady catches his eye. Against the backdrop of the green grapes and the blue sky she is a vision of loveliness, and Solomon is captivated. He knows he will return to these vines more frequently courting this beautiful girl who outshines all the women of Israel.

^{Artwork: Sir William Russell-Flint's "Song of Solomon" (1909)}

Thoughtful and Virtuous

Inevitably the marriage proposal is made. Considering this is the son of David offering his love, few women would hesitate a fraction of a second before accepting. Shulamith shows herself to be thoughtful and virtuous by giving the matter some thought. Does she really love him? Can she, a country girl, be happy in the elevated palace of bustling Jerusalem? She concludes that the answer to both questions is yes, though the changes to her simple life will be staggering. Soon the happy couple is traveling to the holy city in an elegant wedding processional.

In the first chapter of the Song, Shulamith is in the midst of her wedding plans, but her heart is already longing for her groom. In lyric poetry, we read about her desire for Solomon, then the wedding, and its night of love. The details are there, captured elegantly rather than crassly. This comprises the first half—we might say the first act—of the Song of Solomon. Act II is all about the joy and tribulation of marriage itself. Isn’t that just the way love is for you and me? Love is terrific, but love is always tested.

More Than Starry Eyes

Usually in the age of adolescence we “fall in love” for the first time and it brings the giddiest of life’s emotions. We do and say things we might not consider at any other time. For those of us who observe first-time lovers, it can be a bit amusing and delightful to behold. (But we shouldn’t forget we were once those starry-eyed lovers ourselves, and maybe still are.) Look at the first words of Shulamith: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is better than wine.” The curtain has barely opened and already the passion is pouring forth. Welcome to the Song of Solomon! The bride-in-waiting doesn’t shyly request a polite peck on the cheek.

Real love is more than a moment of passion; it is the most comprehensive and inclusive emotion known to man. It may be expressed in a kiss, but Shulamith suggests that love is expressed in several other ways.

The Physical

This issue of physical appearance is another confused one for Christians. Early in my ministry, many evangelical churches could be astonishingly legalistic about what women should or should not wear to church. Some were vigilant to make sure that if any lipstick was worn, it wasn’t brighter than modern lip gloss—it had a shine but no real color. And rouge? We would have to squint to see it. Conservative churchgoers tolerated “painted women” as well as they did the idea of drums in church. Times change, and as long as we can reasonably see that we’re not violating scriptural standards, we have some room to change with the times. Our bodies are like a tasteful frame surrounding a beautiful painting. The frame can detract from the painting by being either shabby or gaudy. And we can draw attention to ourselves and away from Christ by being unkempt or unattractive on the one hand, or too extravagant on the other. Based on the principles in 1 Peter 3:1-6, I believe the apostle would have us to be “appropriate” in appearance— without setting rules which long to be broken. Both Peter and the Old Testament prophet Samuel call us to give the most attention to the hidden person of the heart (1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Peter 3:4).

A Profound Mystery

Intimacy is carefully crafted by God to take in the spiritual, emotional, and physical realms of the human experience. In most cases it begins as a physical attraction for us. Time proves to us that this initial bodily impulse is a very small part of the total package. Solomon’s Song is going to teach us that everything about us is bound up in our love—and love will change everything about us. That’s why it is so powerful in our lives. Intimacy includes sexuality, but it is so much more. Shulamith noticed the fragrance of Solomon’s grooming, and then she noticed the fragrance of his popularity. She loved her man with heart, mind, and soul. Love begins with the obvious, physical things and continues to plumb greater depths as long as we share and nurture our relationship. It remains a delightful, profound mystery, but one that educates us in so many ways.

What the Bible Says

Human love is better than anything in this world with one exception: God’s love. His love is outrageously wonderful—precious beyond value, yet totally free. No other words in this book will be more important for you to understand.

If ever the world needed a refresher on the power, promise, and passion of marital love, the time is now—and Song of Solomon is the book. With unabashed candor and unfettered access, Solomon tells the world’s most beautiful story of marital courtship and consummation, the ups as well as the downs of two becoming one.

In What the Bible Says About Love, Marriage, and Sex, Pastor David Jeremiah brings his well-known love affair with Scripture to the Song of Solomon and leads a verse-by-verse tour of the sacred domain of God-given love.

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^{Image: Medieval woodcut illustration of the Song of Solomon, artist unknown}