Recently I was
prompted by some discussions I've been a part of to think more about the
importance of sharing about sexuality in the context of the church. I believe
if we can't talk about sex in the context of the church, Scripture, and the
fellowship of believers, then where can we talk about it? Where can our young
people talk about it? And, of course, we need to learn to talk about sex with
our children as well, because if we don't teach them, they will learn it from
places we don't feel good about.
So a little
more about the gift of sex, because that's really what it is, a gift from God.
When God looked at his creation in Genesis 1, after he had made man and woman
in his image, he said, "It's VERY good." We are created male and
female in God's image...girls have special bodies and boys have special bodies
and God planned it that way.
When girls and
boys get to be teenagers, something interesting happens. Their bodies change
and they start to have a new interest in each other; we call this attraction.
Like magnets, they start to feel pulled toward a special person.
When we reach
late teenage, young adult years, we zero in on a special person and we
eventually want to get married, and we show our love by being together, by
being close and touching (hugs and kisses), we get married, and in many cases
we begin a family, a further expression of our love as man and woman.
God made us
with feelings and the capacity to show our feelings of love to that special
man/woman in our lives.
And in God's
Word we find the Song of Songs - in our Bibles! The language is about marriage;
the language is so beautiful and so descriptive we usually don't read it in
church. The text is sexual and it celebrates the gift of sex in marriage. I
often suggest to engaged couples that they consider, maybe in the first weeks
of marriage, reading this together, taking the lover and the beloved voice
parts.
Some
theologians over the years have tried to say this book is an allegory of Christ
and the Church, but I don't think so. It is much too graphic and suggestive for
that. It is about the passionate sexual love between a husband and wife and is
blessed by God. Even though it may use imagery that is a bit out of date for
us:
● A lover
who says his beloved's hair is like a flock of goats, "your teeth are like
a flock of shorn sheep...your temples are like the halves of a
pomegranate...your neck is like the tower of David...your breasts are like two
fawns, twins of a gazelle."
● A
beloved (the woman) who says of her lover: "His head is purest gold...his
eyes are like doves...cheeks like beds of spice...lips like lilies, dripping
with myrrh."
Yet this book
also teaches the beauty of affirmation, of recognition of beauty in each other,
and stating it verbally. This is one thing that so often lacks in marriages -
the verbal affirmation of each other and the thankfulness each has for the gift
they find in the other.
And so it is
important to understand that sex is a gift from God and as married persons,
sexual intimacy is a part of our relationship that we naturally expect to
enjoy, as is our right and privilege. If we are having difficulties or
conflicts in our marriages around the issue of sex, whatever the issue may be,
it is good to seek outside help to find answers to our questions.
In my next blog
post I will conclude this series on sexuality by looking at some factors that
cloud or damage our awareness of others and ourselves as sexual beings, created
in God’s image.
Tom Horst,
Therapist, New Hope Community Life Ministry
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