Introduction

Does God Have
Anything to Say
About Love, Sex,
and Intimacy?

Several years ago I was driving down a major street in my city when I noticed one of the girls from our congregation walking on the sidewalk. Actually she was floating, almost gliding along the street as if carried by wings. She had euphoria written on her face. She was in this world, a real person, but she might as well have been a million miles away. And I knew the reason for all this—she was in love.

I called out to her from my car, asking her if she needed a ride. She answered, “No, but thank you. I’ll just walk.”

She was walking on a cloud, and she wanted to enjoy every step of the journey. I knew exactly how she felt. I’ve been there.

Several months later while I was preaching, I saw her sitting out in the congregation. Her demeanor shocked me so much that I had to pause in my message for a moment and regather my thoughts. After the service was over, I made my way to her. Her countenance was filled with bitterness, anger, hurt, pain, and grief.

I asked only a couple of questions, but her answers revealed volumes. She and her boyfriend had broken off their relationship, but not before they had fallen into immorality. Her heart was broken. She was sorry, guilt-stricken, angry at him, angry at herself, hurt that she had been deceived, and hurt that she had loved so deeply only to be disappointed and rejected. She felt utterly betrayed, not only by this young man, but also by life in general.

Have you ever experienced what this young woman experienced? Have you ever gone through tears and heartache in your relationship with a person you loved? Have you ever been wounded deep within your being by a sexual encounter?

For many young people I know, issues related to love, sex, and intimacy are a mystery. They almost feel as if the world has a secret about these things that they haven’t been told. Certainly they haven’t heard much about these issues in church. A sermon on sex? A Bible teaching on romance? A practical Sunday school lesson on love and dating?

I can almost see the smile on your face. “But, Tommy,” you are probably saying, “the Bible doesn’t have anything to say on such matters! It has a lot of ‘thou shalt not’s’ but no ‘this is what thou shalt do’s’ when it comes to sex.”

Ah, but you’re wrong. The Bible does have a great deal of practical and explicit teaching about love, sex, and intimacy. In fact, one entire book of the Bible is devoted to these very issues!

Do you really think that God would give His beloved creations, man and woman, the wonderful feeling we call romance, an institution as mysterious as marriage, and the marvelous passion we know in sexual intimacy and then not have anything to say about these gifts to us? Do you think God would allow men and women to marry and then toss them a grenade called intimacy and say to them, “Well, just fiddle around a little with this and you’ll figure out how to work it”? No, indeed not.

The same God who has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, the same God who calls us to righteousness, holiness, and a life without compromise, the same God who forgives sin and guides those who seek wisdom, this same God is the foremost expert on your need for romance, your sex drive, and your future or current marriage. Based on what He knows about us and desires for us, He has provided an instruction manual so that we might truly live with the joy and intensity of satisfaction that He created us to experience.

That instruction manual of God is the book of the Bible titled the Song of Solomon or, perhaps in your version, the Song of Songs—eight power-packed, very explicit, and highly practical chapters on the topics of love, sex, and intimacy. “Why haven’t I ever heard about this?” you may ask.

For many people, the Song of Solomon is the mystery book of the Bible. Tucked among the books of the Bible in the section called the Wisdom Literature, the Song of Solomon has the distinction of being the only book of the Bible that seems to have been edited and censured by the Christian church. Most Christians don’t read it, don’t understand it, and have never heard a sermon from it.

Yet no message could be more needed today. The Song of Solomon is the book for this generation, in my opinion.

This book takes a specific couple and gives seven snapshots related to attraction, dating, courtship, sexuality, and marriage. In two of the chapters, we watch the couple fight and resolve their conflict. We see how their devotion deepens the longer they are married. We encounter the entire scope of their romantic and sexual relationship, from their first meeting to their passion within marriage. And all along the way, we see that there is something divine in their union. They both experience desire and passion, and yet their desire is always in the right context and timing. A passionate fire builds between them, and that fire is maintained throughout their relationship.

Don’t we all desire to love someone passionately, to be loved in return with the same intensity, and to see this love rekindled throughout the years? The heartening news of the Song of Solomon is that God desires for you to experience this kind of ecstasy and enjoy a long-lasting, satisfying love with a spouse.

“But how detailed can God be in a book of the Bible?” you may wonder.

Very detailed. Very graphic. In fact, downright steamy at times. I once taught this book at the Theta Chi fraternity house at the University of North Texas, and as I began to describe the details in one particular passage, one of the guys on the front row looked down at the open book on his lap, then very slowly closed the book just to make sure that it still said “Holy Bible” on the cover!

The material in the Song of Solomon is more detailed, more challenging, and more exciting than any marriage conference I’ve ever attended. I’ve never found a guide to love, romance, and sex that is any more profound or any more applicable to real life.

A young man once asked me, “Well, how much can you trust a book that has been written by a guy who had seven hundred wives?”

My answer was simple. “Hey, who should know better?”

It is very often the person who has been on the opposite side of good who knows the most about good. If you want a songwriter who can tell you how best to praise and worship a merciful and faithful God, who better to get than a guy like David who committed murder and adultery and yet still knew the mercy and forgiveness of God? If you want a teacher who can tell you about the shortcomings of the law compared to God’s grace, who better to get than a guy like Paul who helped kill the first Christian martyr and harshly persecuted the church, only to be saved by grace and transformed by the power of God’s indwelling presence? If you want a person who knows the most about purity of love, sacrificial love, and lasting love, who better to consult than a guy like Solomon? The song that he gave us is about a holy love, one that is distinct and exclusive from all others in the lives of the two people involved. It is a song about a young woman from a lowly place who fell in love with a prince, and he in turn with her. It is a song about the very essence of a passionate and committed relationship.

There is no other book like it. And there is no more important book for you to read and understand if you have any interest whatsoever in what God thinks about love, sex, and intimacy!