Sunday Rewind 9.3.06

Scripture Lesson: Song of Songs 2:3-13.

For most people, coming across Song of Songs in your Scripture readings is kind of like finding a centerfold in your theology textbook. It makes us very uncomfortable.

One reason is that our world has pornified sexuality. Pornified sexuality is a shallow counterfeit of what God intended. It views people as mere bodies and treats love as a contact sport. We all know that our enemy has a massive pornified arsenal that he uses to try to destroy God's creation. And in its wake is a path of destruction. So when we come across sexuality in our Bible, our first reaction is to avoid it.

And that's exactly what the Church has done. We've prude-ified sexuality, throwing in in a corset, hiding it in a closet and throwing away the key. We pretend that humans don't relate and react physically (which we all know is a lie). The problem is that prude-ified sexuality leads people to assume God views sex negatively. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Sexuality is God's idea. He created male and female as sexual creatures. Sex is God's plan. It is inherently good. And He gives us plenty of guidance in the Bible about enjoying sexuality by His plan.

But I think the most devastating part of prude-ified sexuality is that it leaves people with no real alternative to the pornified message of the world.

The world may have pornified sex. The Church may have prude-ified it. But Song of Songs presents descriptions of purified sexuality. It's an intimate poem about 2 lovers pining for each other. It shows us the kind of intimacy that God intended for couples to enjoy from the beginning.

So why not spend this week reading and re-reading Song of Songs. You might even play it out like a Shakespearean drama. Regardless of how you meditate on it, invite the Holy Spirit to guide you into discovering a purified view of sex.