A Few Questions on the Song of Songs
When I was in junior high or high school there was a popular song by Salt ‘N’ Pepa called “Let’s Talk About Sex.” I was forbidden to listen to it (but I did anyway). Sex wasn’t talked about at my house, much less sung about or danced to. But I have to say that, love them or hate them, Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella had a point: “Let’s talk about sex…let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. Let’s talk about sex.”
God talked about sex. Read through the Song of Songs to get a taste of it. Caution: It’s hot. White hot. Blazin, drop it like it’s hot, white hot.
I’ve mentioned my friend Tal and his Sirius radio show, Tal Prince Live, a few times on my blog (Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern, Sirius channel 161). Tonight he was talking about sex and the Song of Songs. And not the poetry of the book like “good” Christians sometimes refer to. We discussed the raw, sensual truths that are written in that book. By the way, do you know what a raisin cake is? Look it up.
Anyway, a few questions came up on the show that I wanted to pose to you all. Seriously. I want your opinions on any or all of these questions, so please leave a comment.
- Have you ever read Song of Songs?
- Are you shocked that God discusses sex so graphically in thie bible?
- Have you ever heard the Song of Songs taught as a regular ‘Sunday morning’ sermon message? How would you feel if it was?
- At your church has the Song of Songs ever been taught to unmarried, college, high school, or junior high students (by the way, I think it should be)? What would the response be if it was?
- As Christians, do we talk about healthy sex enough?
I can’t wait to hear some comments on this stuff. I’ll be back to reading through John tomorrow. Thanks everyone!
Thanks Nicole!
We’ll be in this on the show for the next few weeks. I think it’s highly important, and am preaching through it right now as well. If anyone would like to watch the live stream of that, you can see it at 5:00 PM Central on Sunday nights at http://www.TOHcommunity.com I’ll not be doing it the next two weeks due to my appearance calendar, but 3 weeks from tonight, we’ll be back at it.
I pastor a community of codependents and their porn/sex addicted spouses, and none of us ever got this message about sex. We never knew what God intended for sex. I was told it was for procreation, and that’s it.
Neither of my parents ever spoke about it, and ministers only said “Don’t do it until you’re married.”
Marc Driscoll said, and I agree, “Sex is not God, Sex is not Gross, sex is a gift from God.”
We need to teach it, because followers of Christ, are going to porn to find out about sex since we are not teaching it.
We have got to engage this incredible topic from God’s perspective!
tal
Making sex a taboo topic only makes kids/teens want to search out the information from other sources, usually not good ones. I made many poor decisions because I learned about sex from bodice-ripping romance novels. Learning about sex in the church would have taught me morals to go along with the physics. I pray every day for God to grant me opportunities to discuss sex with my daughter, so that she’s not afraid to come to me for answers.
It’s hard for me to remember how sex was discussed in my home. I remember having an anatomy book as a gradeschooler that explained the mechanics of it. And I wonder if it’s possible to talk enough about healthy sex with teenagers, especially teenage boys. I remember two guys in my youth group having an argument about some speaker who’d gone through all sorts of reasons why premarital sex would be a bad idea and waiting would be great. One of the guys was holding the line that we should just wait because the Bible said so, and there was no need to go into all the reasons. At the time, I sort of agreed with him. Now I don’t.
Tackling this with kids is probably one of the trickiest things you can do. I’d say for sure that you can’t scare kids out of doing anything stupid. I remember the drug and sex scare talks we had at our high school assemblies. (I went to a private school, but not a Christian one.) For the drug talk, they had a reformed crack dealer whose PO was sitting in the front row. I remember him lifting his shirt to show us several scars from bullet wounds on his abdomen. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to me and my friends, because we were just smoking a little weed and leaving the hard stuff alone. So the scare tactic didn’t work there. For the sex talk, they had a doctor come in and show us slides of diseased genitals. That didn’t stop me, either. From trying, that is — the only thing that kept me celibate through high school was general geekiness and lack of appeal to the ladies. And of course we all remember the driver’s ed scare flicks. I totaled two cars before my 21st birthday.
Going into Song of Solomon with kids could be great if it were done well. It’s something youth leaders should think seriously about. Where else are they going to see a depiction of what it is supposed to be like? Tila Tequila? Our culture is so saturated with unhealthy approaches to sex – from the do-as-thou-wilt message of much of the media to the buttoned-down, shaming messages that too commonly come from significant adults – that a Biblically based, positive approach could only help.
To paraphrase CS Lewis – Most people think think Christians see sex as the greatest sin, but it’s not, the greatest sin is pride.
Since our culture is saturated with sex, I would rather see it discussed in churches regarding the Biblical truths. I think Lewis was right on the mark that many people see Christians as flaunting their celebacy and looking down on those who don’t. And if in reality that is happening, your worse sin is in thinking you are better than someone else.
I like Heather’s point. What was it that made me say to myself after seeing the ex crack dealer and diseased body parts, “That won’t happen to me”? Same thing that made me say, “I can go 50 down this residential street and run this stop sign, it’ll be cool.” P-R-I-D-E. Some bad stuff happened to me as a result and some didn’t, but I was eligible for all of it, just
…like anybody else. (oops)