Although the topic of sex is blaring in our faces from the checkout lines in the grocery store to the billboards we pass on the highway, it can be difficult to talk about in our Christian circles. I can honestly count on one hand the times that I have heard sex and purity discussed in a Christian group setting when I was in junior high and high school. Why are we so "hush-hush" about the whole topic? It's like the elephant in the room that we try to ignore.
I've come to the conclusion that one of the reasons we are so bashful about sex is because of the bad rep sex has received. True, the type of sex that the world promotes to us is shameful, awkward, and embarrassing. But it is completely out of context and distorted from God's original intent.
First Thessalonians 4:3–5 says, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God."
We need to save our view of sex from the casual, cheap imitation that the world is offering to us. I love the way Mary Kassian puts it in her book Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild:
"Are we like a senseless child playing with dollar-store baubles when a gold locket is being offered to us? The media has been offering us dollar-store baubles for way too long. We need to throw away their cheap imitations of sex and instead pick up the priceless true gift of sex that God has created."
No matter what your experience in the past or your view on sex now, God wants you to understand the deep God-glorifying sex that He talks about in Song of Solomon. (Go and read that book in the Bible... I dare ya!) The catch is we can't get the beautiful sex God describes by living and playing according to our own rules. We have to live according to God's standards and within His guidelines.
- How have you been influenced by the culture's view on sex?
- What does God's Word have to say about sex?
- How can you gain a holy, God-glorifying view on sex?
- What does Song of Solomon say about sex?
