'I Don't Love You Anymore': Maintaining Sweetness in Your Marriage
That's not to say that there isn't any wisdom in the world; there is and sometimes the world can be wiser than Christians about certain things. But in the end, true wisdom comes from God and from the Bible and we will be the poorer if we neglect that. Remember the theme of the whole book: "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction" (1:7).
Temptation — beware!
There's nothing unreal about the way the Scriptures approaches marriage and sex. Too often the church has backed away from speaking honestly about sexual matters for fear of offense. And there is a sense in which this fear is a real one. It is all too possible to shock and offend by speaking in a way the Bible itself does speak. Some things are best kept for more intimate settings than the pulpit. But I fear a conspiracy exists: that those who cry 'foul' whenever sex is the subject matter of a sermon are the very ones who need it! No one can examine the record of the church over the past few years and not draw the conclusion that those who need instruction and warning the most are the people of God. The church is presently collapsing under the strain of sexual sin and the time for discretion is over.
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Temptation and adultery are so real that this wise master is telling his son all about it. He talks about the adulteress in verse 3 as having "honeyed lips" and being "smoother than oil." And in verse 20 she is called "an immoral woman" and a "seductress." Remember, this is a father warning his son but it could equally well have been done in the reverse: warning a daughter about ungodly men with only one thing on their minds. And God's word?
Holiness!
Christ-likeness in all of life.
Coram Deo in sexuality and intimacy.
"For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor . . . " (1 Thess. 4:3-4). Did you get that? How to control the body . . . There's nothing Manichean about the Bible's view of holiness. What do I mean? Manicheanism was a third-century aberration that essentially viewed the physical (the body in particular) as evil, and salvation as a way of escape from the prison-like nature of present existence. Spirituality was more concerned with thoughts and emotions rather than physical existence. The great Augustine was unduly influenced by it in his early life and (perhaps) never fully divested himself of it. Perhaps because of his sexually promiscuous life-style before his conversion, he was never fully able to express a Biblical view of sexuality after his conversion.