All my love and all my kisses

“Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth,
because your love is better than wine”.
Song of Songs 1:2 (NCV)

WARNING: the thoughts in this study could be x-rated!

I wonder whether Adam gave Eve flowers in the Garden of Eden. Maybe in return she gave him a bowl of fruit and so it all began….

This thing called love. The Song of Songs puts paid to the image of the strait-laced Christian. It is ok to enjoy God’s gift of sexuality within marriage. As the writer of the book of Hebrews put it, we should honour “marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband” (12:4 the MESSAGE).

Throughout Solomon’s love poem the couple pay compliments to one another. They like each other and they also are attracted to each other, regularly it seems. The woman tells her partner that he smells nice (Song of Songs 1:3) and presumably he did, that he is handsome (1:16), that he is the best catch in the woods (2:3), “the best of ten thousand men” (5:10 NCV ), that his “legs are like large marble posts” (!) (5:15), etc.

Her husband tells her that she is the “most beautiful of women” (1:8), that her “eyes are like doves” (1:15), that she is “a lily among thorns” (2:2), that her voice is sweet and her face lovely (2:14), that her teeth are as white as newly sheared sheep (oops, maybe don’t try that one!) (4:2), that her feet are sexy in sandals (7:1), and more.

OK, maybe they overdo it but they do compliment each other. And that’s the point. When is the last time you said something nice to your husband or wife?

Say something nice to your nearest and dearest. Do something nice. Today.

And carry on saying and doing so each day.

That’s something we learn from the Song of Songs.

Prayer
Father, thanks for the gift of marriage and for the deep togetherness we can share as husband and wife. Help me to appreciate and encourage my partner every day. In Jesus’ name.
Amen