Cafeteria Christianity: Sexuality — Wednesday
Song of Songs 8:6b-7a
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. (NIV)
“Sex is transactional. It’s no big deal. No strings attached. Everyone’s doing it.”
Let’s start today with a question: Is fire a good thing or a bad thing?
Sounds like a simple question, but the answer proves to be complex. On the one hand, fire is a really good thing. It brings light to darkness, it cooks our food, it heats our homes, and it looks cozy in a fireplace on a snowy day. When fire is in an environment where its power is channeled toward life-giving purposes, fire is a great good.
But take that same exact fire outside the boundaries of a fireplace, and it becomes devastating—it can burn the whole house down. It can destroy things. It can end life. (We’ve seen that on full display in the Hawaii wildfires recently.)
So, is fire good or bad? As it turns out, that’s not even the right question to ask. Fire is a complex good—it’s a power, one that we have to learn to harness.
God Himself uses this metaphor to explain our sexual desires and passions. At the end of Song of Songs, we read, “It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away” (Song of Songs 8:6-7).
Why does God, our Creator, compare our sexual desires to fire? He wants you and I to take them seriously. To know both the dangers and the design. Because until we know what our sexuality is for, we won't understand how it is meant to be used.
When expressed inside the marriage covenant and commitment, it is a great good. But the moment we remove those boundaries, this power causes all sorts of destruction and devastation. From divorce to adultery, abuse to abortion, depression to pornography.
Sex is anything but transactional. Science and the Bible agree—all the physical coupling and de-coupling we do is infinitely more damaging to us than we care to admit. Sadly, people deeply long for the thing that hookup culture denies: emotional intimacy.
So, sex is a complex good. God created it, He created sexual desire, He created pleasure, and they are all very good things. But He equally warns us about misdirected desires, lust, and sexual immorality.
The invitation is to take God at His word and trust that these boundaries are actually for our good.
Wednesday’s Reflection
Is the fire analogy helpful for you? Talk with God about the ways you are tempted to go around or outside of His design to find sexual fulfillment. Have those things proven to be life-giving or destructive?
