A Lesson From Solomon On Love

Love. It is everywhere. For the world, sex sells, but for the Christian market, well, we will just have to settle for love. There is one place, however, I would rather not see love, in the heart of my son/daughter. Now, to clarify, I’m not talking about the “Love the Lord your God,” or the “Love your brother as yourself” kind of love. We could use a lot more of those kinds of love. Affectionate love for one’s parents. Sure. Brotherly love for a close friend. Definitely. Agape love for the Lord. Foundational! Eros for a boy/girl? Nope!

The Bible, presumably, doesn’t have a lot to say about love. Yes, there are some commands about sexual sin, and Proverbs repeatedly exhorts the young man not to be ensnared by Dame Folly. But those passages refer to sexual sin, not love. If we want to learn what God has to say about romantic love, then we need to turn to the book of the Bible where God talks about it directly—The Song of Solomon.

We need to teach our children unashamedly, the theology of the Song of Solomon. While many believe Song of Solomon should be studied only by married couples, scholars have long contended that the primary audience of the Song of Solomon is single virgin girls.¹ Single young ladies (virgins) appear in Song 1:3 and single young men (companions) in Song 8:13. Song of Solomon begins and ends with exhortations to the unmarried and cultivates their affections to begin love according to the way God designed it. The daughters of Jerusalem (unmarried young women) appear seven times, and four times they are exhorted to do something.

The Song exhorts the daughters of Jerusalem three times, “do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases” (Song 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). The world tells our children, “Love is great! Fall in love! The earlier the better because you can enjoy it more!” Song 8:6–7 teaches that marital love should be a permanently lit fire, but when young people play with this kind of fire, someone gets burned. While other Bible passages teach our children, “Don’t have sex outside of marriage,” the Song teaches our children, “Don’t even awaken love.” If our children don’t even awaken love, then it is likely they won’t make love.

Something inside of our children yearns for love. The world and Christian subculture feeds on this embedded desire and leads our children astray. Four guidelines can help our children resist the fleshly impulses of love and prepare for marriage: (1) A proper understanding of the affections, (2) Starting early, (3) Cultivating a culture, and (4) Understanding kissing.

Understanding the Affections

The greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deut 6:4–5; Matt 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–28). How can God command an emotion? We do the things that we love. Internal desires manifest themselves through external actions. As parents, we must focus on changing, not the external actions of our children, but their internal desires. We, like God, should command our children to love the Lord.

External actions and internal desires, however, have a reciprocal relationship. If my child loves something that God hates (e.g., immorality), then I should modify the child’s external influences (e.g., entertainment) and encourage different external influences (e.g., church involvement). Allowing a child to ingest sexually suggestive media will not help my child kill the fleshly immoral desires in the child’s heart.

At the same time, regulating only the external influences of our children falls short of the goal. The child must not only put off worldly external works but also worldly internal desires. Furthermore, the child must not only do spirit-filled external works but also desire spirit-filled internal influences (Eph 4:20–24). By helping a child remove worldly junk from his/her heart (which manifests itself in one’s behavior), I provide more space in the child’s heart for the Spirit of God to work through the Word. Bottom line—the Spirit doesn’t have much room to work when He is being choked out by the worldly influences.

We underestimate our influence in our children’s lives. Our children tend to love the things that we love. I can help shape my child’s loves through my example and intentionally encouraging/discouraging specific behaviors. By regulating entertainment preferences and requiring Bible time (family worship, personal devotions, church attendance, ministry service, etc.) we encourage our children to love God the most. If a child, however, persistently refuses to love God the most, then remember that there is a reason Deut 7 follows Deut 6–devote their idol to destruction.

A person’s love for God provides a pattern for how to handle all other loves, including romantic love. When your son meditates on the law of the Lord, he matures into a steadfast, productive tree (Psa 1), but when he meditates on Jane Doe’s beauty, the stellar time they had together at youth group, or what he is going to say to her at church, your son is awakening love for Jane. Your son is cultivating an affection for Jane which the Song of Songs teaches will likely lead to pain (Song 8:6–7). You need to teach your son what to do with those thoughts—he needs to devote them to destruction.

Start Young

I sat on the couch next to my daughter watching a Disney movie. This presumably innocent movie was defining love for my daughter. It was teaching her what “the good life” was. The little girl in the movie had these feelings, and these feelings were “good.” My daughter watched with rapt attention—and she was only four years old. After I settled myself down, I had a conversation with her about the awakening of love and how the character in the movie was stirring up something that God designed to let sleep for a very long time.

Start young. Very young. You will not be able to shield them from the world’s false theology of love. It is everywhere, even embedded in the Christian subculture. A friend was reading a Christian novel to his 6 & 9 year old children. The main character in the book developed a romantic interest with another character. One of his children responded, “Dad, this is that awakening love stuff.” It provided a teaching opportunity for the parent. You won’t be able to shield your children from our world’s or Christian subculture’s false theology of love. Start early and seize opportunities when the world teaches the false view of love to reinforce God’s teaching concerning love.

Cultivate a Culture

Talking to your children about love is more than a talk, it is a culture. Begin young and regularly remind your children of God’s teaching concerning love. We tell our children that when they are ready for marriage, we will talk to them and provide guidance concerning potential interests. As ideal as this is, we cannot keep our children from liking individuals. But we can encourage them not to foster those thoughts and feelings. We can discourage and even say no to exclusive relationships. We can encourage friendships with many Christians of the opposite sex. Our children can let love sleep, but we must first believe they can. We must believe the charge of Song 2:7; 3:5; 8:4. If we don’t believe it, then our children won’t believe it either.

The world and Christian subculture tell us that youthful romances are simply inevitable. For example, Zachary Wagner, writing as a Christian, states, “Forbidding adolescent romance has never been an effective strategy.”² We have higher hopes for the next generation. Just like our children can choose to love God, they can also choose not to fall in love. Furthermore, by learning not to awaken love, our children are better prepared to terminate a toxic relationship, kill extramarital affections, and awaken love in marriage when it has grown cold (Song 8:5).

One young woman never talked about her crushes, and her friend asked her who she had a crush on. She responded, “I’ve never had a crush on someone.” Her incredulous friend responded, “How is that even possible?” She explained, “I choose not to fall in love. I have never had a crush and don’t plan to anytime soon.” This is a real story. Her parents cultivated a culture for how to deal with feelings for a young man—you devote those feelings to destruction.

Kissing

Teach your children the wisdom of saving their first kiss for their wedding day. Why? Because the romantic kiss is a synecdoche (a part for the whole) for the sexual relationship which shouldn’t begin until after they say, “I do.” In Song 4:11 and 7:9, one person is tasting the inside of another person’s mouth. Song 4 and 7 are the two most sexual parts of the Song of Solomon. In Song 8:1, the wife laments the inability to kiss her husband in public because the public would despise her. Even in the ancient world, the romantic kiss was considered an inappropriate public display of affection.

We innately know this, but we have been deceived by the world and the Christian subculture has bought into it. If our children kiss, the likelihood of them remaining sexually pure before marriage decreases substantially. Consider the words of Lauren Winner, “What’s compelling about the no-kissing rule is its clarity. It is very, very clear. It admits no gray area. If you’re not even smooching, you’re unlikely to find yourself sliding down a slippery slope to sex itself. There is something decidedly un-natural about sparking desire and then arresting it, night after night. To refrain from kissing is to avoid not only temptation, but also the odd shocks, fits, and starts of interrupted desire.” Winner is unfamiliar with the Song of Solomon but affirms the folly of awakening love. When our children make-out, they are literally preparing their bodies for a sexual experience, an experience they have to say no to night after night. Why are we then surprised when they go a little bit further, again, and again, and again.

Conclusion

God designed love to be a covenantal, permanent, jealous, unquenchable, and a freely given/received experience (Song 8:6–7). Our children need to embrace God’s design for love, and He has entrusted us to teach them. Cultivate a culture in your home/church of letting love sleep until the appropriate time. May our children enjoy the days of their youth remembering their good Creator all the days of their lives (Eccl 11:7–11).