Love Struck

Is sex something bad that's permitted in marriage, or is it something else? Today, Sharon James looks at an Old Testament book to help point the way toward God honoring God.

Gary, I want you to take us back when you first became a pastor or counselor. What differences do you see in society and in the church today about the topic of sexual intimacy that's different from when you began? Is sex something bad that's permitted in marriage, or is it something else that's permitted in the church today about the topic of sexual intimacy that's different from when you began?

This was God's idea, so why not follow His blueprint for it? That's going to shine in the culture, isn't it? I think so, Chris, because I think, you know, what we all desire in a marriage is a deep, intimate, loving, supportive, caring relationship. And sex is a part of that. And so much distortion all around us that we need to have a clear picture of God's perspective on this topic.

So I'm excited about our conversation today. Let me introduce our guest, Sharon James, J-A-Y-N-E-S. She's been encouraging and equipping women through ministry for more than 25 years. She served as vice president and radio co-host of Proverbs 31 Ministries for 10 years, and she currently writes for their online devotions and the First Five Bible Study app. She's a speaker and author of more than 20 books and the founder of the Praying Wives Club, co-founder of Girlfriends in God Incorporated. She and her husband, Steve, have been married 38 years. They live in Weddington, North Carolina.

That's got to be a misprint. Nobody can live in Weddington, North Carolina and write about sexual intimacy. Our featured resource is her book, Love Struck.

You can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Sharon, welcome to Building Relationships. Thank you.

I'm glad to be here. I was thinking the same thing about the town Weddington. But if you're going to write on marriage, that's a good place to be living, I guess. It is.

It's just preordained, right? So how would you answer the question that Chris asked me about how our culture has changed as well as our attitude in the church about this topic? Well, I think you're exactly right. I think we are talking about it more today, but I still don't think that we're necessarily talking about it enough. I think the culture is certainly talking about it. I mean, just watch television.

You can see that on advertisements, it's just used to sell everything from corn chips to cars. And the culture doesn't value sexual intimacy very much. We've got the rampant porn industry. By the time a teenager graduates from high school, they've seen over 1,400 depictions of sex on television.

So they're being bombarded with it from a very early age. And so we need to be talking about it, I think, in the church even more because of what the culture is doing. Sex is either going to be considered a gift, or it's going to be considered baggage, according to how we approach it. For me, what I saw growing up, it was in the church, it was more like, if you're not married, don't do it.

And if you are married, don't talk about it. But you know what? God's talking about it in the Bible, culture's talking about it, and we need to talk about it in a positive way. Well, I fully agree with that. And there's so much perversion in the culture today that the church really needs to be, not only studying, but also communicating the biblical perspective. Now, there are a number of resources out there dealing with sex in marriage.

Many of them focus on how to, you know, tips and techniques on how to. But now your book is different. Why? Well, that last word you said right there in that sentence is why. Why did God create us this way? And that's one of the questions that we're going to answer throughout the book is that God created sexual desires in man and woman. Actually, he just went all out and went through a lot of trouble and detail to make sure that part of man and woman were created in the first place. So we're going to look at the why we feel drawn to each other. Why is this so important? Why did God make us this particular way?

I want to get to God's design for sex and look at what the Bible says, the Song of Solomon in particular. But let's talk about the culture and the confusion about sex. What do you see happening today? Why do you think this has happened in our culture?

How do you assess all of this? I think one of the main reasons, Dr. Chapman, is the media. If you look at television programs, and if it's an hour long television program, well, really 45 minutes when you consider the commercials, which also have sex on them. But if someone's watching a television program and there'll be a man and a woman who meet up and within that one hour segment, they have already had sex. I mean, on the first date when they first meet each other and people are seeing this and kids are seeing this and it becomes what they expect and they see that as normal. So the media has normalized what we as Christians would say is a perversion of what God intended when he created sex for a husband and wife.

So that is one of the biggest areas that I think that has created this confusion. And we see that singles are growing up in a hookup culture. And that's what they expect.

And that's what they see as normal. I think some of our listeners may be surprised at one of the stats that was in your book, and that is that 80% of evangelical Christians don't wait until marriage to have sex. Now, what does that say to you? Well, what that says to me again is saying that the culture is impacting the Christian community more than scripture is impacting them in some ways. This is a prime example of how the culture through social media, through television, through movies is normalizing non-Christian behavior in Christians. When I think about that as a parent, when I think about that as a teacher of the Bible, it really saddens me and it gives me, Dr. Chapman, just more of an urgency that this has got to be something that we talk about. We cannot leave this whole topic of sexual intimacy to the social media. We have got to talk about it in the church.

You know, I was just chatting with a lady not too long ago and she said to me, her first question was, How do you find a Christian man that's really a Christian? Well, okay. I said, Well, why do you ask that? She said, Well, I was dating this guy and he's a Christian, he's a deacon in his church and I liked him and things were going well. And he said to me, I think we're at a point where we need to have sex and make sure we're compatible. And she said, What Bible do you read?

Seriously? And he said, Well, you know, the world's changing. The world's changing, you know. She said, Yeah, but the Bible's not changing.

How's it good for you, girl? So she said, That ended it for me. Well, thank God for that gal, you know, who is strong on her own beliefs.

And it's tragic that so many are not following biblical patterns and consequently reaping the consequences of that, right? Right. Because sex, it either is going to be a gift or it's going to be baggage. It depends on when you open it and how you open it. When you have sexual intimacy, the way God intends, it is a gift. But I promise you, when you open it, not when God intended or how God intended, it will become baggage that you carry into your relationship. Well, let's talk about the Song of Solomon. Why is this passage so important to understanding God's heart about sexual intimacy? Well, Dr. Chapman, I think it's amazing that this book of the Bible is even in the Bible. I mean, there's nothing else like it from Genesis to Revelation. It's just eight chapters pretty much right in the middle of the Bible that is solely dedicated to the relationship between one man and one woman, with sexual intimacy being one of the key factors that we're looking at.

So if God did that, we have to think, why did he do that? Why did he make sure that the Song of Songs, how the Bible says the King of Kings, which means the King above all kings, or the Lord of Lords, the Lord above all lords. So when we see the Song of Songs, that's saying this is the Song above all songs. That the relationship between a man and a woman in marriage is the greatest Song of all. And so we see if this is in the Bible, right in the middle here, these concentrated eight chapters, then this is important, and God made sure it was in here for a reason. But most of the time, this is the book in the Bible we don't read in church.

Right. You know what? I went back and I was studying what some of the people from long ago, how they interpreted the Song of Solomon solely as an allegory. And you certainly can do that. You can read the Song of Solomon as if Jesus is talking to the bride.

But you know what? You can see Jesus in every book in the Old Testament. But I really believe that this was intended for us to read it literally. But the reason we don't read it much in church is because some of it is embarrassing. You know, he's talking about the woman's breast, he's talking about taking hold of the fruit, and listen, every time that the Shulamite, the female character, or Solomon, the male character, every time they're talking about fruit or gardening or trees, they are not talking about going to the farmer's market. Every single time it's a reference to some sexual innuendo. So that's why we don't read about it in church, because it can be, I think it's embarrassing sometimes for the pastor teaching it, and for some of the congregation hearing it.

Yeah. In my marriage seminars I sometimes encourage couples to read this book. I said, you probably never read the book, you know, but I wouldn't suggest more than a chapter a week, okay? But this book that you've written, based on the Song of Songs, is going to be a very helpful book to couples, and I hope that many of them will read your book and the Song of Songs. Another reason I feel like people don't read the Song of Songs anymore, or study it, is because it doesn't make sense. There's so many things in the song that we don't understand. We don't understand why mandrakes would represent sexual intimacy. We don't understand about what a pomegranate would have meant to them.

And so it's just kind of blurry, like, what are they talking about with these palm trees and this fruit and taking hold of the fruit? So sometimes, just because in our English culture today, there's so much symbolism that people kind of put it off and just don't read it. But the cool thing is, when you understand what they're talking about, you're like, wow, I can't believe that this is really in the Bible. So it's pretty exciting. Yeah, and I think that with all the scriptures, we have to read it in its cultural context and obviously apply it to our own culture.

And that's really what your book is doing, so that's great. On the other hand, you know, there are Christians who have a sense of guilt about sex. I mean, they see sex as something less than wholesome, and they feel guilty. They may be guilty about their own past sexual experiences, but maybe if even carry that into the marriage, and they feel like they have negative emotions about it.

How do you break free from that? Well, there's two different things that you've brought up here. One is taking the negative guilt from your past into your present marriage.

And if that is the case, that's something to be dealt with. And we ask God to forgive us when we have not followed his design, and then we leave it behind and don't take it into our present marriage. Now, what about the woman or the man who might feel guilty because of the desires that they have in marriage? Well, that is absolutely normal in the way that God intended it. As I mentioned earlier, God put a lot into the physical creation, the body of the woman and the man for sexual pleasure that is not necessary to make a baby.

It's just not necessary for procreation. So why would God do that? Why would God make all 12 of our cranial nerves get fired up just with a kiss? Why would God make it so that when a couple kisses, the male's testosterone flows through the saliva into the woman's mouth?

I mean, that's basically what is happening. Why would he do that? He did that as a gift because he wants the husband and wife to bring each other pleasure.

So to get rid of that guilt, what we have to see is that God did this on purpose. He did it for a reason, so it will be the super glue that holds a marriage together. And Dr. Chapman, I believe when a husband and wife enjoy physical intimacy the way that God intended, that he cheers. He's excited about that.

And he says, you go. This is what I made you for, to enjoy it with each other and to bring each other pleasure. And it brings a couple closer together than anything else they can do.

Yeah. I think a lot of people have the wrong idea of God. They see him as, you know, one who's looking around saying, anybody down there having fun?

Knock it off, you know. That's not the biblical picture. I think that will free women and men up when they can see that this is what God intended, and that he went through a lot of trouble to make sure that would happen. So it's not an evil that marriage permits.

It is a gift that marriage protects. You know, sometimes said, God has done many things for our pleasure. He could have made all flowers bloom brown, you know. He could have made the sky with no variation.

He could have made the whole earth flat. He's done all kinds of things for our pleasure, and sex is certainly one of them. Very clear from the Scriptures. Why then are many couples disappointed in their level of romance and intimacy in their marriage? And what can we learn from the Song of Solomon? Well, I think that there's a lot of times unrealistic expectations before people get married.

And again, that's coming from what we see in the culture, in the media, that type of thing. In the very beginning of the Song of Solomon, the first two chapters, there was kind of a courting stage. And then the next two, they get married.

And then the next two, there's trouble. And then the last two tells us how to keep intimacy alive in our marriage. But in the beginning, when they were dating, Solomon said, catch for us the little foxes. And I was reading that, and I thought, who is he talking to, first of all?

Catch for us. And Dr. Chapman, I think he was talking to God. God, show us anything or anyone that'll creep into our marriage and steal the fruit. Because see, back then, they would have the vineyards planted, and these little pesky foxes would come in and steal the grapes. Mainly when they were young, they would come in and eat up the grapes.

And if they weren't careful, that fox could just destroy the entire vineyard. So he is praying that God will show them anything or anyone that could creep into their marriage and start stealing the fruit. Well, next two chapters, they get married, and they have the honeymoon. And we are getting to watch the honeymoon. We see everything, and it is very beautiful.

There's nothing sordid about it. See, the first four chapters, they are talking about how much they want to be together sexually. I mean, even the woman, it starts out with her, kiss me and kiss me again. And she is passionate, can't wait, he can't wait. They finally have sex on their honeymoon. And the very next chapter, the king comes knocking, and the Shulamite, who has been so anxious to have sex with her husband, he knocks, and she says, no thanks.

Sorry, honey, hardly brushed my teeth, got my PJs on, not interested. Now, that was one thing that was shocking to me. But to me, that is a little fox, which can become a big fox, because we see how passionate they were, and all of a sudden, she's not interested. We have to be so careful about that, because allowing apathy and indifference to creep in our marriage can destroy it. And this isn't just about sexual intimacy.

This is about apathy and indifference in all areas of our marriage. We see that that happened there, and we have to be careful to not allow that to happen. And she shows us how at the end of the book. But they have a conflict there, they end up making up, talks a lot about forgiveness. And interesting, 20% of the Song of Solomon is about conflict. And I don't know about you, Dr. Chapman, but that gives me a great relief, because you know what? We're going to have conflict in marriage, and we're going to have conflict in that area.

And God's just showing us right here in these eight chapters that's normal, and here's how you deal with it. Well, I'm excited to talk about that as we move along in this program. You know, you mentioned the thing of the wife not being interested. I hear this a lot from men who say to me, you know, my wife's just not as interested as I am in the sexual part of our marriage. Do you hear that, and how do you respond to that?

Of course, I do hear that. You know, there's also another statistic that in 20% of marriages, it's the other way around, where the husband's not interested. And those are more the emails that I receive from the women that I'm reaching out to, because that is a very sad email when I receive that. Because if it's the wife that's not the one that's interested, sex still normally happens. If it's the husband that's not interested, sex rarely happens. Now, with the women who say that they're not interested, and I address this in the book, you know, you can approach sexual intimacy in marriage really in three ways. And I think many times people have approached it in two ways. One is desire. Many people are only interested in sex if there's desire.

Another one is duty. So many women will approach sexual intimacy in marriage as their wifely duty. And I'll tell you, that just makes me cringe when I hear that, because it would be like if you came home on your anniversary, and you gave your wife a dozen roses, and you said to her, honey, I know it's your anniversary, I got you these roses, I think it's a total waste of money, but I think it's something I'm supposed to do, so here, hope you enjoy it. I even got you a card and underlined a few words, hope you enjoy it.

I think it's a waste of money, but here you go. I've met your wife, what would she do with those flowers? She would throw them outside. She would throw them outside.

I would see you over the head with them. So, you know, I think we need to think about that as a wife. Suppose we approach sexual intimacy that way. And a man can tell, a husband can tell if the wife is approaching sexual intimacy in the way that this is my duty and I'm not really enjoying it, I don't really want to, but I know I'm supposed to.

And you know what, he may feel some kind of relief when the song is sung, to put it that way, but he will not be fulfilled. The husband is fulfilled sexually when he knows that his wife is fulfilled. So that's what duty will bring you. Duty will not bring sexual fulfillment in a marriage. But you know what, there's a third option.

It doesn't have to be just duty or desire. A third option for that woman who doesn't have that desire is a decision to love. And isn't that what marriage is about? This is for the husband or the wife who's not interested, is making a decision to love the spouse and entering into the physical relationship because you are making that decision that I'm going to love you in the way that you want to be loved.

And I'm going to bring you pleasure because I know this brings God pleasure when I've fulfilled this need in you. That's a totally different way to approach it. And I can promise the woman who approaches it that way, or the husband who's not interested then approaches it that way, they will enjoy it.

Because you're just seeing sexual intimacy from a totally different perspective. Yeah. And at the very heart of love is the decision to do something that's for the benefit of my spouse, right? That's one of the very definitions of love, isn't it, is to making that decision to love. This is what they need. This is what will make that person feel loved. And Dr. Chapman, that's what your five love languages is all about, isn't it?

Absolutely. I'm going to tell you, I just said that like I'm going to tell you what five love languages are about. But it's to find the love language.

Correct me if I'm wrong. It's to find your spouse's love language and then do that. Yeah, absolutely. That's what making a decision to love is. Finding the love language, speaking to them that way, and sexual intimacy is one of those ways that we make a decision to love.

And love on that person in that particular way. By the way, I wanted to tell you one thing that I saw the love languages of Solomon, the man writing the book, and the Shulamite. I saw that hers, her love languages was words of affirmation. This is just what I was saying because he constantly is affirming her.

And then his love language seems like it was quality time because he wanted to be with her and spend time talking with her. So I thought you would like "The 5 Love Languages" analysis in the Song of Solomon. All right. No, I like that.

I like that. Sharon, you know that God gave instruction to Israel that when a person gets married, they should not go to war and they should not work for a year. Now, I don't know how you do that without starving to death, but I've often wondered why God said that. And I think, at least part of it is, that it takes time to learn how to pleasure each other in the marriage context. You know, the movies all just present the idea that all you have to do is jump in bed, it's going to be heaven for both of you. But it seems to me that just as we have to grow together intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, we grow together sexually.

Or at least that's God's design. And I've sometimes said that in my mind, one of the reasons why God made us different male and female, even sexually, is because he intended it to be an act of love, in which your attitude is, how can I pleasure you? And when both people have that attitude, they're not forcing anything on each other, they're desiring to pleasure each other. Then it becomes what God intended, mutual joy. But if we don't make it an act of love, and it's just a physical thing, then it's more like two animals rather than two humans made in God's image. How do you respond to that idea? I just think that is beautiful, and it would be wonderful if we had a whole year, we call that a honeymoon now, and even the word honeymoon means sweet month, but we've reduced the honeymoon to usually a week.

But it does take time. With God's design of waiting until you do get married, there's a lot to explore, and there's a lot to get used to, and different people receive pleasure in different ways, so that's that learning part. You had mentioned a story to me earlier about two Christians, actually, who were dating, and the man said, well, let's have sex to see if we're compatible. Well, that just flies in the face of what God intended, because you love someone, you don't have to wonder about if you're going to be compatible sexually, you marry someone as a covenant relationship with that person and with God, and then you explore, and you practice, and you see what brings each other pleasure. That's the beautiful part of sexual intimacy when two people come together in marriage, bringing each other pleasure, finding what satisfies the other, and sexual intimacy is about giving.

And I think that's something that the culture has lost. They see it more as getting what they get from sex, rather than, how can I give to bring pleasure to someone else? And when you've got two people that are giving to try to satisfy each other, well, that is beautiful and what God intended. In the Song of Solomon, after they had been married for a while, there's three major bedroom scenes, I guess I would call it in the Song of Solomon. The first one, he is praising her from top to bottom, starts at her head and goes all the way down to her feet. And the last one, he's doing it again, praising her, and this is the one where he talks about climbing the palm tree and taking hold of its fruit.

But he starts at her feet. Well, I can envision him taking the sandals off of his wife's feet. And Dr. Chapman, that was a job for a servant. The servants took the sandals off of the king and the queen or their master's feet. So what is this king doing? He is taking the place of a servant, taking off her sandals, and talking about her feet. So that is just a beautiful image of serving one another in the bedroom. It's a picture of what he was planning to do and serving her in the bedroom. I think there's no question about it that the key to love itself is an attitude of service. And in sexual part, it's how can I pleasure you? Well, why is it that for some couples, however, the sexual part of marriage cools off after a while? And sometimes we just drift away from each other sexually.

What's going on when that happens? As I mentioned earlier, Solomon said at the very beginning of the book, Catch for us the little foxes. And then we see that that fox of apathy does come right in the middle of the book. You know, Dr. Chapman, one time I was at my parents' house and I was cleaning out a drawer. It was a junk drawer looking for a pen. And I found, I don't know if you remember these or not, but I found a little record that my father had recorded when he was in the Korean War. Remember they used to make these little records and send them back home?

And it was dated 1955, I believe. And I listened to that record and in it my father was saying how much he loved her, how much he missed her. He thanked her for being with, living with his mother while he was away at war. And it was just, I mean, you could just hear the emotion and almost the tears in his voice as he was making this record for my mom.

Well, I held that record in my hand and I thought, how in the world did this happen? Because you see, from my earliest remembrance growing up in that home, I didn't think my parents even liked each other, much less loved each other. Growing up, they fought all the time, there was yelling, there was screaming.

I grew up afraid in my household. And as I held that record in my hand, I thought, how does it happen that a marriage that started out like this, with a couple so in love, ended up with two people so far apart that they could not hardly even stand to be in the same house? And I will tell you, it can happen to anyone if they're not intentional about keeping that marriage strong. One of the things I think that helps keep a marriage strong, of course, the most important thing is their relationship with God. Another thing that is important is that they maintain a strong friendship. Now, that might seem a little odd, but I think that God intends for the husband and the wife to remain friends and to keep their marriage a priority to do fun things together. I think many times when the husband and wife add someone to their family, aka they have a child, sometimes that little prince or princess kind of takes over, and that child becomes a priority, and especially a tendency toward moms, I'll admit, and the husband ends up on the back burner wondering, where do I fit into all this? We need to be very intentional as wives to make sure that when we have children that the husband knows that he is still the number one priority. As a matter of fact, the marriage relationship should be the number one priority of any other earthly relationship that we have. That includes in-laws.

That includes extended family. Can I jump in here, Sharon, and ask you, there's a portion of the book where you tell more of the story of your mom and Mr. Wright, because your father died of Alzheimer's a few years ago, and she met this man after that. Can you just briefly tell us a little bit of that story? Well, Chris, my parents did not have a good relationship. I was not raised in a Christian home.

I became a Christian as a teenager, and the good news, I mean, it is an incredible story we don't have time to tell today, but three years after I came to Christ, my mother came to Christ, and then three years after her, my father, who was a wild man, he gave his life to Christ, too. But their relationship was never really all that good, even after they became Christians. There was so much that had happened, so much abuse and so much anger. They never really came to love each other as a husband and wife.

You would hope that they would. And then my father, after becoming a Christian, a few years later, he developed Alzheimer's disease. Actually, he was diagnosed at 56, so very young, and at 66, he passed away. And my mom, I had never seen her really happy before. Her life was just a continual struggle.

Well, after my dad had passed away, she met another man. His name was Pete Wright, and I always called him Mr. Wright. And I loved Mr. Wright. I loved him.

And you know what? He loved my mom, and he said he'd never seen someone so beautiful with such sad eyes. And he was going to do everything he could to make those eyes sparkle.

And he pursued her, and it was so precious to watch. And my mother, I think for the first time, really felt loved by another man, and it changed everything for her. I mean, the sky was bluer. I was a better daughter all of a sudden, and I wasn't doing anything different. Her friends were better.

Her church was better. Everything was better because she felt loved by Pete Wright. And I think when we know that we are loved, when a woman knows that she's loved and cherished by her husband, it does change everything.

But also, you know what? It changes things for a man, too. When the husband knows that his wife loves him above everyone else, above those kids, above those in-laws, above her friends, he will be the happiest man on earth.

I think there's no question about it. The deepest emotional need we have as humans on the human level is to feel loved by the significant people in our lives. And I think marriage is designed to meet that need at the deepest level. And when it does, it's beautiful.

It is. Now, in the book, your book, Love Struck, and you mentioned this earlier, but I want to go back to it, and that is the whole idea of conflict. Why is it that all couples have conflict?

Some deal with it positively, some negatively, but where does it come from and how do we deal with it? Well, your right conflict is just part of any relationship. It's part of a friendship, it's part of being in a family, and it's certainly a big part of marriage. We're very different, as you mentioned earlier. We're different physically from husband and wife. We're different emotionally. As you well know, we love languages, we have different expectations. But I think one of the biggest areas of conflict is selfishness.

Can I say that? I mean, I think we both want what we want when we want it. And when we don't get that, when our expectations are not met, there are going to be conflicts. So it's very important that we learn how to resolve conflicts. There are so many good books out there on conflict. And in Love Struck, I mainly deal with one conflict, the conflict that they dealt with, and that is the conflict of apathy and indifference in a marriage. But we're just going to have it, two people in one place. You put any two people together and you're going to have conflict. At the very heart of resolving conflicts seems to me to be this whole thing of learning how to listen to each other.

Do you see that in the couples you work with? I do see that. And it's so interesting that even in the Song of Solomon, in the second chapter, he wants to talk. And she is pulling back and hiding. He comes to visit her and she's hiding. I don't know if they had some conflict at that point, but he says, come out and let me hear your voice.

And Dr. Chapman, that was one of the little thoughts in our marriage. My husband, Steve, saw that when we were dating, that when we had conflict, I didn't want to talk. So it wasn't just not listening. I didn't want to talk at all. And because I had been raised in so much conflict, when I saw conflict coming, I wanted to retreat.

I didn't want anything to do with it. And you know, if you don't talk and if you don't listen, you can't resolve the conflict. So that was one of the things that my husband had to work on me about is I needed to talk about the conflict and I need to listen to him as well. So we've learned that over the past 38 years on how, when we have conflict, to just listen, but to also talk and how to talk.

So important. Another topic, pornography. It's rampant in our culture. In the book, do you address that issue?

Do you see anything similar to this in the culture of that day? I don't really talk about the pornography in the culture of that day. I do mention that pornography in our culture now is a 10 billion dollar industry and actually brings in more money than Major League Baseball, NBA, and the NFL all combined. It is definitely a problem. And what happens when someone looks at pornography, they are experiencing sex in a way that is not the way God intended, and it brings baggage into the marriage.

You know, Sharon, when I talk with wives who find out that their husband is hooked on porn, often here's what they say with tears in their eyes. What's wrong with me? Exactly.

Why does he have to go to an unreal world? You know, what's wrong with me? It's painful. In fact, I don't know anything more painful to a wife.

You can tell me if you agree with this. Actual physical adultery is maybe more painful, probably is more painful. But other than that, I don't know anything that's more painful than a wife finding out that her husband is really addicted to porn. Do you deal with wives who are experiencing this?

I do, Dr. Chapman, and you are right. It is a form of adultery, but for a woman, that just says to her, you're not enough. What I deal with a lot in my ministry is helping women to know that in Jesus Christ they're enough. But when they know that their husband is looking at porn, it says to them, you are not enough for me as a woman. And that will remove all desire for her, because then she feels like she is being compared to something very unrealistic that she could never be. And to know that your husband is looking at other women in that way is so degrading. It is just so degrading, and it degrades you. It degrades what sexual intimacy is supposed to be about. And what happens is sex in the bedroom is not about making love anymore. It is purely about sex when you know that your husband's doing that with pornography. Do you know what I mean by that? Sexual intimacy is meant to be making love with your spouse. And there is a difference between just having sex in more of an animalistic way than making love as a husband and wife.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, let's talk about one other topic, and that is forgiveness, because all couples fail at some juncture along the way in some aspect of life, and we all have to learn to forgive. What role does forgiveness play in the Song of Solomon? I think it was Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, that said a good marriage is a union of two good forgivers.

And that is so true. If you don't forgive, it's not going to be very long before you are so frustrated in your marriage. You have to be a good forgiver to have a good marriage. And we see that happening in the Song of Solomon.

They had a conflict right in the middle of the book, and as I said before, 20% of the book is about conflict. But then there was also forgiveness. He actually forgave her for something she had done or not done. But if we don't forgive, there is no way that we can have a good marriage. And the Bible tells us to forgive as Christ forgave us.

That is our model. So when we are holding a grudge and we're holding on to bitterness and resentment, that will come into every single aspect of our marriage. And the only way to move forward and to have the kind of marriage that God wants us to is to be quick to forgive, to not just sweep something under the rug.

Because if you sweep it under the rug, you're going to trip over that lump. And it's just going to continue to be there in your marriage, but truly forgiving each other. And the Greek word for forgiveness means to cut someone loose. So when you're not forgiving, it's as if you have that bitterness and resentment just strapped to your back, and you're carrying that along in your marriage. So you need to...

The Greek word is actually otheme is the way it sounds, and to me it's like off of me in English. But to cut it loose, let it go, and move forward as Christ has done for us. Yeah. Sarah, let me ask you this. As you were stirring the Song of Solomon before this book, is there anything that you were surprised by after you really dug into the book? Dr. Chapman, I was so surprised in chapter 5 after I saw how much they wanted each other physically. It starts out with the woman even being the one that saw she could talk about how she wanted to be with this man. And then they had that hot, steamy honeymoon. I was so surprised at how quickly it went from that to her not being interested.

That was really surprising to me. But the sweet part about that is, by the time we get to the end of the Song of Solomon, you can see that she is taking some steps to make sure that that doesn't happen again. She flirts with him all the way through the song, and at the very end, she goes up to him in the field and she says, you know, come away honey, let's go to the countryside like we used to. And she says, there I will give you my love. And she talks about giving him some of the sweet fruit that he so loves, and she says to him, and I've got some new fruit that you haven't experienced yet. Let me just tell you exactly what she says, the mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy, both old and new, that I have stored up for you, my beloved. So what she's saying, and I can just picture this with a twinkle in her eye, saying, you know what, let's get away, come away, let's leave all this behind, let's do what we did at the beginning, let's get away like we did at the beginning.

And I've got that fruit that you've loved all these years, and I've got something new that you have never experienced before. So I don't know, that just tickles me seeing her. She's probably older now, but she's making sure that she's going to be intentional, and she is going to keep the romance in the marriage strong. I can hear some husbands saying, yes, I want my wife to read that.

I hope she will. I hope he and she will read this book. I think many couples are going to find this to be helpful. Well, Sharon, it's great to have you with us today, and I really appreciate the effort you put into this book.

I do think it's going to help couples in the sexual part of their marriage, which flows out into all the rest of life as well. So thanks for what you're doing. Thank you so much for having me. If our program today has encouraged you, check out our featured resource by Sharon James. The title is Love Struck, Discovering God's Design for Romance, Marriage, and Sexual Intimacy from the Song of Solomon.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, what could a daily devotional time together do for your marriage? Don't miss Dr. Tim Keller and his wife, Kathy, in one week. Looking forward to it, Gary. A big thank you today to Steve Wick and Janice Todd for their work behind the scenes. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.