[Wisdom of Solomon] Keys to a Lasting Loveনমুনা

How’s Your Diet?

Some passages in the Bible seem weird to us as 21st century readers. Song of Songs 8: 8–10 isn’t applicable just to marriage but also to parenting. What we are looking at is a flashback to when Solomon’s wife was young. Her brothers were her protectors. This is the next key to a lasting love: a present and protective family. This is what we must provide for our kids. This is the parent’s role. We must be present for our kids, and we must protect and direct them.

Where must we be most protective? When the topic has anything to do with sex, intimacy, and purity. We can’t just assume we know who our children are with or what they’re doing on Friday nights. The next area we must be watchful of is their diet of media and entertainment. What are they watching? What is being fed to their soul? What is shaping their desires? Another critical area is what your children are being taught and what are they learning. You must understand that the world is not thinking about the soul and eternal implications for your children, but rather how they can influence them.

His family understood that they were there to make sure she was a wall, meaning pure, and not a door, someone who allowed guys to walk in and out of her life. We, too, must understand our duty to protect our children, even when they may not understand what we are doing at the time. We must care more about their soul than their happiness.

Now, what does this mean for those who aren’t married or who don’t have kids? Look at it from the perspective of your relationship with the Lord. Do you trust that His template of one man and one woman in marriage is the only way? Do you trust that His Word is what we need to live by? When you think about the entertainment that you consume, does it stir your affections for Christ or does it cause your fire to dwindle? What are you being taught? What is shaping your understanding of the world? The Bible, the Word of God, must be what shapes our worldview. It transforms your mind to be like Christ. It tells us to take captive every thought and submit it to Christ.

If you have not walked in purity or by the template God has laid out, know that God can restore you. He offers you forgiveness through Jesus today. Though God’s commands are real and have consequences for disobedience, the Bible also tells us that when we fall short, if we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us those sins.