God Loves Sex: An Honest Conversation About Sexual Desire and Holiness
For a long time, I’ve wanted to read God Loves Sex: An Honest Conversation About Sexual Desire and Holiness for a few reasons.
- One of the authors is Dan Allender, a Christian therapist and author I enjoy reading.
- Another of the authors is Tremper Longman, a respected Old Testament scholar who’s written on (among other things) wisdom literature.
- It covers the Song of Songs, which is an important but often ignored task.
- It covers a topic that the church needs to address.
Find me a book that blends biblical scholarship and practical application, and I’m in.
God Loves Sex, as the title implies, sees sex as a gift from God:
God loves sex. He conceived, created, and blessed the process by which our bodies know and are known through desire, arousal, foreplay, intercourse, orgasm, and rest. God designed sex as a bridge experience between earth and heaven.
There is no conflict between sexual desire and holiness. Satan, though, hates sex and wants to ruin it for us. Our sexual experience is “fraught with turns, twists, disasters, failure, and growth.” God wants our desire to become more holy and whole. We will never arrive at perfection, but God can use even our struggles to work out his purposes in our lives.
God Loves Sex presents a fictional small group that is studying the Song of Songs. Some in the group are cynical; some are uptight; all have sexual baggage. Chapters weave the story of that small group with commentary on the Song.
I appreciated learning more about the Song of Songs. It made me want to study more. The book introduces the Song, arguing that it is not a progressive allegory, but a book of individual poems and songs. It is not an allegory, but a book on sex that gives us a window into God’s heart. It is, the authors argue, a model of godly sensuality. It’s the best treatment of the Song I’ve read.
I also appreciated the way the authors applied the book to life. They acknowledge that we’re complicated, and that this topic is difficult. It’s tough to apply the Song to our lives, and this book helps us think about how we might do so. It gives hope, even for broken people like us.
We can’t afford to ignore the topic of sex. I’m grateful for a book that’s biblical, theological, practical, and winsome. I’ll be reading a few books on sex this summer, and I’m glad I read this one. I recommend it.
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