Program: FamilyLife Today

Jody: I've asked men, what does it mean to a man to give your body to your wife? And some of the responses were quite interesting. We got a letter back from one man who said this ? "I don't think men struggle with giving over authority of their body to their wives."

[laughter]

You want authority? Take it, it's yours.

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Dennis?

Dennis: Bob, if there is an area today that needs to be talked about among married couples ? now, I'm not talking about couple-to-couple. I am talking about husband and wife. If we need to have a discussion, I think one of the areas we need to be talking about, from a biblical perspective, is the area of romance and sexual intimacy in our marriage.

Bob: Yes, go on, preach, preach.

Dennis: Every marriage is moving in either one direction or another. You're either moving toward isolation where two people are missing one another and not respecting one another's needs, or you're moving towards one another and meeting one another's needs with love and affirmation.

Bob: And that's the major theme at the Weekend to Remember conference that we talk about throughout the weekend. We help couples who are caught up in that natural drift toward isolation, and we get them to where they are moving in the same direction toward one another, toward intimacy and, you're right, one of the areas that's tripping a lot of couples up these days is this whole issue of intimacy in marriage, romance, and passion, and we recently heard a message from Jody and Linda Dillow. They spoke at one of our Rekindling the Romance conferences in Montgomery, Alabama, and they shared a healthy biblical perspective on this subject, and we said, "Let's let our listeners hear it."

Dennis: Absolutely, and we want to give you a taste of what you would get at a Weekend to Remember conference. You schedule a weekend away with your spouse, and so as Jody and Linda share with you about four flames for flaming passion and marital romance, I want you to get out your calendars and begin to think about when are you going to go to a Weekend to Remember.

Bob: Here are Jody and Linda Dillow.

Jody: The first flame that we mentioned is to embrace God's perspective. The second flame is to receive God's blessing in your intimacy. But the third flame that we believe is crucial to sparking the gift of sexual intimacy is to give your body as a gift to your mate.

Linda: Some of you have been married a long time. How many of you wives grew up hearing that a wife had a wifely duty? I don't know what you think of when you think of duty, but I think of an obligation. An obligation, something I have to do, something like cleaning the toilet, and cleaning the toilet and making love with my husband together don't do anything for me.

Jody: That's good, I'm glad to hear that.

[laughter]

Linda: And, really, it's sad, but there isn't a good English word to describe what the Greek word for duty means, because in the Greek, in which the New Testament was written, it means "a debt that is owed." A debt that is owed ? well, why do I owe Jody a debt, and why does he owe me a debt? Because I gave my body as a gift to Jody on our wedding night, and he doesn't have authority over his body, because he gave his body to me on our wedding night. We participated in a gift exchange. I gave him my body as a gift, and he gave his body to me as a gift, and for that reason, we owe each other a debt.

We get lots of fun letters, and we got one this last year from a woman that said, "We just celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary and guess what I gave my husband for an anniversary gift, with a red bow? He said it was his favorite present of all time."

Jody: I've asked men, "What does it mean to a man to give your body to your wife?" And some of the responses were quite interesting. We got a letter back from one man who said this ? "I don't think men struggle with giving over authority of their body to their wives."

[laughter]

You want authority? Take it, it's yours.

[laughter]

Do whatever you want ? once, twice. Given the chance, we would gladly submit authority over our bodies to our wives ? the morning, afternoon, evening, in the middle of the night, and twice on Sunday. I think this is one of the mysteries that men battle with. Why don't women have the same attitude?

I reflected on this ? what does it mean for a man to give authority of his body to his wife? Well, I think it means some of the same things. There could be some more appropriate male approach, but I think there is often a more fundamental issue. It means a lifetime of exclusivity; it means complete, total faithfulness to your wife. In the Old Testament, Job says, "I've made a covenant with my eyes, that I will not look upon a maid." One way I can give authority is exclusivity, and I made a commitment that I would never look upon another woman with any sexual interest. I would never be unfaithful to my wife in thought or deed. And it's been surprisingly easy to keep, once my mind and my heart and my eyes were set on the fact that they're only for Linda, they belong to her, she has authority.

So a husband could say something like this ? "I will make a covenant with my eyes never to look lustfully at another woman, whether in the flesh, in my mind, on a piece of paper, or on a computer screen. I will only turn to you to meet my sexual needs. I will be sexually faithful to you."

The third flame is to give your body as a gift to your mate, and the question is, will you give your body as an exclusive gift to your mate? So there are four flames to ignite intimacy in marriage. The first one is to embrace God's perspective. The second one is to receive God's blessing. The third one is to give your body as a gift, and the fourth, and most important one, is to become a servant lover.

Linda: We've spent the last year studying the Song of Solomon once again. We studied it during the early years of our marriage, and it's been so special to go back and just start all over again and study it again, and as we studied it, we saw that there was a thread through the Song of Solomon of being a servant lover. We talk in Christian circles today of being a servant leader. But we need to be a servant lover to one another in the bedroom.

In the Song, the first four chapters show the ideal of marriage, but starting in chapter 5 you have the reality, and you have the reality because selfishness slips in, and Solomon, busy about the affairs of state, comes late at night, it's after midnight, and he knocks on the door to come in to make love with his wife, and she throws out two excuses. And Solomon makes it very clear that he wants entrance, and she makes excuses, and so he leaves in a huff. In the area where rejection hurts so much, I think this could have been written in 2004. So what was the answer for Solomon and Tierza [ph], and what's the answer for us when we knowingly or unknowingly hurt one another in this intimate area? The answer is to become a servant lover.

And the servant lover verse is found in Philippians 2:3 and 4. Probably many of you know these verses. It says "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not look merely for your own interest but also look out for the interests of the others." And maybe you've applied that verse concerning your children or concerning what you do around the house, but have you considered applying it to your intimate relationship?

Well, what is the servant lover? According to these verses, the servant lovers sacrifice sexually for their mate. Servant lovers place their mate's needs above their own, and servant lovers give sexually with selfless abandon.

Jody: Solomon manifested the principle of being a servant lover. Here is a man who has been rejected by his wife and instead of nursing this and becoming angry, which it's very easy to do, we find a few scenes later that he comes back to her, and he begins to praise her, and this highlights something that men and women, as Paul was pointing out this morning, are very different in the way they communicate.

There was a study done at the University of Belfast in Northern Ireland of girl and boy babies in the womb. This is really funny. Girl babies had one-third more mouth movements. In fact, if you go and count up the verses in Song of Solomon, Tierza speaks one-third more times, has one-third more verses than Solomon does. Linda and I travel a lot, and one of the things I've noticed is when we come back from trips, there is a desire to share what happened. You know, I come back from being away for three weeks, "Well, how did it go?" "It was really great." You know, she wants a little more detail, and I remember at one point I decided, "I've got to start taking some notes for this lady so that she gets some feeling of what I did."

I remember one night we were sitting down, and she had just come back from an intimate issues conference, and she went on, my best recollection, for about two hours with every detail of every conversation, all the people she prayed with, how this message went over, and I just sat there in amazement. At the end of this two hours I looked at her, and I said, "How do you remember all this?" I said, "No wonder you're frustrated with me. Do you expect this of me when I come back from a trip?" And, of course, she doesn't really, but it does highlight the fact that women are much more verbally oriented, and Solomon picks up on this.

And in the next scene that we see, we find Solomon praising her in the same way, in exactly the same way as he did on the wedding night, and the poet is making a point of this. He goes from teeth ? excuse me ? from hair to teeth to temples, et cetera. He does this in chapter 6, but he also does it exactly the same in chapter 4, the wedding night, and the poet is telling us nothing has changed. I love you just as you are, I accept you and praise you the way you are now regardless of any hurt that has come up in our relationship.

Jody: Solomon was smart. He knew that women respond to verbal praise. Tierza was a servant lover, and she was smart, and she knew that men were made very differently than women. God made us very different. For a woman, a touch on the arm, a touch on the cheek, the small of the back, it all is very sensuous and romantic. God gave men 15 sexual glands, and they're all in one location.

[laughter]

And Tierza knew this, and she knew that the way to excite her husband was through the eye gate, because God made men to be responsive to sight. Now, she had just felt like her husband was selfish. He was selfish, but she had been selfish, too. Her husband came back and responded as a servant lover and praised her with his words, and you're not going to believe what this wife did to reach out as a servant lover to her husband. She performed a dance before him, called the "Dance of the Mahanaim," and either she was without clothing, or she was wearing something very transparent, because Solomon describes every part of her body, and he says, "How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter, the curves of your hips are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artisan," and he goes on and on. He says, "How beautiful and how delightful you are, my love, with all your charms."

In the Hebrew, this word "charms" means sexual charms. She was a skillful lover to her husband. In our selfishness, we tend to approach one another the way we would like to be approached. A woman wants to be approached with praise, with words, with romance, but many men would really enjoy the Dance of the Mahanaim. And Tierza was a servant lover, you know, I don't think she was any different than I am or all of you women. Women come to me, and they say, "No way." Are we suggesting that you buy a dancing outfit? Absolutely not. But we want you to see the freedom and the beauty and the joy, the freedom that they had to love one another and be servant lovers to one another.

And then they both turned around and acted like servant lovers in chapter 7. And she invites him to go on an outdoor rendezvous, and she says, "We're going to go out in the vineyard, and we're going to see if the vine has budded and if the blossoms have come, and there I will give you my love." There ? where? In the vineyard. I am so grateful to God that he included a sensuous dance and making love outdoors in the Bible. Now, again, we are not recommending ? we are making no recommendation ?

[laughter]

Jody: I don't know that you should say that.

[laughter]

Linda: We are making no recommendation.

Jody: Listen, guys, I'll take care of you here.

[laughter]

Jody: Really, we're making no recommendations. We just want you to see the freedom, and she reached out and was aggressive in planning something, and Solomon made it a priority. He was a busy king, but he said, "Let's go away together and make love." So we have a question for your couples ? will you make a choice to become a servant lover?

[laughter]

We had an "amen" over here on the right.

Jody: In the last chapter of the book, there is an excellent passage we'd like to use to conclude our time together. Tierza is speaking, and she says, "Put me like a seal over your heart" ? indication of ownership ? "Like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death. Jealousy as severe a shield, its flashes are the flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord."

Now, there are several Hebrew words for "love." One Hebrew word ? "dod" means "erotic" or sexual love. There is another word, "rayah" which means companionship or friendship. But the highest form of love in the Hebrew Bible and all three of these words are used in the Song of Solomon is "ahaba," and ahaba embraces the erotic, it embraces the friendship, but it takes it to a higher level. It involves commitment; it involves self-sacrifice for the good of the object love. It's the word we use for a servant lover. And this particular form of love is called the very flame of the Lord.

It says that all of these ingredients, dod, rayah, erotic passion, friendship, they burn together, and they produce this passion in marriage that God associates his name with. He says that this sexual passion is ahaba love that's said with commitment and loyalty is the flame of God. That's how much of a gift it is to couples. And he also says that this flame, or he talks about this ahaba love as flashes ? its flashes, or the flashes of fire. This is the Hebrew word for lightning bolts, and he's saying that these sparks of sexual passion and intimacy are like bolts of lightning, and it's the flame of Yahweh.

Linda: So we'd like to leave you with four questions, and we encourage you to go home and talk about these four questions and pray together about them and ask God what he would speak to you. First, have you embraced God's perspective? Second, will you receive God's benediction, His blessing, on your sexual intimacy? Third, will you give your body as a gift to your mate? And, fourth, will you become a servant lover?

Bob: Well, those are four good questions from Linda Dillow.

Dennis: And I have the answer.

Bob: Yes?

Dennis: Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Bob: You're pretty resolute on this, aren't you?

Dennis: I am resolute, and I have one more yes that we need to ask of our listeners.

Bob: Yes?

Dennis: Will you come to a Weekend to Remember and do something for your marriage? Invest in your marriage. And you may say, "But, Dennis, we went to that a few years ago." Well, you know what? Unless you've been to it this year, more than likely, your marriage could use a little tune-up and a little fresh fire and a few lightning bolts to kindle again the flames of passion.

Bob: If you'd like more information about spending a weekend together at one of the Weekend to Remember conferences, we're hosting them in cities all across the country this spring into the summer and into next fall. In fact, it's not too early to go ahead and mark out a weekend for next fall and plan to attend ...

Dennis: No, that's too late. You've got to get to one this spring.

Bob: Well, but it might have already come to the city near where you live.

Dennis: We've got them all over the country, Bob. We're in 125 locations around the United States, and, I'll tell you, some of the locations would make a great getaway. Use some cheap airline tickets or ...

Bob: ... cash in the frequent flyer miles ...

Dennis: ... do it ...

Bob: ... get on down to one of these conferences.

Dennis: I'm telling you, go down and hear you speak down at the Gaylord Texan. Just coming to that hotel, alone, not to mention you ? think about how big that is ? you and the Gaylord Texan.

Bob: Go to our website at FamilyLife.com or give us a call at 1-800-FLTODAY. Get more information about a weekend of hope, a weekend of purpose, a weekend of encouragement, a weekend at the Weekend to Remember conference. Call 1-800-FLTODAY or, again, go online. You can register online at FamilyLife.com. Come out and join us for a great weekend together.

Dennis: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Bob: We also have copies of the book by Jody and Linda Dillow called "Intimacy Ignited." We've got copies of their message on CD, and we've got copies of the book you and Barbara wrote on this subject called "Rekindling the Romance." Go to our website, FamilyLife.com. You'll get information on how you can order any of these resources, and if you order both books together, we'll send you the CD at no additional cost.

Again, the website is FamilyLife.com or call 1-800-FLTODAY, and someone on our team can make sure you get these resources sent to you.

And, finally, this month we've come up with a great way to say thank you to those listeners who help support FamilyLife Today with a financial contribution. We are listener-supported, and so we depend on donations from folks like you. And not long ago, your wife Barbara was speaking to a group of women on the subject of what a wife can do to help her husband be the man that God wants him to be, and the ladies loved the message. So we thought we'd make a CD of this message available to any of our listeners who, this month, can help us with a donation of any amount to help support the ongoing ministry of FamilyLife Today. All you have to do is call 1-800-FLTODAY, make a donation, and say, "I'd like Barbara's CD." Or if you're online, go to our website, FamilyLife.com. You can make a donation online, and when you're filling out the form, there is a little box that says "keycode." Write in the two letters, "CD," and we'll know to send you a copy of Barbara's message as a thank you gift for your financial support of this ministry.

Well, I hope you have a great weekend. I hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and I hope you can be back with us on Monday. We're going to hear an exciting new way that moms, in particular, can share a message with their daughters to encourage young girls to guard their hearts and to guard their purity until the right man comes along. We'll hear the story of the "Princess and the Kiss" on Monday's program. I hope you can be back with us for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.