Daily Gospel

PROVERBS 5:18-19;
18 _ Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 _ She is a loving doe, a graceful deer. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.

SONG OF SONGS 7:6-12;
6 _ “Oh, how delightful you are, my beloved; how pleasant for utter delight! 7You are tall and slim like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of dates. 8 _ I said, ‘I will climb up into the palm tree and take hold of its branches.’ Now may your breasts be like grape clusters, and the scent of your breath like apples. 9 _ May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine, smooth and sweet, flowing gently over lips and teeth.”
6. The bride’s tender appeal
Young Woman: 10 _ “I am my lover’s, the one he desires. 11Come, my love, let us go out into the fields and spend the night among the wildflowers. 12Let us get up early and go out to the vineyards. Let us see whether the vines have budded, whether the blossoms have opened, and whether the pomegranates are in flower. And there I will give you my love.

EPHESIANS 5:28, 33
28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife. 29No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church. 30And we are his body.
31 _ As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

God clearly shares with us the love and delight dimensions of sex in marriage. Sex is not for reproduction only, but for a bonding of love and enjoyment between husbands and wives.


SONG OF SONGS 5:2-8

Young Woman: 2 _ “One night as I was sleeping, my heart awakened in a dream. I heard the voice of my lover. He was knocking at my bedroom door. ‘Open to me, my darling, my treasure, my lovely dove,’ he said, ‘for I have been out in the night. My head is soaked with dew, my hair with the wetness of the night.’
3“But I said, ‘I have taken off my robe. Should I get dressed again? I have washed my feet. Should I get them soiled?’
4“My lover tried to unlatch the door, and my heart thrilled within me. 5I jumped up to open it. My hands dripped with perfume, my fingers with lovely myrrh, as I pulled back the bolt. 6I opened to my lover, but he was gone. I yearned for even his voice! I searched for him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I called to him, but there was no reply. 7 _ The watchmen found me as they were making their rounds; they struck and wounded me. The watchman on the wall tore off my veil.
8“Make this promise to me, O women of Jerusalem! If you find my beloved one, tell him that I am sick with love.”

When marriage becomes routine, it is important to restoke the fires of sexual intimacy.



TRIVIA
Where in the world? What city in Revelation was seen as a place that would never again hear the voices of brides and grooms?

Answer:

Where? Babylon (Revelation 18:23)