Intimacy in the Bed Room

We ended last time talking about 1st Peter 3:7, which says, “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding.” It is our wives we are to dwell with. And we talked about making a study of our wives.

But the King James Version brings out another connotation. The King James translates this as dwell with them “according to knowledge.” This makes us think sexual. Genesis 4:1 stated, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived.” When this verse says “Adam knew Eve,” it didn’t mean he knew her name or her shoe size. That’s not the way babies are conceived. Intimacy in marriage also involves sexual intimacy.

Aha, some of you are getting ideas. Victoria Secrets lingerie, soft music, candlelight and roses. Get the manuals that instruct you the various positions that take an acrobat or yoga instructor to get into. Well, that isn’t the way it works in most homes.

Most married couples, after a few years, have acquired a kid or two. They have put on the pounds, and suffer from varicose veins. By the time the kids are in bed, both are too tired to perform at the pinnacle of excitement. Romance maybe happens on Valentine’s Day or your anniversary, but it’s not part of the regular routine. Yet, normal married couples actually have a more satisfying sex life than those trying to emulate the movies. Why? It is because intimacy comes from knowledge, not mystery.

Proverbs 5, set in the midst of many warnings not to play with fire by dabbling in sex outside of marriage, tells us to be satisfied with our wives. Writing of the wife, Proverbs 5:18-19 say:

“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love.”

Even an older woman (still the “wife of your youth”), can compete quite successfully on those terms. As the New International Version says, he is “captivated by her love.” Wives don’t need to dress like prostitutes or act like actresses in X-rated movies. They only need to respond to one another in love, freely giving themselves to one another.

Only within the bounds of true marital love can two people relax and be comfortable with one another, to be un-inhibited in their love-making as Adam and Eve were in Genesis 2:25, which says, “And they were both naked. . . and were not ashamed.” That kind of total intimacy is possible, proper, and God’s intention within a marriage; but it can only grow out of love.

But it takes love PLUS time. Are you taking the time to understand your wife?