Summer Series – Exposing Our Blind Spots – Intimacy = Sex
How many friends do you have?
… who are your friends who know you intimately?
The problem is … Our society has linked intimacy and sex as the same thing.
– 2 Samuel 1, “I grieve you Jonathan my brother, you were very dear to me. You love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of a woman.”
Defining intimacy
Intimacy = “close familiarity or friendship”.
“closeness, togetherness, affinity, rapport, attachment, familiarity, confidentiality, close association, close relationship, close attachment, close friendship, friendliness, comradeship, companionship, amity, affection, mutual affection, warmth, warm feelings, understanding, fellow feeling”.
What does the bible say?
The word ‘intimate’
lots to say about the goodness of good, close, deep intimate relationships.
The big picture of the bible
… David and Jonathan had a really strong, good close intimate friendship
Proverbs 27:6, “wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses”
Proverbs 27:9-10, “perfume and incense bring great joy to the heart and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,”
Proverbs 18:24 says, “one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.”
How exposing this blind spot is good for us (both as individuals and as a church)
If intimacy = sex
… limits any potential for intimacy to your spouse only.
… no other option for intimate friendships.
… people condemned to a life where intimacy is no longer possible.
… causes frustration … or isolation … or temptation … or loneliness.
And here is why it is good to expose.
… intimacy can happen in the marriage and outside the marriage.
… people not starved of intimacy.
… Mark 10:29-30 – 100 times more
Paul Tripp, who is a biblical counsellor says this about church relationships…
[W]e live in interwoven networks of terminally casual relationships. We live with the delusion that we know one another, but we really don’t. We call our easy going, self-protective, and often theologically platitudinous conversations ‘fellowship,’ but they seldom ever reach the threshold of true fellowship. We know cold demographic details about one another (married or single, type of job, number of kids, general location of housing, etc.), but we know little about the struggle of faith that is waged every day behind well-maintained personal boundaries. One of the things that still shocks me in counselling, even after all these years, is how little I often know about people I have counted as true friends. I can’t tell you how many times, in talking with friends who have come to me for help, that I have been hit with details of difficulty and struggle far beyond anything I would have predicted. Privatism is not just practiced by the lonely unbeliever; it is rampant in the church as well.
How exposing this blind spot is good for those who do not know Jesus
If we live out genuine loving God honouring intimate relationships, then this commends to goodness of the gospel to those who do not know Jesus.
Creating intimacy
1) Make an effort.
2) Ask Questions
3) Remove your masks
4) Persevere
True Friendship by Vaughan Roberts ($3 Ebook, $13 paper back from Koorong)