- I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. -
The structure present at the beginning of these verses should be familiar to us. Solomon has spent much of his book explaining his quest concerning meaning and wisdom.
What follows is something new. It sounds like the man who wrote Proverbs rather than the one who wrote Ecclesiastes.
Solomon writes of the adulteress, seductress, the whore. He finds her (fittingly given his proclivities) associated with a fate worse than death.
Why do I say fittingly? Well at this point in Solomon’s life, he has realized the demise of his kingdom will come through his foreign wives.
God had warned the people of Israel of foreign women not because of xenophobia, but rather due to their inclination to turn them towards other gods.
Worshipping other gods was such a big deal, it made it into the top ten rules twice.
This is exactly what had happened to Solomon. He had married countless of women who turned his and his people’s heart away from God.
So, was he biased or did God speak true? The wars and enslavement to come would undoubtedly produce a fate worse than death.
One avenue into the answer may be how poorly this mistake makes Solomon look. He is the wisest man and even he cannot follow the obvious, non-esoteric laws?
The Bible is not kind to its heroes.
The law appears to not only be our instructor, but also a window into our own corruption. If the wisest fall prey to it, how much more will we?
Now, we must examine the law and see if it proves true not only in for Solomon, but in our own age as well.
Our culture is obsessed with erotic pleasure. Why do I not use the term love or sex? Because both terms have been degraded by our age.
Love is to care for someone else to your own detriment. Sex is to join two souls into spiritual union. Erotic pleasure is strictly genital, and this we have prioritized above all other “loves.”
We have chosen to become Freudians rather than Jungians, some of us without ever being told there was a choice.
Feminism instructs women that liberation is to be found in destroying moderation. In agreeing to this view, they find themselves joining forces with the women Solomon describes.
You may ask, “Where are their gods?” The argument is semantical, and we know this. They serve the gods of Secularism and Pleasure – Bacchus and Aphrodite they are named.
Truly, we find ourselves not only with the temptation of willing bodies, but we face the images and icons of this false love, ensnaring men and women alike.
What can we do to avoid and flee this temptation? It’s always a click away. How are we to overcome these impossible odds?
First, you must stay away from temptation. Do not watch lewd movies regardless of your age or maturity.
Second, learn your limits. I do not mean experiment. I mean to take note of when you fall and learn how to avoid the scenario in the future.
Third, get married and do so when you are young. There is no better teacher to show the superiority of love to erotica then a Christian marriage.
Finally, love God.
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