Marriage, sex and singleness: Paul, the Song of Songs and a pastor

The Short Version

Pastor Michael Todd says he grew up in a churchgoing family where the only guidance about relationships was not to have sex before marriage [4]. The three biblical books summarized here say a good deal more than that single rule, and they agree with one another. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians calls both marriage and singleness good, says sex in marriage is honorable, and asks believers to honor God with their bodies [1]. Ephesians asks husbands and wives to submit to one another, with sacrificial love as the husband's part [2]. The Song of Solomon celebrates desire openly and places it inside a wedding and an exclusive bond [3]. Todd, married ten years to the girl he met at 14, supplies the daily practice: discipline over desire, transparency before you are asked, a shared faith to appeal to, and patience in rebuilding trust [4]. Together they hold that intimacy is good, that it belongs within covenant, and that keeping it there takes love and work.

Table of contents

What They Said

1 Corinthians: marriage is good, singleness is good, and the body matters

Paul wrote to a church in Corinth, a wealthy city known for its culture and its corruption, and the summary describes that church as gifted but immature [1]. Three parts of the letter bear on this subject.

The first is his treatment of sexual sin. A man in the church was sleeping with his father's wife, and the church had tolerated it. Paul commands them to expel the unrepentant man for the sake of the community's purity [1]. He grounds his teaching on the body in a statement of ownership and worth: "You were bought with a price; therefore honor God with your body." [1] He reminds them that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, so purity matters [1].

The second is chapter 7, where he answers the Corinthians' own questions about marriage and singleness. The summary gives his answer in three plain statements. Marriage is good, but so is singleness. Each person should live as God calls them, faithfully and with undivided devotion. Sex in marriage is honorable, and spouses should serve one another [1]. His tone, the summary notes, is practical and pastoral, helping believers handle their relationships in light of eternity [1]. Two things stand out against the one-rule version of Christian teaching. Paul does not treat marriage as the only respectable state, and he does not treat sex within marriage as something to be embarrassed about.

The third is chapter 13, which the summary calls the heart of the letter. Paul puts love above every spiritual gift: love is patient, kind, humble and enduring, and gifts will fade while love remains [1]. The chapter was written to a quarrelling church and is not about marriage in particular, but it supplies the standard by which the rest is measured. Paul's closing instruction is "Let all that you do be done in love" [1].

Ephesians: mutual submission and sacrificial love

Ephesians spends its first half on identity and its second on conduct, and the order matters. The summary puts it as a principle: believers do not live holy lives to earn salvation; they live from the grace they have already received [2].

The passage on marriage comes in chapter 5, inside a longer instruction to walk in love and in light. The summary gives the sequence. First, a general command: submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Then Paul applies it to households. Wives are to submit as to the Lord. Husbands are to love sacrificially, as Christ loved the church [2]. Marriage, he says, reflects the mystery of Christ and the church [2].

The summary lists the theme of these chapters as walking in love, holiness and mutual submission [2]. That framing places the instruction to wives inside a command addressed to everyone, and it sets the husband's duty at the level of sacrifice. The model given to him is Christ, whose love for the church cost him his life.

Song of Solomon: desire celebrated, inside a covenant

The Song is the book that most directly contradicts the idea that the Bible is uneasy about desire. It is a poetic dialogue between a bride, the Shulammite woman, and her beloved, often identified with King Solomon [3]. It opens with her voice and with passion: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine." [3]

The summary traces five movements. The lovers express mutual attraction, praising each other's beauty, and find joy in emotional closeness and admiration as well as physical attraction [3]. Then come pursuit, separation and anticipation, with spring as the image of love awakening: "See! The winter is past… flowers appear on the earth." [3] Then a wedding procession, after which the marriage is consummated and their love is expressed with poetic passion and mutual affirmation: "You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride…" [3] The summary's takeaway from this section is that marital intimacy is a sacred celebration, and that grounded in covenant it reflects deep trust and beauty [3].

The fourth movement is conflict. The bride hesitates to answer her beloved's call, and when she opens the door he is gone. She searches for him, faces hardship, and they reunite [3]. The summary reads this as an admission that even the best relationships involve missteps, longing and reconciliation, and it quotes the line that states their belonging to each other: "I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine." [3]

The last chapters return to affirmation. The lovers enjoy one another without shame, in garden imagery that recalls Eden [3]. Then comes the declaration that defines the kind of love the book means: "Place me like a seal over your heart… for love is as strong as death." [3] The summary describes this love as jealous, unyielding and unquenchable, in the sense of fiercely loyal and exclusive, not possessive. It cannot be bought, and it endures [3].

The summary's conclusion is direct. Far from being taboo, the book places romantic and sexual love within a framework of dignity, mutuality and holiness [3]. It adds that the Song has also been read throughout history as an allegory of God's covenant love for his people, or of Christ's love for the church [3].

Michael Todd: what it takes in practice

Todd, lead pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, speaks from his own failure. By his description he was the guy you did not want to bring home, shaped by cultural images of male success and by an addiction to pornography [4]. His parents have been married 40 years and raised him in church, but relationships were never discussed, so he had no playbook beyond the one prohibition [4]. He says he rebuilt himself and his relationship with Natalie, to whom he has now been married ten years [4].

Discipline over desire. Todd does not claim that marriage ended his attraction to other people. Desire is still there, he says, and the difference is that he has disciplined himself, which is what he takes the word disciple to mean [4]. He objects to the cultural advice to do what you feel, because there is a cost and a consequence, and equally to faith leaders who pretend the feeling does not exist. In his words, "the feeling's real but your reaction to the feeling is where your discipline comes in" [4]. His stated dream is to be married to one woman for life, and for his children to see a man who was disciplined and not driven by desire [4]. He says loving many women takes no greatness; the great thing is "to meet the needs of one woman for a lifetime" [4].

No isolation. He and his wife talk about attraction to others openly and with humor, so that neither hides what they feel [4]. He calls isolation the enemy's playground. Alone with a feeling a person is ashamed of, they cope with a pill, a drink or a website; coping becomes habit, and habit becomes an addiction that rules their life [4].

Honesty, then transparency. Unity between two people begins with honesty about who each one is today. He tells his congregation, "God doesn't bless who you pretend to be." [4] He goes a step further and names transparency as the first of three qualities that carried his marriage. The distinction is his own: "Honesty is when you ask me, I'll tell you the truth." [4] Transparency is offering it before being asked, because the questions that most need asking are too frightening to ask [4].

Shared faith. The second quality is a common foundation. Couples equally matched in belief find conversations about children and money easier, he says, and have something above their emotions to appeal to. He and Natalie go back to the Bible when they disagree, and he mentions the description of love as patient and kind in First Corinthians 13 [4]. The third quality is fun: hard times are promised, so find someone you can laugh with [4].

Trust and repair. He is plain that his wife had to forgive him for something that very day, and that the standard is "this life is about progression, not perfection." [4] His image for broken trust is a bucket. "Trust is lost in buckets," he says, and regained in drops, and most relationships fail because the person who tipped the bucket is not diligent enough to refill it [4].

Staying with pain. When their son was diagnosed with autism, he wanted to fix it and his wife wanted to talk. A counselor told him, "you're going to have to feel it." [4] He learned to sit with her, and sums up the result: "And the situation hasn't changed, but our relationship has." [4]

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Desire is real and good. The Song says so in poetry [3]. Paul calls sex in marriage honorable [1]. Todd criticizes religious leaders who deny the feeling [4]. None of the four treats the body as the problem; Paul's reason for sexual restraint is that the body is valuable, a temple bought with a price [1].

It belongs inside a covenant. In the Song the consummation follows the wedding procession, and the seal over the heart is exclusive [3]. Paul speaks of sex in marriage and disciplines sex that violates it [1]. Todd's whole aim is one woman for a lifetime [4].

Covenant love is measured by service. Spouses should serve one another, Paul says [1]. Ephesians asks for mutual submission and a husband's sacrifice [2]. Todd's version is meeting one woman's needs for life and choosing not to solve a problem so that the two of them reach the finish line together [4].

Good marriages include failure and repair. The bride of the Song misses her beloved at the door and has to search for him [3]. Todd describes daily forgiveness and years of refilling a bucket [4].

There are also real differences of emphasis, and a consensus reading should not hide them.

Singleness. Paul gives singleness equal standing with marriage and ties both to calling and undivided devotion [1]. The Song and Todd are about couples. Todd does use the word single, but in another sense: a couple, he says, is still two single people who must each keep growing [4]. Only Paul speaks to the person who will not marry, and he speaks to them with respect.

Submission. Ephesians includes an instruction to wives that the other sources do not repeat [2]. The summary presents it within mutual submission and pairs it with the husband's sacrificial love [2]. The Song shows a relationship of mutual pursuit in which the woman speaks first and often [3]. Todd describes his marriage in terms of shared honesty and does not use the language of submission at all [4]. The summary of 1 Corinthians notes that Paul's instructions there on head coverings and gender roles were specific to their cultural context [1]. How to apply the Ephesians passage is a question these sources leave open.

Discipline and patience. Paul orders an unrepentant man expelled [1]. Todd preaches progression over perfection [4]. The cases differ: Paul's concerns someone who will not turn back, and Todd's concerns a person doing the slow work of repair. Todd himself allows that some situations, especially those involving infidelity, are unhealthy and cannot progress [4].

How to read the Song. The summary notes it can be taken as a marriage manual or as a metaphor for divine love [3]. Ephesians makes a similar move in the other direction, calling marriage a picture of Christ and the church [2].

One caution about Todd as a source: in this conversation he cites First Corinthians 13 and speaks from his faith throughout, but he does not discuss Ephesians or the Song, and despite the episode's title he says little about sex within marriage itself [4]. The link between his habits and those texts is made here, not by him.

Why It Works

The sources give reasons, each in its own idiom.

Identity before behavior. Ephesians roots conduct in grace already received [2]. Paul's sexual ethic rests on worth: you were bought with a price [1]. Todd arrives at the same order from experience. He locates his worth in his faith, and says honesty about where you are today is the only starting point for change, comparing it to a map app that cannot give directions from a false location [4].

Security makes freedom possible. The Song's lovers enjoy each other without shame because their love is sealed and exclusive [3]. Todd describes speaking unscripted at the couple's ten-year vow renewal and knowing his wife believed every word [4].

Secrecy is where things go wrong. Todd's chain from isolation to coping to habit to addiction explains why he treats open conversation as a safeguard [4]. Ephesians speaks of walking in light and exposing sin [2].

A standard above feeling. A shared faith gives a couple something to appeal to beyond the mood of the moment, Todd says [4]. First Corinthians 13 is that kind of standard: patient, kind, humble, enduring [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

These are Christian sources and they assume a Christian reader. Todd offers versions of his advice for people who do not share his faith, and much of it (honesty, transparency, counseling, rebuilding trust) carries over; his point about shared foundations is addressed to couples who have a faith to share [4].

The biblical material here is brief. The summaries give Paul's teaching on marriage in a few sentences each, so this article cannot settle detailed questions about divorce, remarriage or particular situations, which the sources do not cover [1][2].

Patience has limits. Todd distinguishes a partner who is repairing trust from a situation that is unhealthy and cannot progress [4]. Nothing in these sources asks anyone to remain in harm. He also says everybody should be in counseling, and a couple in serious difficulty should seek a counselor or pastor they trust [4].

Transparency needs judgment. Todd cautions against sharing everything with someone you have only just met [4].

What To Do With It

1. Replace the single rule with the fuller picture. Hold together what these texts hold together: desire is good, it belongs in covenant, and both marriage and singleness are honorable callings [1][3].

2. If you are single, treat it as a calling, not a waiting room. Paul's measure is faithful, undivided devotion [1].

3. Admit the feeling and decide the response. Do not pretend attraction away; ask, as Todd does, whether acting on it serves the end you want [4].

4. Do not go silent. Tell your spouse what you are actually feeling before it hardens in private, and use humor where you can [4].

5. Offer the truth before you are asked. Name your own insecurity without demanding that your partner fix it [4].

6. Agree on what you will appeal to when you disagree. For Todd and his wife it is Scripture, and the description of love as patient and kind [1][4].

7. Ask what you have brought lately. Keep growing as an individual, and put the question to yourself, not your partner [4].

8. If you broke trust, refill it in drops. Expect it to take far longer than the breaking did [4].

9. Affirm each other out loud. The lovers of the Song praise one another constantly, before and after the wedding [3].

10. Measure love by service. Spouses serve one another, and the standard set for husbands in Ephesians is sacrifice [1][2].

Sources

1. 1 Corinthians ·
2. Ephesians ·
3. Song of Solomon ·
4. Mastering Relationships, Marriage & Sex (The SPIRITUAL Keys) with Pastor Michael Todd · The School of Greatness