A Strange Woman

The infamous meeting of global elites in Davos, Switzerland, just concluded. It’s easy to take lightly the WEF gathering of the rich, famous, and powerful due to their hypocritical use of private jets (over 1000 lined up on the tarmac) while promoting climate change hysteria.

But we mustn’t ignore their lust for power via globalism or one world government.

There were some other signs of lust in Davos–a huge uptick in “escort girls.”

Which brings me to the lie of a Strange Woman.

A Strange Woman

This article might contain the most sensual language about human intimacy that I’ve ever used in print. I’d like to share some straight talk about sex from a lifetime of married love and a biblical insight that seemed weird the first time I read it.

One of the biggest falsehoods of our time, from NFL “cheerleaders” to sexy Internet adds featuring famous people (let alone pornography), is that immorality–sex outside marriage–is desirable and good. Nothing could be further from the truth.

God’s Word disagrees in the strongest of terms.

The Bible’s warning comes down to an interesting phrase I didn’t understand when I was young. Way back in my late teens, I began reading a Proverb a day. There are thirty-one proverbs, one for each day of the month. While reading them for the first time, I ran across the phrase “a strange woman.”

Strange woman? What in the world did that mean?

I found the phrase in numerous chapters of Proverbs, and the context made it clear that a “strange woman” was an adulteress, unfaithful, sexually immoral. In ancient times, this probably didn’t mean fooling around before marriage (fornication) because adolescence didn’t exist then as men and women married in their early teens.

So, I reckoned it referred primarily to adultery–which the context verified. But why did the King James translators use the term “strange woman” to speak of unfaithfulness or immorality?

I later learned through marriage that it was a brilliant translation that teaches a very important truth.

Sex outside of marriage is strange. It’s a cheap and disgusting substitute for real love.

The “strange woman” imagery is found throughout Proverbs 1-9. The most graphic and extensive passage is Proverbs 5:3-23. Take some time to meditate on these verses and digest their meaning. I took it from Eugene Peterson’s The Message which is both modern and very blunt in its assessment.

The lips of a strange woman are oh so sweet, her soft words are oh so smooth.
But it won’t be long before she’s gravel in your mouth, a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.

She’s dancing down the perfumed path to Death; she’s headed straight for Hell and taking you with her. She hasn’t a clue about Real Life, about who she is or where she’s going.

So, my friend, listen closely; don’t treat my words casually. Keep your distance from such a woman; absolutely stay out of her neighborhood. You don’t want to squander your wonderful life, to waste your precious life among the hardhearted.

Why should you allow strangers to take advantage of you? Why be exploited by those who care nothing for you? You don’t want to end your life full of regrets, nothing but sin and bones, Saying, “Oh, why didn’t I do what they told me?

Why did I reject a disciplined life? Why didn’t I listen to my mentors, or take my teachers seriously? My life is ruined! I haven’t one blessed thing to show for my life!”

Do you know the saying, “Drink from your own rain barrel, draw water from your own spring-fed well”? It’s true. Otherwise, you may one day come home and find your barrel empty and your well polluted. 

Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers. Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose—don’t ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted! Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a prostitute? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

Mark well that God doesn’t miss a move you make; he’s aware of every step you take. The shadow of your sin will overtake you; you’ll find yourself stumbling all over yourself in the dark. Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end.

Many phrases stand out in this graphic description. “Gravel in your mouth, a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.” “A life full of regrets full of sin and bones” “Enduring intimacies for cheap thrills.” “Stumbling in the dark…your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end.”

Yow.

Who in their right mind would want that? Answer: Those that buy the lie that sex without loving commitment is exciting. It’s not. It’s strange. The opposite is much better. Covenant marriage is God’s wise plan for human relations on earth.

What’s the opposite of strange?

Familiar. Close. Intimate. 

I’ve learned from forty-seven years of married love that God’s beautiful gift of sex is meant to be shared exclusively with your spouse. Over a lifetime, you become very familiar with them mentally, emotionally, and, yes, sexually.

The physical familiarity creates a sense of oneness to be treasured. Their breath is familiar; The scent of their hair and body seem normal and right; The smile on their face is genuine and makes you feel at home; Their taste is familiar, and your contact with every part of their body seems natural, whole.

Many married couples develop a “dance” of sexual love where caresses and body positions are familiar, drawing, intimate, and satisfying. And behind every expression of familiar sexual intimacy are myriads of shared memories of love, life, children, longevity and exclusiveness of relationship.

In marriage, your spouse is lovingly and intimately familiar to you. He or she is family–and the physical expression of your love is like dessert after a good meal.

But not with the “strange woman.” She is alien, alienated from God and you–foreign in every way. Her smile is a lie–and her breath, scent, body, and acts are all strange to you.

None of them come from loving commitment. 

Yes, having an orgasm is pleasurable in itself. But it’s short and empty. “Cheap thrills” that leave you with “gravel in your mouth, a pain in your gut, a wound in your heart.” 

The Institute of Creation Research gives us a good perspective on the “Strange Woman:”

 In the nine proverbs written or collected by David for his son Solomon, this “strange woman” is the subject of at least six urgent and extended warnings… But there is another application which is even more important. The strange woman is also called a “foolish woman” (e.g., Proverbs 9:13), and actually is personified as “folly,” or “foolishness.” In contrast, the virtuous woman is personified as wisdom. In the ultimate sense, folly is none other than the lure to Satan, for “her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” (Proverbs 7:27). Likewise, wisdom points to Christ, “for whoever finds me finds life” (Proverbs 8:35).

The wrong way to have sex? Stranger. Foreign. Alien. Foolish.

The right way? Spouse. Familiar. Family. Wise.

Live this truth and teach it to your children, grandchildren and great grand children. They will thank you in eternity for helping them be wise.