Intimacy for Sale – Proverbs 30:18-20

Study Guide – Intimacy for Sale

Intimacy for Sale

Self(less) Love

Proverbs 30:18-20 et. al.

The Text

Proverbs 30:18-20

¹⁸ Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

¹⁹ the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a serpent on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a virgin.

²⁰ This is the way of an adulteress:

she eats and wipes her mouth

and says, “I have done no wrong.”

Introduction:

The Bible contains a variety of passages on marriage and intimacy. Some explain where marriage came from, such as Genesis 1 & 2. Others give instructions on the use and misuse of intimacy, such as 1 Corinthians 7.

Our passage was written by an ancient Israelite sage named Agur—and the only thing we know about him is that he wrote this chapter of Proverbs. These verses are not an explanation, neither do they give instruction on marital intimacy. This is meditative poem on the wonder and beauty of intimacy.

Now, I know that most of us aren’t English Majors, and we barely stayed awake during Shakespeare in High School. So, let’s be honest – you did not roll out of bed this morning thinking, “I can’t wait to go to church and meditate on ancient Hebrew poetry today!”

But don’t sleep in today’s class, because this little poem gets to the heart of something we’ve all felt. We’ve lost our sense of wonder at the union of husband and wife.

In a world where intimacy is sold cheap on every screen, in every commercial, music video, and Only Fans, this poem reorients us to the captivating awe we’ve lost.

The poem is only three verses. In verse 18 & 19, Agur uses a typical 3/4 Hebrew structure for comparison:

Three things are too wonderful for me;

Four I do not understand.

And it’s the fourth thing that he wants to highlight. Then in the final verse, verse 20, he makes a stark contrast with the previous section:

²⁰ This is the way of an adulteress:

she eats and wipes her mouth

and says, “I have done no wrong.”

For the last 65 years, our culture has pushed a very simple message:

‘Physical intimacy is just like any other physical appetite.’

Like hunger or thirst. When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re hungry: eat. And you should treat intimacy the same way. No big deal. It’s just another appetite to feed. In other words, we’ve been told – and many of us have believed – that intimacy can be casual and cheap.

And yet, something within us knows better. We all sense there is nothing casual about the love and intimacy to be shared between a man and a woman.

And we know, many of us by painful experience, that it isn’t cheap. It’s extremely costly. It’s not like grabbing a snack or drinking a bottle of water.

And Agur says, “That’s because it’s full of mystery and grace.” It stirs wonder, it humbles us, it moves us in ways we can’t fully explain. And just like Agur, we say, “It’s too wonderful for me. I do not understand.”

So, what do these three verses teach us?

1. Intimacy is a Humbling Mystery – but we’ve made it casual and ordinary.
2. Intimacy is a Graceful Journey – but we’ve made it selfish and solitary.
3. Intimacy Points to the Ultimate Wonder – it stirs an ache no human love can satisfy.

1. Intimacy is a Humbling Mystery – but we’ve made it casual and ordinary.

Verse 18:

¹⁸ Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

He’s saying, there are some things that, when you see them, they take you out of yourself. Even though you can explain them—it doesn’t lessen their mystery and wonder.

Watch the eagle ride the wind. He never flaps his wings. Somehow, he finds columns of warm rising air, he spirals upwards, and the glides back down. It’s awe inspiring.

Or think of a sailboat, opening her sails, receiving the wind which glides her over the waves. It’s a wonder to watch. The word “wonderful” means you’ve seen a marvel, a surprise, a miracle.

And Agur says, greater than the eagle riding the wind and the ship riding the waves, is the way of a man with a woman.

He’s meditating on human love and intimacy—and it’s taking him out of himself. It’s humbling him. He says, “I don’t have words to explain this.

This Proverb is beautiful poetry, but the same ideas show up even in the sappiest and syrupiest poems. For instance:

Longer than there’ve been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there’ve been stars up in the heavens
I’ve been in love with you.

Now, that’s bad poetry, but you get the picture. When you fall in love you feel like there’s eternity; there’s a wonder and a mystery that leaves you speechless.

Yet, Agur immediately contrasts that with a grotesque image.

²⁰ This is the way of an adulteress:

she eats and wipes her mouth

and says, “I have done no wrong.”

Here is someone who takes the sacred mystery of intimacy and makes it utterly ordinary. She reduces the inexpressible to something casual and common: consuming it like a quick snack, wiping her mouth, and moving on as if nothing special or sacred just happened.

For the last 65 years our culture has tried its best to make intimacy casual and commonplace—we’ve tried to remove stigma from people’s intimate choices. But instead of removing stigma, we’ve obliterated awe.

We’ve taken something that should humble us and fill us with wonder and turned it into something disposable and ordinary.

• What was once hard to access, is now freely available every screen.

• Hook-up culture on school campuses and dating apps have made connection easy as ordering take-out.

• Positivity campaigns desensitize us of any feeling of mystery.

We’ve been told for decades that intimacy is just another appetite—like hunger or thirst.

As a culture, we moved from “this is sacred” to “this is casual,” and in the process we’ve lost the awe that made it beautiful.

Now listen – the Bible is not a prudish book. The Bible does not come to us saying, “You’re having too much fun. Stop it.”

Look at this passage: it’s a suggestive poem about marital love to recapture and evoke a sense of awe and wonder.

The Bible says it’s not that our desires are too strong. Rather, we are settling for less than what God offers. Our desires are too weak.

When we make intimacy casual and common, we become half-hearted creatures, chasing little pleasures because we’ve lost real wonder.

We’re like little children content with making mudpies in the back alleys of a slum because can’t even picture the wonder of a holiday at the sea—an entire ocean and a ship with sails waiting for us.

Ask yourself a few questions:

Do you treat relationships with sacred mystery and humility, or have you begun to treat them like just another appetite?

Are you feeling pressure to date casually, or are you intentionally preparing your heart for someone to whom you can give your life to in marriage?

Parents: when your children talk about dating, do you sense they’ve already been taught it’s “no big deal”? How are you discipling them in your home?

Proverbs 30 is an invitation to recapture wonder and awe, to recognize that marriage and intimacy were created by God to be enjoyed as a profound, humbling gift.

2. Intimacy is a Graceful Journey – but we’ve made it selfish and solitary.

The key word in the poem is “way.”

¹⁹ the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a serpent on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a virgin.

He’s drawing out attention to two powerful ideas.

First, “way” means journey—purposeful movement toward a destination.

Second: each journey displays graceful mastery:

• The eagle rides currents with almost no effort.
• The legless serpent glides smoothly over rock.
• The sailboat catches the wind and appears to float over the sea.

And Agur says, marital love and intimacy is like that: a graceful journey—two people moving like one person through life with purpose and mastery.

But the poem makes a sharp turn. After showing us partnership, Agur shows us a solitary and lonely picture:

²⁰ This is the way of an adulteress:

she eats and wipes her mouth

and says, “I have done no wrong.”

Instead of a graceful, shared journey, she turns intimacy into a selfish, solitary, transaction. She takes what should be generous and makes it consumptive. She eats, wipes her face, and walks on alone—no commitment, no real purpose, no destination except the next encounter.

We live in an age of radical individualism. Culture says, “Stay independent. Set your own destination first. Delay marriage until you really discover you who are.”

But Proverbs says, “Find a life partner as God allows and make that journey together. Commit and learn, over time, to move as one.”

A few years ago I married a couple in their 80s. Later, another widow in our church joked, “I have enough time to get married again. I just don’t have enough time to train another husband.” She understood that marriage is a shared journey—to becoming one—each training the other.

Marriage is a dance. In the early years, you constantly step on one another’s feet. You’re clumsy and used to your own way. It takes time to learn to move together.

That’s why Genesis 2:24 says:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Here’s the problem – intimacy suffers in a culture that promotes the individual. Why? Because we know that, in the end, everyone is out for themselves—and for that reason we hold back and hide pieces of our heart.

Listen – physical intimacy outside of marriage is essentially saying, “I belong to you, sort of.” You’re giving part of yourself while withholding legally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. It’s faking part of the journey.

Marriage says, you are no longer two; you are one.

And marriage suffers when a couple stops living out the “one flesh” reality in every area of their life. Though they share a name and a house, they still live like two solitary individuals.

One spouse makes big financial decisions without consulting the other. They live on completely different calendars and have not carved out time for one another. They don’t share their dreams or fears, let alone small talk. Even their free time is solitary. He has his friends, she has hers. The result? A shared journey becomes solitary.

So, ask some more questions:

You who are teenagers or in your early twenties: Are you being told to set your own destination as a free individual first, or are you open to finding a partner a godly partner and going on the journey together?

You may say, “What if I’m not ready? What about wisdom and preparation?” Preparation is wise, but endless delay in the name of “readiness” is often just fear or selfishness disguised as maturity. My biggest encouragement is to get with a mature Christian married couple who have learned from years of experience how to love one another and ask them for guidance.

Married people: are you still going on a shared journey, or have you begun to close off parts of your heart in solitude? Have you each, whether knowingly or unknowingly, drifted into two separate paths?

A word to those who have desired marriage, but the Lord hasn’t granted that desire: Some of you long for the shared journey. You desire a godly spouse. Friend, that longing is not wrong. It is good. God himself designed marriage as a wonderful gift, and the desire for it is wired into most human hearts. Here’s my encouragement to you: walk faithfully and gracefully, trusting that the God who gives the desire is also sovereign over when (or if) he grants it.

3. Intimacy Points to the Ultimate Wonder – it stirs an ache no human love can satisfy.

All week long I kept feeling the heaviness of this message. This love poem feels unattainable. Agur calls us to a wondrous, mysterious, shared journey. And, truth be told, that’s not how most of us feel about our marriages today—not even the best marriages in this room.

Even when a couple learns to dance together, when they fight through the clumsy years, share their lives, sacrifice for one another, and otherwise have a great marriage, the longer they walk together, the more they realize that even the best marriage isn’t enough.

They discover they cannot possibly place the full weight of their soul on their spouse. The deepest longings stirred by this shared journey cannot be fully satisfied by another human being—no matter how wonderful their spouse may be. And this is exactly what Agur is preparing us for.

As amazed as Agur is by “the way of a man with a woman,” the rest of Scripture shows us that human marriage, as beautiful as it is, isn’t ultimate.

God designed it as a signpost; it’s a shadow.

As Lewis put it, it is only “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

The most humbling mystery of all is that the sinless Son of God has chosen us, though we are sinners. And in his arms, and only his arms, which were nailed to the cross, will we find true alleviation from isolation and loneliness.

And on the last day, if we belong to him, we will stand before the ultimate beautiful Face, the face we’ve been looking for all our lives in every other beautiful face.

In Christ, you are fully known—every flaw, every failure, every hidden corner of your heart—and you are still passionately wanted. One of my favorite hymns says, “He knew me, and yet he loved me.” This is a wonder that will never grow ordinary.

Marriage is to be a graceful journey—but only in Christ will you find the true Bridegroom who will never leave you nor forsake you; who will never walk away from the marriage. He will journey with you through every season—in singleness, in marriage, in disappointment and joy—because, by faith, you have become one with Him.

The Bible begins with a wedding in the Garden and ends with a wedding in the New Jerusalem.

You see, human marriage is wonderful—but it is penultimate—not ultimate. It is meant to awaken in us a deeper ache for a quality of love that is found in Christ alone.

So, if you are married and disappointed… Jesus Christ offers the love your spouse was never meant to fully provide.

If you are single and aching… Jesus is the faithful companion who will never leave you.

If you have cheapened intimacy or been wounded by it, Jesus Christ is the one who can cleanse you and heal you and make you like new.

Come to Him. Christ is the ultimate wonder of Love. In him, the journey finds its perfect Companion. In him, the ache of loneliness is finally healed.