knwoing one’s spouse

In the older versions of the Old Testament, we read that so-and-so knew his wife. In most modern translations, this is rendered as "made love to."  Though this gets the main concept across, it misses the deep teaching of the original word "to know."

The covenant love of a wife and husband in Christ is intended to be a mutual knowing in heart, mind, soul, spirit, and body.  Believers who wish to know their spouse in the body are called to know that partner in the other spheres as well.  Though it's possible to "have sex" with a spouse (or, as older translations put it, to "go into" one another), the breadth of love implied in faithful sexual intercourse implies loving intercourse or connection in all other areas of the relationship. Knowing one another sexually involves all five senses -  sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches - and it is three-dimensional in the height, length, and depth of God's Love experienced whole body to whole body.  

In Christ, it's not that we "make love" but rather that we share the Love which God has given us for each other in the erotic, the family, the friendship, and the self-giving Love of Jesus in us and through us.  As spouses know each other deeply in this way, they are deeply known by the God Who created, redeemed, and united them and rejoices in this beautiful aspect of their relationship.  They know Him as they know each other. 

Let's pray for marriages in Christ, that they would be known by the quality of their knowing one another and Him.