King Solomon on Truth of Same Sex Lip Kisses

 

We are not homosexuals, but when my buddy Tom kissed me on the cheek instead of on my lips I was angry. Why?

Many same sex friends in different cultures have greeted each other for thousands of years with an embrace and a kiss on the cheeks.  A kiss on the lips by same sex couples denotes homosexuality except perhaps between highly emotional family members. So what’s my story you may be wondering?  I will be brief.

What happened was my good intentioned Christian buddy Tom sent me an email titled “The Sneeze” which ended with this statement. “This is a true story.” I enjoyed the story which was about Christians rebelling against government interference of their religious beliefs. After reading the news in the past few months about Christians being beheaded in Middle East countries, and/or being prosecuted or sued in the USA for their religious beliefs, I felt the story was uplifting and should be shared. So I decided to forward the email on my post titled “Where There is a Will, There is a Way.” 

When a fellow blogger (JF, closetoeighty.wordpress.com) commented that he agreed the story was uplifting but posed a skeptical statement to the validity of the story, I confidently decided to send him a Snopes.com verification to reply to his skepticism. I just plain knew my buddy Tom would never send me a false email story that ended with the statement that “this is a true story.”

Instead, I found out that the story was only half true and I deleted my post.

At first I was angry with myself for not checking it out before I foolishly posted it on my blog. Especially since I had just posted a series of six blog posts titled, King Solomon, Journalism, Bias, Hypocrisy and sent letters to my Washington Senators and House Representatives complaining about the hypocrisy of  bias journalism, untruths and half-truths I hear and read daily on news media. When I sent the post, I foolishly did the same thing I was complaining about.

However, after thinking more about my experience, I am now thankful in one respect. I believe I now have a much better understanding of the wisdom of this King Solomon proverb.

He kisses the lips, who gives an honest reply. (Proverb 24:26) 

This is just one of King Solomon’s numerous proverbs about truth and honesty problems he obviously encountered. I had wondered if this proverb was transposed wrong when it stated lips instead of cheeks. I believe now it was not. A kiss on the lips is a more passionate expression of love. I believe he used lips instead of cheeks to emphasize his passion and love for hearing truth and honesty when someone made a statement to him.

So what is my point? It is this. Think twice about forwarding an email or embellish a story. In other words, think before you speak or write something and ask yourself this question before you press “send” on your computer, or part your lips.

Are you kissing your recipient on the lips in the concept of King Solomon’s proverb?  Or, are you kissing him or her on the cheeks same as Judas kissed Jesus when he betrayed him?

Regards and goodwill blogging, and this is a true story.

Sources

Snopes.com commentary on The Sneeze HERE

A relevant previous post King Solomon’s Kiss HERE

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