During our family’s first time through Andrew Peterson’s four-book series The Wingfeather Saga, I found myself carefully paying attention to one person more than any other: Nia Wingfeather. By the time we were rereading the series for the third and fourth times, I had to resist the urge to take notes on this courageous and queenly (albeit imperfect) mother. Her womanly valor, her fearless sacrifices, and her ability to bring out the best in men have spurred me on in my own callings as wife and mother.

Bravery in the Kitchen

For the uninitiated, Peterson’s saga traces the unforgettable Wingfeather family, particularly the three children, as they run from the Fangs of Dang, from the Overseer of the Fork Factory, and worst of all, from Gnag the Nameless.

We get one early glimpse of Nia’s savvy courage when she is faced with the capture of her son by the wicked Fangs of Dang — cursed creatures, men who have willingly been transformed into wretched beasts. In their twisted existence, their appetites are insatiable, but not for good food, only for all that is rotting and putrid. Nia negotiates the release of her son: “I told him I could cook the finest maggotloaf in the four seas and that if he let you go, I’d cook it for him every third day of the week once the meat had plenty of time to fester” (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, 68).

Her quick thinking reminds me of women like Jael, who lures her enemy in, gives him milk, and covers him with a blanket before crushing him — or Abigail, who brings enough food for an army, accompanied by her own gracious words, to calm David and divert him from violence. Nia, though fictional, shows us a particularly feminine kind of think-on-your-feet bravery. She acts on behalf of her child, but she does not confront danger directly (for she would have surely lost); instead, she comes at the problem creatively. She proceeds to make the aforementioned maggotloaf to satiate the appetite and the anger of the Fangs.

This type of feminine bravery is quite different from the bossy, brash, beat-up-the-boys counterfeit we see in so many movies today. Nia is a brave woman — not a manly woman — and she solves problems accordingly.

Fearless in Sacrifice

Later in the saga, Nia’s second son has undergone the same sort of horrible transformation that the Fangs had. He is a beast, but still a boy. With her husband assumed dead, her life centers on helping her son become the man he should be, despite this irreversible change. When the people of the Hollows wish to cast her son out, she invokes Turalay, the law of pardon in the Green Hollows, and is warned, “You hold your life forfeit for his, and should he break the life laws of the Green Hollows, from this day forward, it is not only his blood that will be shed, but yours” (The Monster in the Hollows, 67–68)

“A mother’s willing release can put steel in the spine of young men.”

On the surface, we may think she is confident simply that her son will somehow overcome his beastly reality, that she knows all will be well. But Nia’s trust is deeper. She trusts her Maker, even if her son were to do the unthinkable and break the life laws of the Hollows. She binds her fate to her son because she trusts her Maker’s purposes and does not fear death. And in tying her life to his, she strengthens his weak frame and plants seeds of hope in his heart.

Multiplying the Courage of Men

If there is one visceral driving force in mothers, it is the desire to nurture and protect. This natural, God-given instinct, however, can give way to fear-soaked overprotection. “Safety first!” can undergird almost every decision mothers make. Nia, however, taps into a rare feminine virtue — the cheerful willingness to forsake safety now for the better hope of raising courageous future men.

As Nia’s oldest son nears his thirteenth birthday, he approaches a rite of passage for boys called the “blindplop.” After being stuffed full of food on his birthday, he is left alone, deep in the woods, in the middle of the night. His guild master leaves him his pack and a letter saying,

No one is watching over you, ready to rescue you as soon as things get difficult. . . . That means you’re on your own. Of course, if you don’t show up at Ban Rona for a week or so, we’ll send out a search party to bring you home, though there probably won’t be much of you left. Your mother grew up here; she knows how it works, and she’s given me her full permission. I expected to have to talk her into the blindplop, but she agreed without hesitation. That should make you feel some pride, boy. (The Warden and the Wolf King, 20)

A mother’s willing release can put steel in the spine of young men. When a mother confidently blesses her son’s launch into the world — whether in small matters, like persevering in hard work, or in large changes, like moving far away, independent of her — her blessing is like a current of wind that pushes his sails farther and faster and straighter than he would have otherwise gone. But when mothers coddle and hover, doing all they can to keep sons from any whiff of danger or failure or pain, they nurture vice rather than virtue.

Strong Men and Their Fearless Wives

Yet it isn’t just sons who are bolstered by the appropriate confidence of their mothers. Husbands, too, can be inspired by the trust and assurance of their wives. Nia’s husband, Esben, is mortally wounded after a heroic effort to stand between the Fangs and his family. Yet even as his blood pools around him, and he begins to sink to the ground, she issues an urgent but steadfast reminder not to give in to death — not yet. “Our children need you, my king” (The Monster in the Hollows, 332). And he rouses himself once more to do what seemed impossible, to do what she could not do — to rescue their children from the enemy at the cost of his life. Her words beckon his courage.

A woman’s respect multiplies the courage of men, not with manipulation or fear, but with loyalty, hope, and abiding trust. To be a woman of valor is to be a woman who is free — free from the chains of fear because her security is fixed in her Maker. And it is free, fearless women who are best equipped to call forth and inspire the masculine strength and courage of Christ in the godly men around them. The world desperately needs such men — and such women.

One of the more difficult and controversial verses in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 7:14: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy” (NASB 1995). Christians disagree about the implications of this verse for baptizing infant children. But before we enter that discussion, a word should be said about the context and the wider point of the paragraph.

Contagious Holiness

In 1 Corinthians 7:12–16, Paul addresses the question of mixed marriages, marriages in which one spouse is a believer and the other is an unbeliever. If we look at 1 Corinthians 7 as a whole, we see that matters of purity pressed upon the consciences of the Corinthian believers. Because of this, some of them naturally wondered if they should stay in a marriage with an unbeliever. Should a believer remain married to someone who belongs to Satan rather than God, who lives in darkness instead of light, who worships idols instead of the true and living God? Would it not stain believers to have a sexual relationship with someone who hates the Lord Jesus?

Paul’s answer is astonishing. We expect, based on the Old Testament, that he would say the believer would be defiled and stained by such a relationship with an unbeliever. Instead, Paul turns the argument in the opposite direction. The believing spouse isn’t defiled by the unbelieving partner. Quite the opposite! The unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believer. And it doesn’t stop there: the children are holy as well.

We are reminded of Jesus’s relationship with what is unclean. We know from the Old Testament that touching a leper made someone unclean. Yet when Jesus touched the leper, he wasn’t rendered unclean. Instead, cleanness radiated from Jesus, and by healing the leper, Jesus cleansed him. We see something similar in 1 Corinthians 7. The holiness of the believing spouse transfers, at least to some extent, to the unbelieving spouse and to the children of their union.

Sanctified, Not Saved

A question immediately arises, however: What does it mean for an unbelieving spouse and the children of mixed marriages to be holy? Does it mean they are saved by virtue of their relationship with a believing spouse or a believing parent? If unbelieving spouses are sanctified, and the children of such unions are made holy, then it would make sense, on one level, to say they are saved. On the other hand, we know from Scripture’s teaching about salvation that people are not saved by mere association with believers. The Bible teaches plainly and pervasively that we are saved by personal faith in Jesus Christ. We have no basis for thinking that anyone is saved because he or she is married to a believer or the child of a mixed marriage.

In fact, Paul confirms in this very context that the unbelieving spouse isn’t saved merely by being married to a believer. Paul writes, “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:16). Scholars debate whether this verse is optimistic or pessimistic about the spouse’s potential salvation. I agree with the optimistic view since the main point of this passage is that believing spouses should not forsake marriage to an unbeliever, and thus, Paul gives a motivation to continue in the marriage. At the same time, optimism isn’t the same as a guarantee. Clearly, by being married to a believer, the unbelieving spouse has a greater opportunity for salvation. Still, the unbelieving spouse is not saved simply because he or she is married to a believer.

So, we return to our initial question: What does it mean for an unbelieving spouse to be “sanctified” through the believing spouse? It is hard to be certain! Perhaps all we can say with confidence is that the unbelieving spouse, by being placed in the realm of the holy, has a greater potential for salvation through the believing spouse.

What About Their Children?

You may be wondering by now if I have forgotten the original question of this article. However, the preceding discussion is necessary to understand what it means when Paul says that the children of mixed marriages are holy.

“If there is no reason to baptize unbelieving spouses, there is no reason to baptize unbelieving children.”

Our Presbyterian friends often appeal to this verse in defense of infant baptism. Of course, infant baptism warrants a wider discussion than simply this verse, and readers are encouraged to consult this article by John Piper and Steve Wellum’s chapter on the matter in the book Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. Nevertheless, it is also important to consider this particular verse since the holiness posited of children here is often adduced as a defense for baptizing infants.

We see here that the children in a marriage are holy. Does this holiness justify baptism? There are no exegetical grounds in the context to think that it does. We noticed earlier that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified through the believing spouse. We also saw that the sanctification of the unbelieving spouse isn’t saving. Since the unbelieving spouse isn’t saved by means of the sanctification described here, there are no grounds for baptizing him or her. In the same way, the holiness of the children doesn’t qualify them for baptism.

Some may find significance in the fact that unbelieving spouses are “sanctified” and the children “holy.” But such an observation doesn’t carry much weight. The words “sanctified” and “holy” are in the same semantic range, and thus the word “holy” doesn’t signify that the children occupy a different realm than unbelieving spouses. To put it simply: if there is no reason to baptize unbelieving spouses, there is no reason to baptize unbelieving children.

In the Realm of the Holy

Paul is not suggesting or encouraging the baptism of infants or children who have not yet come to faith in Christ. Still, this text does offer encouragement for raising yet-to-believe children. They are in the realm of the holy. The presence of a believing parent gives one a greater hope that the child will turn to Christ for salvation. We don’t have a promise or guarantee of salvation, nor does Scripture give grounds for baptism before belief, but having a believing parent means that the child should be repeatedly exposed to the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Infants in a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever should not be baptized since baptism is reserved for those who believe. And yet, neither are such infants defiled and unclean, and in that we have hope.

Among New Testament commands we’re quick to qualify today (or just ignore altogether), Romans 16:16 may stand out:

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Really? We might chuckle at the thought of everyone kissing each other before the Sunday service. At least not in our time and place, we think. Maybe other cultures; not ours.
And we might be reasonable to respond that way.

Then we find the apostle repeating the charge again at the end of three more letters (1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26), and Peter too (1 Peter 5:14). Even if Jesus might approve of our not doing exactly what his apostles said, but finding appropriate expressions for today, do we have a “theology of the kiss” to guide us?

Look across the breadth of Scripture, and we discover a surprising (and perhaps uncomfortable) amount of kissing — almost fifty instances. And the nature and kinds of these kisses show that this isn’t simply an ancient-world custom. Rather, this kissing is distinctive to the people of the one true God, and a mark of his glory. Their lips bring him honor. A kissing kingdom says something about its sovereign. Its kisses reflect a king who captures human hearts, not just minds and duty.

“A kissing kingdom says something about its sovereign.”

Here, we’ll survey a theology of kissing in the Old Testament, and identify one key takeaway for the church age. Then, in a future article, we’ll draw attention to two special instances of kissing in the New Testament, and further fill out the rich background against which the apostles enjoin the holy kiss.

What’s in a Biblical Kiss?

Before looking at several kinds of kissing in Scripture, let’s first ask about the nature of the act itself and its meaning. What makes a kiss significant?

First, to state the obvious, but necessarily so in increasingly digital and remote times, kissing requires bodily, physical proximity. It assumes nearness, even intimacy. No one blows kisses in the Bible. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim, he said to Jacob (who he thought was Esau), “Come near and kiss me, my son” (Genesis 27:26). A filial kiss would bring him close enough to smell and touch, and confirm which son it was. So too, a generation later, when Jacob himself was old, eyes dim with age, he brought near Joseph’s sons that he might kiss and bless them (Genesis 48:10). Such nearness requires a willingness to touch and be touched, and that with a sensitive and sacred member: the lips.

Kissing, then, also requires trust — that is, neither party fears imminent physical harm from the other (which could be easily enacted at such close range). The notorious offender here is Joab who twice abuses such trust. In 2 Samuel 3, he drew near to Abner under the pretense of peace and stabbed him in the stomach to avenge a brother’s death in battle. In 2 Samuel 20, Joab drew near to Amasa and took him “by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.” Assuming friendship, Amasa did not anticipate a sword in Joab’s hand (2 Samuel 20:9). Kissing requires a level of trust, making it a mark of peculiar depravity to betray, and exploit, a seeming ally under the pretense of a kiss.

Given the requisite nearness and trust, the kiss, in its essence, shows affection. It is a “sign,” an outward expression of an inward posture of the heart. Early in the biblical story, the kiss is typically a demonstration of heartfelt affection at the reunion of long-estranged relatives, whether Jacob with Rachel (Genesis 29:11), or Laban with Jacob (Genesis 29:13), or Esau with Jacob (Genesis 33:4), Joseph with his brothers (Genesis 45:15), Jacob with his sons (Genesis 48:10), Moses with Aaron (Exodus 4:27), or Moses with his father-in-law (Exodus 18:7). These are family members reuniting, not enemies securing new peace. The kiss is an act of trust and love among those who already share in peace.

Kinds of Kissing

As we work through the many instances of kissing in Scripture, we find several distinct types. Far and away, the most common are the greeting kiss or farewell kiss. They demonstrate familial affection, expressing ongoing love within established relationships. Such kisses, as we might expect, often accompany an embrace (Genesis 29:13; 33:4; 48:10; also Luke 15:20). Biblical figures also kiss goodbye, often with tears: Laban kissing his grandchildren (Genesis 31:28, 55); Joseph, his dying father (Genesis 50:1); and Naomi, her daughters-in-law (Ruth 1:9, 14). David and Jonathan, in an unusual covenant of friendship, kiss each other and weep at their parting (1 Samuel 20:41).

A second type of kiss is the kind that we today (at least in the West) probably assume would be the majority, though it’s not: the marital kiss. We might think to flip first to the Song of Solomon, and there it is, at the very outset: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2). While the couple is here not yet married, they are anticipating their covenant love. Their kisses, then, are no less familial, but now they are becoming familial in the most exclusive and intimate of senses. The foil to this kiss, of course, would be the adulterous kiss of Proverbs 7. The “forbidden woman . . . dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart” lies in wait for the fool. “She seizes him and kisses him” (Proverbs 7:5, 10, 13). This is an evil, unholy kiss, the literal prostituting of the lips.

If readers today are most familiar with romantic and marital kisses, we likely least expect the regal kisses wrapped up with ancient kingship. When the kiss comes from a subject to his king, we might call it a “kiss of homage.” More than just a bow, which can happen at a distance and accents submission, the kiss expresses a heart of devotion and love, even delight. The kiss of homage also presumes the trust of the king, who allows a subject into such proximity with the dignitary. When the prophet Samuel anointed David king, he “took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him” (1 Samuel 10:1). As he does, Samuel expresses his glad devotion to the newly anointed king.

“The kiss, sincerely expressed, communicates not only welcome but delight.”

But in a king’s presence, kisses can go both ways. When a kiss comes from the king to his subject, it serves as a great sign of blessing. In 2 Samuel 14:33, when Absalom has been estranged from his father for two years, he comes into the king’s presence for the first time and bows. David then welcomes his estranged son with a kiss that is not only a familial (and filial) greeting but a kingly kiss of blessing. The king communicates that he holds no grudge against his son (a father welcomes home his prodigal, Luke 15:20), and as king, his kiss expresses not only his own personal acceptance but the whole kingdom’s.

Kiss the Son

Among the many instances of kissing in the Old Testament, one regal kiss stands out above the rest — the one of Psalm 2:12:

Kiss the Son,lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,for his wrath is quickly kindled.Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Here “the Son” is God’s anointed king over his people (Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:25 attributes the psalm to David). Hostile nations rage and unbelieving kings take counsel against him, and in doing so they plot against the God who has installed him — that is, the God who laughs at such hubris, and speaks in holy wrath, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Psalm 2:6). This turns the threat utterly on its head. It is not God’s appointed king, “the Son,” who’s actually in danger, but any and all who oppose him.

The king then issues his enemies a warning: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). The next utterance declares what form such a dramatic change of heart should take:

Kiss the Son.

This is not just a bow of submission. Any defeated foe can cower, and fall to his knees, when overpowered. But Psalm 2 calls for a kiss of homage, and kissing expresses the movement, and transformation, of the heart. Former enemies not only become servants and kiss their new king; they become worshipers in their very soul.

Why So Many Kisses?

In the end, the nature of the kiss speaks volumes about the God who rules over all, the glory of his Anointed, and the faith of his people in him. A people who kiss — whether to greet each other or in the act of worship — testify to a dynamic life of the heart, much like a people who sing. The people of the one true God not only think; they feel. They not only confess; they kiss. They not only affirm, but they do so with affection. And the people of God, in ancient Israel and the early church, are singers and kissers.

The kiss, sincerely expressed, communicates not only welcome but delight. It is no mere exchange of niceties, but a communication of steadfast love. While, for many of us, the “holy kiss” may not, at present, fall in the acceptable (or comfortable) range of normal greetings, we will do well to expand our expressions of holy affection, and find meaningful ways to communicate not only acceptance to our fellows in Christ but affection for them.

And all the while, in expressing our affection for his people, we say something about our God and King as the one who not only moves the human heart, but himself is our final satisfaction. When we “kiss the Son,” we not only acknowledge him, in word and in worship, as Lord and Savior, but we express delight in him, in our hearts, as our supreme Treasure. And so we are, in Christ, a kissing people.