The following is an actual conversation I had with a man today. He came into my office and requested to sing some songs he wrote in the next church service.
“Possibly,” I said. “I would like to read them first.”
“Read them?” he asked. “Why?”
“Just to see what they say, what they teach, what the content is.”
“Oh. Well, they don’t really have any content. They’re more like choruses — just one sentence sung over and over.”
“Ah.” Alarm bells are going off in my head. “If you don’t have any written down, give me an example of one of these sentences.”
“Well, my favorite is, ‘Resting on the bosom of Jesus.'”
“… Yeah… we’re probably not going to sing that.”
“Why not?”
“Do you know what a ‘bosom’ is?”
“Yes. It means ‘chest.'”
“Right. And while I know that the KJV sometimes uses ‘bosom’ to refer to men’s chests, the way the word is used today, it primarily refers to women’s chests.”
He looked at me blankly.
“You know,” I explained, “breasts.”
“But Jesus is a man. He doesn’t have breasts.”
“Right. And since that is what the word ‘bosom’ means in most people’s minds, we don’t want to sing about the bosom of Jesus. It’s confusing. But more than that, even if people understand that Jesus is a man and doesn’t have breasts, we would still be singing about resting on his chest, I don’t think this is a song most men want to sing. Most men do not want to sing about resting on the chest of Jesus. We don’t want to feel his breath on our cheek, we don’t want to sit on his lap, and we don’t want to rest our heads on his chest.”
“What about some of my other songs?”
“Tell you what,” I told him. “Write them all down and I’ll consider them.” And with that he left.
I’ve written about this before. I am not in favor of “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs. I am not sure why people keep writing these songs. I know most guys do not like singing them, and I’m pretty sure most girls don’t like it either.
Maybe I am wrong about this. Do you like singing love songs to Jesus?
Amen, Jeremy. I suspect one of the reasons for these sentiments is absence of a truly intimate relationship, which would result in more appropriate descriptions and metaphors. Easy-peasy to fall back on the love song template, as our culture uses these cliches to depict intimacy.
Good point, Steve, which I hadn’t thought of. In the lack of true intimacy, maybe these songs fill a void.
I wrote three songs when I was a praise band leader and they were not geared to women. And only one of them caught on and was well liked by our small group. I got so tired of those Jesus is my boyfriend songs.
Yes, and they are quite prevalent.
I don’t think I honestly can understand as a woman but I know how much comfort it brings my teenager boys to be held by their father. Please don’t just assume what brings you comfort is the same as every man. Because you may have an issue with showing that kind of intimacy please don’t rob others of that experience. May God give you wisdom re this and show you more insight in this matter. Blessings
Amen
Sounds like a good song to me but I’m not a Pharisee living in my mind and trying to be so technical. Let people worship GOd. They will understand what a bosom is.
Very nitpicky.
Hi if the world or the dictionary thinks its breasts and the bible refers to ot being chest who report are we going to believe or go with. Jesus report or mankind report . I sure am going to go by God report the world has manipulated and perverted what true unconditional pure righteous Holy Agape love is. I love resting on the bosom of Jesus being so close to him Embracing me and I would love to sit on Jesus lap like a child as we are his children and be hugged so pure. It’s the best loving and safest place to be. So I disagree with what your saying as I choose to believe and go with God report what it says in the bible and not what people think it means or the world think. May God bless you and give you a deeper understanding or Jesus pure un contaminated Holy pure clean righteous perfect love not what satan has corrupted our minds the believe or shall I say the worlds minds to believe. May God bless you
Hi Jeremy,
Thank you for the write up, and for asking that people leave their opinion. Perhaps you thought too deeply about the ‘Resting on the bosom of Jesus’. As a daughter of God theres’s nothing I want more than to rest in Jesus’ bosom because there’s no safer place to be. And this is without any connotation, because Titus 1:15 says to the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled, nothing is pure. Even the son (Jesus) is said to be in the bosom of the father in John 1:18.
Jn 1:18
Jesus was in the bosom of the Father.