The Grace of Greeting with a Kiss of Love

Back in my preaching days I often warned folks to beware the onset of “gospel amnesia.” I first heard the term from Paul Tripp in the book How People Change:

You see, if I really do take the gospel seriously, one of the things that I encounter very early, and it’s a theme for me, is how easy it is to be a ‘gospel amnesiac.’ How easy it is in the press of the duties and responsibilities and schedules of everyday life to forget who you are, to forget what you’ve been given. And so, the whole message of Scripture is this: Your walk with God is a community project (emphasis added).

Faithful participation in local church community helps prevent gospel amnesia. It puts us in regular contact with fellow believers committed to helping each other keep the gospel the main thing (1 Cor. 15:1-4). The apostle Paul aimed numerous “one-another” passages in his epistles to equip us to that end. One text often overlooked for its value is 2 Cor. 13:12. “Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

WHAT IS A HOLY KISS?

He means nothing sensual at all. This form of physical contact is holy. The gesture is spiritual, not fleshly. In the ancient world, among the Jews and other cultures (even in parts of the world today) people greeted each other—normally males with males and females with females—by a light touch of the lips, first on one cheek and then on the other. The early church adopted the same, often after baptisms as a way of welcoming new converts into the church and during communion to welcome repentant folks who returned to the table. We find this same exhortation in several other places in the New Testament: Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 1 Thess. 5:26; and 1 Pet. 5:14 (where Peter calls it the kiss of love). The repetition of the command emphasized its importance.

Why does Paul close his letter on this note? What would possess him to direct them to make sure they engage in such an intimate, personal expression of love toward one another as he concludes the epistle? It has everything to do with the kinds of issues he addresses in the letter. The Corinthian church experienced trouble on multiple fronts. They suffered division in their ranks (2 Cor. 12:20), corrupt teaching from false apostles (2 Cor. 11:4), grave sin that needed discipline and restoration (2 Cor. 2:5-8), among other things. Paul now wraps up the letter with a finally in v. 11 to put a summary recap on everything he has said.

NO PEACEFAKING ALLOWED!

I suppose you can approach somebody you would really rather not have anything to do with by getting so up close and personal, but don’t call it holy. And it’s really hard to do! To engage somebody on that level of intimacy where you will go cheek-to-cheek normally means you’ve got no impediments blocking your relationship. Having to do this kind of thing in a fellowship of believers can help ensure that peacemaking, not peace-faking or peace-breaking, actually does go on.

Do we get the point? The gospel shapes our community when we engage one another genuinely with culturally appropriate greetings of affection. And it just may be that exceptional situations, where deep affection has grown over time, or other extraordinary circumstances, might warrant a kiss on one or both cheeks. It has happened to me on occasion, and it has blessed me with the degree of love expressed. But as a rule something more may benefit us than the token handshake of our culture, though that’s better than nothing and can be done with genuine warmth. Please consider that “holy hugs” (men with women and vice versa remember—side hugs or A-frame only) may well capture a whole lot more of the spirit of what the Bible teaches here than the casual wave or minimal greeting.

I appreciated John Piper’s take on this:

Whatever means of expressing greetings we use, let them be genuine. Right now, what do you do? Ball up your fist and hit somebody’s knuckles. So I think what the apostles want to do is encourage us to use various culturally appropriate symbols of greeting, and sanctify them and make them holy. What do we do? We ball up our fists and we do fist bumps with each other. I hardly ever know what to do. Somebody makes a fist at me and I think: Oh yeah, I am supposed to punch you on the fist. What is that? I don’t know where that comes from or what that is, but I do it. And I think Paul would look at that and he would say, “I encourage all of you guys to fist bump with a holy fist bump.” That this what he is getting at: take the culturally appropriate means of showing brotherhood or camaraderie or affection and make them holy.

If the idea of giving someone else in the body a “holy kiss” seems unpleasant, even repugnant to you, you more than likely have some peacemaking to do. Prayerfully consider taking initiative to close the gap in love. May Jesus’s peacemaking power and the gospel’s impetus help us move into one another’s lives with holy, tangible expressions of intimacy.