Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: This holy kiss doesn't say kiss the people you like, greet the people you like. This cross is all lines, all cultural lines, all odor lines, all appearance lines. It doesn't matter. You look at somebody and go, that person is my family, my brother, my sister, and there's an immediate connection made there just by this greeting or this farewell, this way of going about this.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thanks for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today's message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are. Richard's unique style checks all the boxes with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and of course, humor.

Today's talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you. So let's stay in touch through our website, richardellis.com. But right now, let's go ahead and get right into today's talk. Here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is Holy Kiss. And what we're going to do, we haven't done this in a long time, we're going to start from right on the end of the aisle and move this way through the center section over here. We're going to start with the person on that end and just pass a holy kiss all the way down the aisle. Maybe not.

Now, either that's because you're not comfortable with this, or you don't want to kiss the person that's next to you, or you really do want to kiss the person next to you and that's just not how you thought it was going to happen. Not exactly the setup you needed. But some of you are probably taking it any way you can get it, and it might be appropriate.

So, there is something in the scripture that is stated, this holy kiss thing, maybe it's a kiss of love that's mentioned here. And believe it or not, we're going to go track this thing. Now let me give you a definition of a kiss. One of them at least is to touch with the lips as a mark of affection or greeting.

And culturally, we're going to see something that happened back then that's not that it's gone away today, but there are different ways to greet people. Some people are huggers. Some people shake hands. And it's a very fascinating thing, and we'll get into this as we go. Usually in America at least, when you go up to someone and you greet them, the traditional way is to put your hand out and shake hands.

Even women will do this from time to time. Usually, women sometimes a little more touchy-feely may feel comfortable giving a hug. And sometimes there is a kiss on a cheek. I grew up in a South American country where it was a kiss on two cheeks, and then if you weren't married, it was three cheeks. I guess while you're in there, you keep going.

Maybe some cultures men hug, some they don't. But if you walked up to somebody and go to greet them, put your hand out and say, "Hi, how are you?" and their hands are in their pockets or something and they go, "Fine," and don't pull their hand out, they've communicated something to you. I happen to be a very huggy, touchy-feely kind of person. I walk up and hug people. Not everybody's comfortable with that.

I've been stiff-armed by men. You walk up to some guys, you put your hand out, you shake their hand and you go to move in, that hand locks up right there. I mean, you move in, they're going to move their whole body. You are not getting within this radius. And you go to move in and they tell you, "No, that's it. That's as close as you're going to get."

If you were to greet someone with a holy kiss, which is described in the scriptures, you've got to have so much stuff going on to get comfortable with this. And I have this happen from time to time with people that I feel very comfortable with, my dad. There are times I put my arms around my dad, and while I'm back there embracing my dad, I'll reach down and give him a kiss on the cheek.

There are different people when I'm in a certain kind of situation with even a man that I feel very close to and something's going on, I will give them a hug and maybe a kiss on the forehead, some kind of deal. There is something about a kiss that is not a casual thing. Now let me tell you in our culture, and maybe this is across the board in the world.

One of the areas that men in particular screw up with on a kiss is they have no idea what a kiss means to a woman. Any of you women, do I get an amen from any women out here? That's what I'm talking about. So, there are terms out there like sport-grubbing, all kinds of things that go on where a kiss doesn't mean anything.

But women, what men don't understand is, "Well, just kiss me, it's just a kiss." I ask people, I'll meet a couple and they'll introduce themselves and I say, "How are you guys?" "Great." "How'd you meet?" and I say, "Are you dating?" And then there's kind of a quandary about that and I'll ask one of them privately maybe, "Well, have you kissed this guy?"

The second they tell me they've kissed, they're dating. Now, the guy may not think this is true, but from a woman's perspective, it's crossed that line. There is a relationship of some kind because you don't go up kissing somebody out of the blue. A kiss means something. It is a very personal, intimate kind of thing.

There is something about a kiss, and it gets dangerous beyond that because there are certain kinds of international kisses. Maybe I'll just leave it at that. There are European kisses in particular that the second you go from just a kiss to a little more personal kiss, let me tell you something, God made us in a way your body says, "Okay, everybody ready? Something's on, it's time to go. It's full steam ahead. This is going somewhere," because that's how we're made.

And I tell these couples, one of the most dangerous things in the world is a blockbuster movie and a couch and two people alone. You get in a house and one kiss, it is downhill from there. A kiss has tremendous power. Now, you may remember the movie Pretty Woman. I'm not advocating Pretty Woman, but there's a situation in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is a prostitute and it's kind of a twisted Cinderella story, basically what Pretty Woman is.

But there's a place where she says to Richard Gere, they're getting physical and she says, "No, you cannot kiss me on the lips." Now think about this. In prostitution, it is okay to have sexual relations with another person, but they try to keep the lips out of it. You cannot kiss because that is such a personal, intimate thing. When you engage there, then your heart gets involved somehow, and even a prostitute knows that.

Turn to Proverbs chapter seven, and we're going to look first of all at an unholy kiss. Proverbs chapter seven, verse six. Listen to this account of what a guy sees out his window: "For at the window of my house I looked through my lattice, and saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths, a young man devoid of understanding, passing along the street near her corner, and he took the path to her house in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And there, a woman met him with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart.

Her feet would not stay at home. At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner." Now look at verse thirteen: "She caught him and kissed him." Now let me tell you, ladies, this is an amazing power and you need to be careful as well. Where a kiss may not mean anything to a man, a man gets kissed, it means something, especially if the woman initiates it.

And a lot of times it's, women say, "Well, I couldn't get away from him. He kept pushing and kept demanding it had to get more physical." There are situations where men are trying to hold their ground and a woman says, "You know what? I don't care. I want you now." And for a man to stop and say no, it's a pretty tough thing. This woman dressed like a harlot, it says, catches him, grabs him when he's going down the street and kissed him.

With an impudent face, she said to him, "I have peace offerings with me. Today I have paid my vows. So I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face, and I have found you. I have spread my bed with tapestry, colored coverings of Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until morning." And that's usually all it is, a one-night stand.

"Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband is not at home." Now, this guy's been kissed by a married woman. He now knows she's married. She says he's out of town and this guy, if he's taken the bait, he's in. It's getting more exciting and tantalizing by the second, if this is where he wants to go. She's willing to cheat with me. She's kissed me. She's out here in the middle of the night dressed this way.

"My husband is not at home. He's gone away on a long journey. He has taken a bag of money with him and will come home on the appointed day." He ain't going to come back anytime soon. With her enticing speech, she caused him to yield. With her flattering lips, she seduced him. Immediately, he went in after her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till an arrow struck his liver. As a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost his life. An unholy kiss.

Now, you say, "Well, these things don't have any meaning." You live in the dark ages. You don't know what's going on out here. I was in Deep Ellum till 3:30 Friday night. Went down to see a band play and stayed with a friend of mine who's in a band, a drummer, and has had a pretty rough go and discouraged and out there trying to be a Christian and doesn't seem like anything good happening.

He's out there playing every night watching people get wasted, drunk, anything goes. I know what goes on out there and let me tell you something, God's way still works. And if you're so happy with this, I sit now with couples throughout the year every year and they've crossed these lines before they get married and come crying, leaving voicemails, and all hell's breaking loose.

If it's so great, why are you calling me? And if it works out so great doing it your way and not God's way, then why is there so much pain and so much guilt and so much shame? You say, "Well, you just need to get over that." You can't get over that. That's God convicting you of these things. There is a time and place for these things.

These things have meaning and obviously in Proverbs, this is not the ideal situation. The word here in this passage for kiss is very akin. It just means to kiss. But there's a word very close to it. The word is nashaq and the word nasaq is to kindle, to burn, to be kindled, to make a fire. And it's interesting what happens. I'm telling you, you kiss somebody, it lights a fire.

Look at a holy kiss a little bit about this. And a lot of these passages talk about greeting each other with a holy kiss. Look at Luke chapter seven. Let's start with verse thirty-six. One of the Pharisees, a really religious guy, asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went to the Pharisee's house and he sat down to eat.

"And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood at his feet behind him weeping." Let me tell you something, if you ever get to Jesus, it'll break your heart. She had tried her way and found Jesus. She's standing behind him weeping.

She began to wash his feet with her tears. Now I've maybe talked about this here before. You want a sensual situation in the scriptures where if you don't have your head and your heart screwed on and know what you're doing, this can get completely out of hand. Jesus is sitting there, this woman who everybody in the house knows who she is. They think Jesus doesn't know.

She is weeping. Her tears are falling on his feet, and she is wiping his feet and wiped them with the hair of her head. And hair, tears, all this stuff down there on your feet. Jesus had to be God to make it through this. Began to wash his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hair of her head and she kissed his feet and anointed them with fragrant oil.

Now the word for kiss is philema, and it comes from the word phileo. To love, to approve of, to like, to sanction, to treat affectionately or kindly, to welcome or befriend, to show signs of love, to kiss. So, the word phileo, this friendship word that's used, also means to kiss.

But kataphileo means to kiss much, kiss again and again, to kiss tenderly. So she's not just kissed his feet and backed off. She is crying on his feet, wiping his feet with her hair and kissing his feet over and over and over again. Almost an act of worship. And I believe that's exactly what it was.

So, this is the kind of repetitive kissing. She kissed his feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he spoke to himself saying, "This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who's touching him, for she is a sinner." If he's God or some kind of big prophet, he'd know you don't let her touch you.

Jesus was safe. Now I'm not saying I'm safe, anybody else is safe, but Jesus could handle it and she came with the right motive for the right reasons. She had found Jesus who she had looked for. And by the way, ladies, if you're looking for some man to solve your problems, here's your man, Jesus.

Now I talk to women all the time. They think getting married, "I'm going to pick some guy and get married and that's going to solve it all." From a man or a woman's perspective, there is only one person that will take care of what you're looking for and that's Jesus Christ. You think if I can just get married, have somebody with me.

Sure, it's somebody to share your life with. Sure, it's somebody to be there with and not go to sleep by yourself. I know tons of people who climb in a bed every night and they're married or living with somebody for that matter, and they are supposedly not lonely but they're more alone than they've ever been in their life because they're really not with that person. It's not working out.

So, this Pharisee's thinking, "Well, if he's a prophet, knows who's there, he'd know what kind of woman it is, wouldn't let her touch him." And Jesus answered and said to him—he's a prophet all right, he reads his mind—"Simon, I have something to say to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." He says, "There was a certain creditor who had two debtors.

One owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him more?" Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have rightly judged." Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?

Now look at this. I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss." Then look what he says. "You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. I didn't get one kiss from you, Simon.

And this woman hasn't stopped kissing my feet since I've been here. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil. Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." An implication here is, you haven't been forgiven very much here, Mr. Pharisee.

But this woman knows where she's been. She knows who she is. I know who she is. And she has come here looking for mercy and worshipping me. She knows who I am, and I have the power to forgive her. She's been forgiven much. Now, guys, I don't know how any way to explain to you the impact of this.

If you do know you've screwed your whole life up, you've done it your way, you're a sinner, you know it, everybody in town knows it, and you finally find Jesus and somehow, whether actually hearing his words in her case or reading it in the scriptures, he says she's listened to all this. She's still kissing his feet probably.

Says to Simon, "You haven't been forgiven much, so you don't love much." And looks at her and says, "Your sins are forgiven." The power of forgiveness. And only God has the power to forgive, and only because of what Jesus did when he died on that cross, was buried and raised from the dead, shed his blood, is there any power, any availability of forgiveness.

And those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, "Well, who is this who even forgives sins?" Then he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." Sooner or later, let me tell you something, you better find yourself at Jesus' feet or you're in trouble. Now look at Luke chapter fifteen. There's a story here.

Maybe you know the story which is called the prodigal son. Some people call it that, the lost son. But in the story, even of the prodigal son, this lost son, when he comes home, Luke 15:20. He took his dad's money, went off and spent it all in riotous living, decides to come home. When he comes home, it says he arose and came to his father.

And when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. A sign that you're welcome, that you're back. A very tender, affectionate sign. And in this case, it is God himself who sees you deciding to come home, sees you coming home, doesn't wait for you to get home, runs down, meets you, falls on your neck and kisses you and says, "I'm glad you're back."

The first one is Romans 16:16. Paul also says this: "Greet one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ greet you." There he says it one time. In Acts chapter twenty, when Paul, going on his journeys, is leaving a city here, in verse thirty-six: "And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

Then they all wept freely and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him." And it's that same kataphileo word, over and over. They know they'll probably never see him again. Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more, and they accompanied him to the ship. So they're saying goodbye, and there are these affectionate kisses.

Second Corinthians chapter thirteen, verse eleven. He says, finally—this is all Paul, by the way—"Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you all. Greet one another with a holy kiss." Now let me camp out here on verse eleven for a second and show you some things.

"Finally, brethren, farewell, goodbye. Become complete." Finish the job, let God finish the job in you. "Be of good comfort, be of one mind." Now let me tell you why the kissing thing here is so huge. Even in a gathering like this. A church body, a family supposedly. There are sometimes when things get haywire.

Some people get their own agendas, people get offended or upset about something and they come in, and it is possible in the same way it is possible to climb in bed with your husband or your wife and never touch them in the night. It is possible to come to a church gathering like this and people you know, and because it gets large enough, you can get in and get out without ever having to greet them.

You know what? That's not unity. That's not oneness. That's not togetherness. And what he keeps encouraging here in every one of these letters that we're going to look at, telling them, "Greet one another with a holy kiss," there is something that happens when you decide that you know what? I'm not letting any barriers be between me and another person.

And you go up, and whether it's a handshake, a hug, or in their culture, it was a holy kiss, you go all the way and say, "You know what? You are my family, you're my brother, you're my sister. We are not going to live this way." And unfortunately, in some churches, it is possible for there to be a huge gathering congregation of people and there are pockets of people who get animosities built up and things going on.

You know what? You want to get through all that, go to that person and say, "I love you," and express it in some way, whatever you're comfortable with. If you don't know me by now, at least from my personal perspective, if I walk up to you and hug you, it ain't a bad thing. And I try to be sensitive because of boundaries.

But there are ways to communicate to people that you love them. Children, some fathers never grow up with a father hugging them. You know what? You need to have somebody teach you and get rid of your pride and reach down and pick that little boy and that little girl up and hug them and hold them and kiss them.

And it hit me last night because I was going to talk about this today. I got home, and somehow when I come home and I'm not there when these girls go to bed, I got four women in my bed. And they're getting big. So one at a time, I have to go in there. These girls are asleep. What do they care? And what do I do every night? I reach in and kiss her.

I'll get Victoria, put her in her bed, tuck her in, kiss her on the cheek. Catherine the same thing. Even if they don't know I'm doing it, I know I'm doing it. There's something tender, there's something gentle. I used to pastor a little church out in the country, and there was a nursing home nearby.

And on Sunday afternoons, I was in school and on the weekends I'd stay there and I'd go speak at this nursing home. And you'd get the feeling that these were little girls trapped in old bodies that were falling apart. There are still people in those bodies. And I'd go in and it took me a little while because I was just twenty, twenty-one years old.

But I'd see these little old ladies curled up in a bed who nobody, if they touched them, it was just a hose-down almost. Manhandle them, take care of some basic needs and get out. And I remember I'd go see this one little old lady, and when I would leave, I would reach down and touch her face and kiss her on the forehead.

And I realized that there was probably not hardly anybody on the planet kissing this woman, maybe like she had ever been kissed before or giving her anything other than just handles in that situation. There are people who are desperate for somebody just to make contact with them in a holy way, in a pure way.

Now, the sad part about this is there's a whole unholy approach to this and there are people who prey on people instead of for people and take advantage of situations where people have needs and it gets twisted. And I have to be careful because I don't want anybody misinterpreting even some type of hug or something like that.

There is a way to do this and to keep it holy. But there is a reason for doing this in the midst of that. Another passage we didn't get to yet is first Peter 5:14. He says, "Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus. Amen." This constant encouragement to make that kind of contact.

Now I want you to think about something for just a minute. Who is there even in this room, this gathering, that you have figured out a way to get in and get out of here without having any contact with? And what I just read you about the description, this holy kiss doesn't say kiss the people you like, greet the people you like.

This cross is all lines, all cultural lines, all odor lines, all appearance lines. It doesn't matter. You look at somebody and go, that person is my family, my brother, my sister, and there is an immediate connection made there just by this greeting or this farewell, this way of going about this. And I want to close with one more piece of this.

And it's some people think it's a Mafia practice. When a don in the Mafia would kiss someone, it meant curtains for the receiver. Somebody was about to die. And the term here is kiss of death. And I want you to look with me, we'll just pull this out of here in Matthew chapter twenty-six. And we're going to look at how disastrous one of these kisses can be.

Matthew 26:14: "Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, 'What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?' And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him." Then look at 26 verse forty-seven, just a few lines later, matter of time.

"And while he was yet speaking," referring to Jesus, "behold, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now his betrayer had given them a sign." This is how twisted this got. Judas told the religious leaders who had agreed to pay him thirty pieces of silver to turn Jesus in.

He said, "This is the sign: Whomever I kiss, he is the one; seize him." Used this intimate greeting which I'm sure they had exchanged many times as a group. "Whomever I kiss, he is the one; seize him." Immediately, he went up to Jesus and said, "Greetings, rabbi!" and kissed him. And by the way, the word kissed is kataphileo.

He didn't just walk up and give him a little kiss. Did that repetitive, that over-doing it kiss. So it would be clear to the people in that darkness of night who it is you're supposed to pick out. This is how you'll know: the one I go up and kiss, and not just normally kiss, but really kiss. That's the guy you're supposed to seize.

So immediately, he went up to Jesus and said, "Greetings, rabbi!" and kissed him. But Jesus said to him, "Friend," and I'm going to tell you what guys, this is what is so amazing about the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus knew who Judas was. He knew what he was going to do. He knew why he was there. Judas betrays him with a kiss.

And then Jesus, the first word out of his mouth right here in this passage at least, is, "Friend, why have you come?" After he's been betrayed, still calling him friend. Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him. Shared. One. Better.

Guest (Male): Before Richard comes back to wrap things up for us today, I'd like to share a couple important things with you. Let me encourage you to take a minute and check out our website, richardellis.com. You'll find today's talk right there in the talks page, along with all of Richard's audio and video messages. You can even forward them to a friend so they can hear them too.

You'll also find the prayer wall to add your prayer requests, a link so you can connect with us, the contribute page for you to be able to give to this ministry, all of our social media links, and much more. So check it out, richardellis.com. And Richard's back now to wrap up today's talk.

Richard Ellis: This thing can be a powerful tool or a destructive tool. Used unwisely in the wrong way in a relationship of any kind can create havoc, can take you places you never intended to go, and it's very hard to get back. When it's used properly, and people may say, "Well, why are we talking about a holy kiss? What does this have to do with anything?"

There is something about us staying together. You say, "Well, I don't know that person." You know what? There's nothing in here about knowing anybody. They're family. They're a brother, they're a sister in Christ. And there is a way to connect with people in a holy, wholesome way. And I do recommend maybe men on men, women on women.

That's probably a very safe thing. We're not going to separate the crowd out yet and put the men over here and the women over here. We may leave it the way it is. But I want you to see that there are basic things in the scripture, simple things about our everyday life that God addresses, that Paul especially here writes about and keeps telling them, "Greet one another with a holy kiss."

Stay together. Have enough unity, have enough relationship built up, enough family, enough love for one another that you don't get so far away from each other you can't be together, you can't connect. And the larger we get as a church, the more diverse we get. And where you get across these lines, you say, "Well, that's a black person. That's a white person. That's a Hispanic person. That's a homeless person. I don't have anything in common with them."

If you got Jesus in common with them, you got grounds for kissing, holy kissing, and sticking together regardless of who the person is or where they come from and maintaining this family relationship that he talks about. Shared. One. Better.

Guest (Male): This has been Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. The message of the gospel is one we take very seriously in our mission to reach the planet, and you have a vital part of doing that along with us. If you've been encouraged by these talks with Richard, be sure to tell someone about the change they've made in your life. You can even share today's talk with them through the website, richardellis.com.

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