This isn’t your grandmother’s Advent devotional. Advent After Dark’s final episode is a provocative, thoughtful, and surprisingly tender journey into the Bible’s most sensual book: Song of Songs. We unwrap a new layer of sacred desire, embodied spirituality, and poetic longing—inviting listeners to see scripture with fresh eyes and maybe blush a little along the way. It’s love poetry so lush it borders on scandalous. And yet, it’s right there in the Bible—celebrating bodies, consent, agency, and the fierce power of love.

Discussion Questions:

1. What emotions come up when you hear scripture described as erotic?

2. How does the incarnation shape your understanding of the human body?

3. How does this challenge or affirm your understanding of biblical relationships?

4. God is not mentioned once… Why is this here?

5. What does this tell us about God?

I feel like you can't have a study about sex and the Bible without diving into David and Bathsheba. Dive into this story with us as we unpack sex, abuse of power, and murder in 2 Samuel 11:2-27 in our third part of our Advent After Dark study!

Discussion Questions:

1. How was this story told to you as a kid?

2. How was Bathsheba’s role portrayed in how you have heard this taught before?

3. Women: what were you taught about “tempting” men? Men what were you taught?

4 . Do you think there is an abuse of power in play?

5. What are modern examples of this kind of abuse of power?

6. Do you see any redeeming qualities for David in this story?

7. What does this tell us about God?

Deuteronomy 22:13–21 is one of the Bible’s most disturbing passages about virginity, honor, and punishment—where a woman’s sexual history becomes a public trial, and her body is treated as evidence. For Advent After Dark: Unwrapping Sacred Smut, this text offers a raw lens into purity culture, patriarchy, and the weaponization of sexuality.

Discussion Questions:

1. What were you taught about sex and virginity growing up? Was the Bible used as justification? Was it different if you were male or female?

2. Do you think the church has done damage through what it has said (or not said) about sex?

3. What are important ethics to you around sex? Are they based in the Biblical narrative?

4. What should we be teaching about sex in the church?

5. How do you think Mary’s story is related to virginity and the value of women ascribed by these sexual purity laws?

6. What is a healthy sexuality to you? In light of Jesus Christ?

7. What does this tell us about God?