When asked why she chose love stories of the Bible to focus on in this, her third book about the Bible (her previous two books focused on women of the Bible), Bream responded: “Some of [the Bible love stories] are really beautiful, whether you look at the original design for Adam and Eve, and man and woman, and what God had said about them.”
“Sometimes I think he [God] gets lost in the shuffle,” she continued. “People think, oh the Bible’s an old oppressive book and it has outdated notions about marriage. But man, it’s full of really good advice.”
From the Song of Solomon to Samson and Delilah, Arroyo asked what these stories say about the nature of married love.
“God is not surprised about our passion for each other or that we would have desire for each other,” Bream responded. “That’s how he created us, and I feel like he’s endorsing it all throughout the Bible but really … it’s clear that he wants us to nurture the romance in our lives.”
Regarding friendship, Arroyo pointed out that in the book Bream mentions how recent studies show that men are suffering from a “friendship recession” — that a greater percentage of men have few if any close friendships anymore.
“I think we’re created to be in community, and those numbers are so sad to me and really kind of shocking,” she said. “I talked to a number of pastors and priests about that number, and about friendships and why we aren’t better about those in modern society. They said we have not placed a value on them like we used to.”