The Holy Kiss 1: Power and Affection

When a Holy Kiss Wears Armour

Ever wondered why Paul insisted, four times, that we greet each other with a holy kiss? This wasn’t sentiment. It was covenant.

In the biblical world, a kiss wasn’t a gesture of romance, it was a mark of allegiance, even warfare. In Hebrew, the same word for kiss also means to arm oneself.

What if Paul wasn’t being quaint but calling the Church to stand together with affection that defends?

How a Facebook Post Changed Everything

It was one of those afternoons where responsibility hung in the air like a forgotten casserole in the oven, somehow easier to ignore if you scrolled fast enough. So, naturally, I turned to Facebook.

That’s when I saw it: a post by Anne Hamilton, (view here) theologian and writer, quietly holding a grenade. It was a graphic, simple but arresting. The caption read, “The Hebrew word for putting on armour is the same as for kiss.”

I stopped. Scrolled back. Read it again.

Wait, what? The armour of God… is His kiss?

I blinked. Surely this was metaphorical. Or a typo. Or one of those poetic liberties we excuse because it feels spiritually fuzzy enough to be true.

But it wasn’t.

One word: nashaq.
Same root in Hebrew. One gesture for affection and battle readiness.

And with that, I fell headfirst down a rabbit hole carved by scrolls and syllables, one that landed me in the lap of Paul, whose insistent instruction now hit differently:

“Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

A Kiss Is Never Just a Kiss

In the ancient world, gestures didn’t come with disclaimers. A holy kiss wasn’t romantic fluff. It was loaded, a kind of social practice, concluding more than it introduced.

Take Naomi. She kisses her daughters-in-law goodbye, tears in her throat, a future dissolving behind her eyes.

Orpah receives the kiss and walks away.
Ruth receives the same kiss… but stays.

Same action, wildly different allegiances.

Then there’s David and Jonathan, biblical besties forged in palace intrigue and battlefield loyalty. Their parting is tender, almost cinematic. David, ugly crying. Jonathan, handing over his weapons like a man giving away his future. And in the middle?

A kiss.

Not sentiment.

But covenant.

The kind of kiss that says, “Even if I’m not beside you, I’m with you. I’ve chosen you, at cost to myself.”

This wasn’t a high-five or a like. This was the kiss as vow.
A kiss as spiritual contract.
A kiss as the drawing of relational lines across enemy territory.

Awkward Nearness & the Church

Let’s return to Paul. The apostle who could go from resurrection theology to tent-making tips in a single paragraph. The man who wrote most of the New Testament while ducking Roman blades and Jewish backlash and still found time to say, repeatedly:

“Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

Let’s be honest. If Paul were posting today, we’d probably mute him.
Four times? Seriously, Paul? We get it.

But maybe we don’t.

In our culture of cautious small talk and elbow bumps, we’ve lost the scandal and substance of nearness. We sideline affection as preference. We mask loyalty behind politeness. And we assume the holy kiss was just a first-century version of a handshake at the church door.

But Paul wasn’t issuing hygiene tips.
He was invoking covenant.

Because the Church wasn’t surviving off branding and algorithms. It was bleeding. Literally.
And it was held together by bonds stronger than persecution.

Holy love. The kind with grit.

The Word That Bites Both Ways

Let’s circle back to the Hebrew word for kiss: nashaq.
This word is a shapeshifter. It means kiss, but also to arm oneself.

In Genesis 27, Isaac says to Jacob, “Come near and kiss me, my son.”

In 2 Kings 3, it says the Moabite king “took with him 700 men who drew their swords,” same word, nashaq.

So, kissing and sword-drawing. Same root. For in Hebrew imagination, nearness always demands intention.

A holy kiss is never neutral.
A sword is never subtle.

You don’t kiss from across a battlefield. You don’t draw weapons in theory. You move close.
And something will be exchanged.

Loyalty. Betrayal. Blessing.
Or, if you’re Ruth: destiny.

Closeness That Arms Us

So, when Paul says “holy kiss,” he’s not being quaint. He’s calling believers into close, personal, covenantal union. And not merely in proximity, but protection.

And the kind of love that matters in the Kingdom?
It doesn’t keep its distance.
It arms itself with affection.

It says:

• I won’t just smile at you across the foyer.
• I’ll sit beside you when the doctor says, “It’s cancer.”
• I’ll bring soup, truth, prayer, and yes, tissues.

This love doesn’t flinch when your life unravels.
It holds the line.
It doesn’t whisper gossip after the kiss.
It fights to see Christ in you, especially when you’ve forgotten He’s there.

This love is covenantal. Costly.
And, frankly, inconvenient.

Which is probably why we prefer group chats and emojis.

The Kiss as Armour

If nashaq teaches us anything, it’s that the kiss and the sword come from the same gesture: drawing near.

This isn’t sentiment dressed in Christianese.
It’s theology with calluses.
Love that doesn’t flinch.

Psalm 85:10 gives us a strange, beautiful phrase:

“Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.”

It sounds like poetry.
But what if it’s prophecy?
What if it’s describing the ground zero of covenant?

Two forces, destined to collide, choosing alliance instead.

What We Often Forget

The Church today is often more suspicious than affectionate. We equate unity with uniformity. We reserve trust for those who vote like us, post like us, hashtag like us.

But Paul envisioned something else.
A people who didn’t just survive together, but who stood for each other.

The holy kiss wasn’t about lip service. It was trench warfare tenderness. An intimate declaration that said:

• You are not alone.
• I will not walk away.
• Your pain won’t scare me off.
• If betrayal comes for you, it has to pass through me.

It was affection as allegiance.
Touch as protection.
Affection as covenant.

So, What Now?

We don’t need to institute liturgical kissing (please don’t start a kissing ministry). But we do need to understand the weight behind Paul’s repetition. Because this is what he was saying, again and again, to bruised and beautiful churches:

You don’t survive on niceties. You survive on affection.

Covenantal closeness. The kind that stays. That guards. That loves.

Spiritual Warfare

If the armour of God includes the holy kiss of God, then we must rethink what spiritual warfare looks like.

Sometimes, arming yourself means standing beside someone with trembling knees.
Sometimes, kissing your brother or sister in Christ means refusing to leave when it would be easier to scroll away.
Sometimes, the sharpest blade you carry is a commitment to stay when everything in you wants to bolt.

Because in the Kingdom of God, affection isn’t fluff.
It’s transformation.
It’s resistance.
It’s the strange but holy act of war that sounds like kindness and smells faintly of mints.

So go ahead. Greet your siblings.
Not with a holy cringe, but with covenantal affection.

And yes, maybe carry breath mints.
Holiness, after all, should be both heartfelt and considerate.

May your love be fierce, your nearness holy, and your kiss – armour.

With affection and grit,

❣️May your heart grow ever more attuned to the One who never takes His eyes off you.

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