Do you think that using pornography is equal to cheating?

[Hazelelponi]

I disagree. Lust is always sinful.

Its not always sinful, it's what marriage is for. Its the only institution within which lust/sexual desire is permissible, yet, it's not just permissible within it, sexual desire/lust is actually designed for that very institution.

 

[Jon Osterman]

Its not always sinful, it's what marriage is for. Its the only institution within which lust/sexual desire is permissible, yet, it's not just permissible within it, sexual desire/lust is actually designed for that very institution.

That seems a very negative and cynical view of marriage. Marriage is for love, sharing your life with someone and creating a harmonious loving and sinless environment to bring up children. Sexual sinful lust has no part in that.

 

[Hazelelponi]

That seems a very negative and cynical view of marriage. Marriage is for love, sharing your life with someone and creating a harmonious loving and sinless environment to bring up children. Sexual sinful lust has no part in that.

You've never read Song of Solomon have you?

 

[RDKirk]

I think the point here is that is it not necessary to experience lust in order to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. An [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] can be purely a reaction to physical stimulation. So it is not sinful to procreate if one can keep oneself dispassionate and free from lust while having intercourse with the intent of procreation.

For a male, that's going to be directly proportional to how much else he has to think about. It takes sexual lust to maintain an erection when a man is at a point in life that there are many other concerns invading his thoughts.

 

[RDKirk]

That seems a very negative and cynical view of marriage. Marriage is for love, sharing your life with someone and creating a harmonious loving and sinless environment to bring up children. Sexual sinful lust has no part in that.

What--when a man and woman are married--are you calling "sexual sinful lust?"

 

[RDKirk]

You've never read Song of Solomon have you?

Funny thing...I've never heard a cleric willing to preach SoS as something to take literally. They all rush to assert that it's totally figurative.

Taken literally, Song of Solomon is feminine pornography.

 

[Deidre32]

That seems a very negative and cynical view of marriage. Marriage is for love, sharing your life with someone and creating a harmonious loving and sinless environment to bring up children. Sexual sinful lust has no part in that.

Lust as defined is the mere desire for your spouse, sexually. God created us to have sex and to enjoy it. I think that the term lust is often viewed as a bad thing but it’s nothing more than a sexual desire for your partner.

 

[Deidre32]

My phone doesn’t recognize the word “lust,” keeps changing it to “list.” Lol!! My phone thinks lust is bad too

 

[Dave-W]

Funny thing...I've never heard a cleric willing to preach SoS as something to take literally. They all rush to assert that it's totally figurative.

There is a reason they try to avoid the literal understanding. The early church fathers believed sex to be totally abhorrent, a kind of necessary evil to allow procreation. Jerome said God only allowed marriage and sex to raise up more virgins for the Church. Another ECF said that God had such a problem with married couples having sex that the Holy Spirit had to leave the people and the entire building when a couple was so engaged.

They were the ones that insisted it was ONLY an allegory. The literal understanding was just too sinful. (in their estimation)

Taken literally, Song of Solomon is feminine pornography.

That is intentional. And it fits perfectly with the Jewish understanding of sex: A wife's right and a husband's responsibility.

In fact the sages say the husband must NOT initiate sex, but the wife is to do that. The marriage contracts were written with a minimum amount of sex the husband was to provide her with depending on how physically demanding his occupation was. There are many court records from the first century where wives sought and got court orders for the husband to change jobs so he could give her more sex.

So yes - it is a kind of female porn. In the bible.

ETA:
Another thing the rabbi sages said: that if the bible (OT) is God's Holy place (aka the Temple) the Song of Solomon is the Holy of Holies.

 

[Dave-W]

I think that the term lust is often viewed as a bad thing but it’s nothing more than a sexual desire for your partner.

Except people keep re-defining it. The early church fathes of the 2nd to the 4th centuries went so far as to define sinful lust as any sexual thought or feeling - even for your spouse.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

That seems a very negative and cynical view of marriage. Marriage is for love, sharing your life with someone and creating a harmonious loving and sinless environment to bring up children. Sexual sinful lust has no part in that.

.........Frankly, I think we all do ourselves a disservice, especially as Christians, when we equivocate the term 'lust' with 'sexual desire,' particularly when either term is only being applied to what we feel or perceive about our spouse.

And if we're going to differentiate between 'lust' and 'sexual desire,' and I think we should, then I think we need to do so in a more analytic way and designate 'lust' as SOLELY being a kind of sexual desire that is misplaced and focused somewhere other than upon one's own spouse.

I for one can't see how sexual desire for a spouse could EVER be anything negative, and in saying this, I am assuming too that the sexual desire referred to here isn't one that would be hurtful to the spouse. If one has some kind of desire for a spouse that is hurtful, that is neither 'sexual desire' nor 'lust' but simply a demented form of desire that needs some professional help and prayer.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Except people keep re-defining it. The early church fathes of the 2nd to the 4th centuries went so far as to define sinful lust as any sexual thought or feeling - even for your spouse.

And it's these kinds of comments from the Church Fathers which make me take many of the things they've said with a grain of salt, sometimes a whole bag of salt ...........................................

 

[Dave-W]

And it's these kinds of comments from the Church Fathers which make me take many of the things they've said with a grain of salt, sometimes a whole bag of salt ...........................................

Indeed.

And since I am on meds for high blood pressure, salt is forbidden from my diet.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Funny thing...I've never heard a cleric willing to preach SoS as something to take literally. They all rush to assert that it's totally figurative.

Taken literally, Song of Solomon is feminine pornography.

I believe there are a couple reasons we should have a literal reading of Song of Solomon, but even if your not a prudish person, standing in front of a pulpit preaching it would be uncomfortable especially with children present and so forth.

a literal reading of Titus 2:4 tells us

so that they [older women] may train the young women to be lovers of their husbands, loving their children

No one can teach an emotion; the wording used translates 'lovers of' to me this is indicative of passing on knowledge to our daughters of sex and perhaps tips on how to be pleasing to your husband because while you can't "teach" an emotion, you CAN teach/give pointers on physical aspects of the marital bed as well as proper discipline/raising of children..

The two main things my daughter wanted advice on after her marriage was that, questions related to sex and questions related to raising the kids.. 99.9% of all her questions were based in those two areas of interest so it makes perfect sense for that reading of Titus to be correct.

I believe that while the Bible is reasonably quiet on sexual matters I don't think it was prudish either.. Paul was likely the most prudish (and understandably so given his background) and even he said our bodies are not our own but belong to our spouse and that if being single would cause you to burn (with desire) then you should be married..

So, while I see the Bible as being reasonably quiet I don't find it silent, and I do believe the Bible teaches us sex within a marriage is a positive thing, and that its as much about pleasure as it is about procreation.

Desire is necessary to the physical aspect or it wouldn't work at all i dont think.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Lust as defined is the mere desire for your spouse, sexually. God created us to have sex and to enjoy it. I think that the term lust is often viewed as a bad thing but it’s nothing more than a sexual desire for your partner.

On one level I think your correct, Deidre, but I think the semantic confusion comes in when we use these terms (like lust) in everyday Webster-Merriam references and we do so as English speaking Americans, but then as Christians we forget that the connotations of these terms (like lust) which the New Testament writers referred to were expressed in Koine Greek, and within ancient cultural contexts, where what was referred to as 'lust' was a dynamic that competes with God's Will.

In other words, there's some conflation of ideas here and we're again not dealing with a purely dichotomous comparison of denotations and/or their attending connotations. In other words, somewhere, we're getting "Lost in Translation" between biblical meanings and modern meanings.

 

[Dave-W]

So yes - it is a kind of female porn. In the bible.

It actually can be quite scandalous.

To me this is one of the more humorous/scandalous passages:

Song of Solomon 1:12
“While the king was at his table, My perfume gave forth its fragrance.​

If you put that one together with this:

Song of Solomon 4:16
“Awake, O north wind, And come, wind of the south; Make my garden breathe out fragrance, Let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden And eat its choice fruits!”​

you get the fuller story. 4.6 tells us what the "perfume" was in 1.12: the scent of her arousal and desire, meant to seduce the King.

So she is at a dinner with the King, meaning it was probably some kind of big state affair with hundreds of dignitaries and their attendees and servants. And EVERYONE gets a whiff. You now have dozens, perhaps hundreds of men filled with desire.

She wants him. She wants him NOW.
And she does not care who gets all wound up in the process.

And nowhere in the text is that said to be wrong or criticized in any way.

 

[Dave-W]

I believe there are a couple reasons we should have a literal reading of Song of Solomon, but even if your not a prudish person, standing in front of a pulpit preaching it would be uncomfortable especially with children present and so forth.

There is a lie that I have heard circulated about the SoS. That Jewish tradition was that no one was supposed to read it before age 40 as it was just too ridiculously erotic.

Not so. It (entire book) has been read in the synagogues for EVERYONE to hear once a year at Passover since before Christ.

IMO they got that confused with other Jewish mystical writings such as the Zohar and Tanya (which also have a TON of erotic imagery) but since they are NOT bible; and being mystical, considered dangerous, they are not read before age 40 so the reader would have been properly grounded in the bible properly BEFORE reading stuff that can lead to spiritual bondage or even insanity.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There is a reason they try to avoid the literal understanding. The early church fathers believed sex to be totally abhorrent, a kind of necessary evil to allow procreation. Jerome said God only allowed marriage and sex to raise up more virgins for the Church. Another ECF said that God had such a problem with married couples having sex that the Holy Spirit had to leave the people and the entire building when a couple was so engaged.

They were the ones that insisted it was ONLY an allegory. The literal understanding was just too sinful. (in their estimation)

That is intentional. And it fits perfectly with the Jewish understanding of sex: A wife's right and a husband's responsibility.

In fact the sages say the husband must NOT initiate sex, but the wife is to do that. The marriage contracts were written with a minimum amount of sex the husband was to provide her with depending on how physically demanding his occupation was. There are many court records from the first century where wives sought and got court orders for the husband to change jobs so he could give her more sex.

So yes - it is a kind of female porn. In the bible.

ETA:
Another thing the rabbi sages said: that if the bible (OT) is God's Holy place (aka the Temple) the Song of Solomon is the Holy of Holies.

I don't think I'd call Song of Solomon a kind of female porn when the whole connotation for porn in New Testament lingo has to do with "sexual immorality," of one kind or another. If Song of Solomon is about sexuality and sensuousness within the institution of marriage, then it is a conflation of terms to suggest that Song of Solomon is a kind of "porn."

Just sayin.'

 

[Dave-W]

I don't think I'd call Song of Solomon a kind of female porn when the whole connotation for porn in New Testament lingo has to do with "sexual immorality" of one kind or another.

To most conservative Christians, ANYTHING that mentions sex in any way, good or bad, is porn.

 

[Jon Osterman]

To me this is one of the more humorous/scandalous passages:

Song of Solomon 1:12
“While the king was at his table, My perfume gave forth its fragrance.​

If you put that one together with this:

Song of Solomon 4:16
“Awake, O north wind, And come, wind of the south; Make my garden breathe out fragrance, Let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden And eat its choice fruits!”​

you get the fuller story. 4.6 tells us what the "perfume" was in 1.12: the scent of her arousal and desire, meant to seduce the King.

So she is at a dinner with the King, meaning it was probably some kind of big state affair with hundreds of dignitaries and their attendees and servants. And EVERYONE gets a whiff. You now have dozens, perhaps hundreds of men filled with desire.

Really? A much more reasonable interpretation would be that she is wearing perfume, don't you think? And maybe 4:16 is talking about an actual garden. Maybe you just have a dirty mind.

You might find Gill's exposition on this useful.

It is interesting how much our modern perspective warps our translation of God's word. We are so willing to accept that lust is now OK because our immoral society is steeped in it! Often I see posts saying the early church did this or that so it must be right, but as soon as it is a view we don't like or that is inconvenient for the fiction we wish to believe, then they must have got it all wrong. Lust is sin. Period. Whether it is for your spouse or a stranger, it is still lust.