You should at least address my response to your question about
Mark 9:43-47 first.
Do you agree with my point? If not, what is your objection to my argument?
Mar 9:43...And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell,...
Mar 9:45...
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell...
Mar 9:47...And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell,...
These verse clearly shows that Jesus is speaking symbolically: Cutting off our hands, and feet or cutting out even one eye would not keep anyone from sinning with the remaining eye. Jesus is not encouraging physical maiming. Instead, He is telling us that we should do whatever it takes to avoid sin.
Another verse that is comparable to the thought in Mark 9 is 1 John 2:16...
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world."
In Satan's temptation of Eve the
"lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," is similar to the above verse. And yet again the very beginning of sin in the world began with....
"When she saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," (Gen 3:6)
One manifestation of
"the pride of life," in Eve was the desire to know above what God had revealed to her/and Adam.
Lastly, what do we see Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery in John 8:3-11?
"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" And she said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."
Now with the adulterous woman, did he tell her to cut off any parts of her body because she was a sinner or not? No! He told her to stop doing what she was doing is all Jesus did. This is at the very heart of what the Pharisees evil mind represents; they wanted her stoned but Jesus wanted her to change her ways.
All these things above are results of the way the mind works and how Satan uses us to tempt us to do things that God's moral laws forbid us to do and there are an abundant supply of verses in the Epistles that tell us just how to control our temptations to sin and it is not about mutilating our bodies to do so.
Now who do you represent? The Pharisees that took the law
"literally?" Or would you prefer to have Jesus tell you not to cut your eyes out but to stop looking at inappropriate contentography? (not saying you do here.)