Philothei said:
Are there parishioners that the would be scandalized? Remember a Christian is not to make his brother stumble...Would there be people who would be scandalized? Also is this for the "glory of God"???
I mean we can afford to have no "art lessons" if that is not "profitable" I think the evangelist puts it in the right perspective here for us.
I don't mean to single out Miss Philothei with this, as there have been a number who have said basically the same thing. While Paul does say "Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble." in 1 Corinthians 8:13, he also Admonishes Peter and the other Jews for refusing to eat with the Gentiles. To a Jew, eating with a Gentile was a stumbling block. Many consider Peter to be the Leader of the Church. Yet Paul rebukes him for doing what is wrong.
Let me ask a question. If you thought that wearing shorts might cause someone to lust, do you stop wearing shorts? From what you say, you should. What about a woman wearing pants? 150 years ago, it was indecent. 200 years ago, it would get a woman in serious trouble. Seeing an ankle exposed was a real treat. It was something considered sexual. And yet, as pants grew into favour, and later shorts, and now swimsuits, you accept them. You wear them. Though seeing the shape of your body through clothes might cause someone to lust after you, you do not put on full skirts, or cover your neck. Why not? If what you say is the right thing, then do it.
Either we have to realise something is wrong, or we have to realise there is nothing wrong with it. Why does the Church follow behind modern culture? Are we supposed to be eating the scraps thrown to us?
Here is another example. Do you pray out loud? What if there is a chance it might hurt someone's conscience? The Lord Jesus said "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." in Matthew 6:6. You might realise there is nothing wrong with praying out loud, but if one of our Brothers does not, are you to stop? Praying with others builds up the body, so how can we?
Finally, we come to Mrs. Koshka's example. Is there anything wrong with nude modelling? No. The nudity debate rests on one thing: Intent. If there is a sexual atmosphere, then there is a problem if it is not solely with your husband. If there is not, then you are as God made you. He created man and woman in the image of God. They were naked (arummim), and he saw that it was good (Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 2:25).
Now, Adam and Eve were the only ones in the garden, and they were man and wife. If they were wrong for being nude in the garden with their spouses, then we are wrong for being nude together with out spouses now. We know that isn't so, because many times the Bible mentions nudity and sex with a spouse in a very positive light. The Song of Solomon comes to mind. So if they weren't wrong in the garden by being naked with eachother, then there was something else that they saw.
When Adam and Eve broke the one commandment of the Lord, they knew that they were now naked (eirummim. Different word). We do the same thing in English. We say a bare butt, and we say I laid my heart bare. In English, they are the same word. Naked and Naked, Bare and Bare. It seems that in Hebrew they are slightly different. More like Nude and Naked. They knew the shame of what they had done, and they could not hide from God, though they still tried.
Note: the Hebrew word used for the 'clothing' that Adam and Eve made for themselves (not by God) was chagorot or a girdle. A belt. So even if they were clothing themselves because it was wrong (as was shown earlier to not be the case), Eve would still have been topless.
In many cases, God has led and told people to go without their clothes:
In 1 Samuel 18:3-4
"Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as himself (one of the great commandments of Jesus). Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt (chagorov, similar to the belt worn by Adam and Eve).
In 1 Samuel 19:24:
"And he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night. Thus it is said, Is Saul also among the prophets?"
This was after the Spirit of God came upon Saul. The Holy Spirit does not ever lead us to do something that is against God's word, will, or nature.
In Isaiah 20:2:
"at that time the Lord spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet, and he did so, walking naked and barefoot."
Isaiah went completely naked in public for three years. God does not tell us to do things that are wrong.
Micah 1:8:
"Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked"
Micah, like Isaiah, prophesied and preached in God's Holy Name without any clothes in the sight of both men and women. The Prophets were still under the Law, and so what Paul said: ""All things are lawful", but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful", but not all things build up" did not apply to them. If it was not lawful, they would have been breaking God's law.
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The next question is: Can nudity build up our fellow brothers and sisters? I think so. There are so many accounts of Men and Women both young and old with terrible Body Image issues. Anorexia and other eating disorders are not uncommon. Even more common are people who can't stand the way they look. They are too fat, too skinny, to pale, too dark, their hair is too straight, to curly, to dark, to light, their eyes are too big, too small, too close together, too far apart, too blue, too green, not blue enough, not green enough, and every dissatisfaction possible. They try their hardest to change the way they look because they don't think they are enough. When you see others without their clothes, it doesn't take long to truly
know that bodies aren't "perfect". So few actually meet the standard of 'beauty' that society holds, and yet everyone feels alone with their insecurities. It doesn't take long to accept yourself the way God made you when you can see the way God made others. That is the story of almost every nudist that used to be insecure about their bodies, as well, many figure models.