Is sex before premarital sex really sinful?

[dayhiker]

Would be good to know what that authors things innocent pleasures are.

 

[Jon Osterman]

Would be good to know what that authors things innocent pleasures are.

It is a celebration of beauty and love, not sex.

 

[Tetra]

It is a celebration of beauty and love, not sex.

What's the difference??

 

[RDKirk]

I don't think that is sin (lust). It's a natural body function.

"Normal body function" is actually the definition of "lust."

But letting your body control your actions is the definition of "sin."

 

[dayhiker]

Seems to me sex is very loving and beautiful. God clearly spent as much time thinking about sex and designing us as sexual beings as He did creating us being that love the taste and eating of food.

 

[Jon Osterman]

Seems to me sex is very loving and beautiful. God clearly spent as much time thinking about sex and designing us as sexual beings as He did creating us being that love the taste and eating of food.

I personally don't think he put that much thought into it. If he had, I'm sure the sexual organs wouldn't be so close to the waste excretion.

 

[ace of hearts]

"Normal body function" is actually the definition of "lust."

But letting your body control your actions is the definition of "sin."

I disagree. Having an erection prior to getting out of bed upon waking up isn't a function or cause of lust.

 

[RDKirk]

I disagree. Having an erection prior to getting out of bed upon waking up isn't a function or cause of lust.

But desiring sex is a normal bodily function, just like hunger or thirsts--both of which were classified as "lusts" by the philosophies of the 1st century, including the writers of scriptures.

A "lust" is just a natural physical desire--not exclusively sexual. When one allows his natural physical desires to control his actions, that is sin.

 

[Dave-W]

"Normal body function" is actually the definition of "lust."

No. Epithumeo (lust in Matt 5) is better translated "covet."

 

[RDKirk]

No. Epithumeo (lust in Matt 5) is better translated "covet."

That's not the only place the word is used. Because of its other uses, I would disagree that it means "covet" in Matthew 5.

 

[Dave-W]

That's not the only place the word is used. Because of its other uses, I would disagree that it means "covet" in Matthew 5.

It is "Covet" in the LXX Exodus 20. It is "covet" in all of Paul's letters.

It is "desire" twice in Luke 22:15

As to Matt 5, our Lord is going thru the Pharasaic teachings on the 10 commandments. So "covet" seems to be a very good fit there:

Exodus 20:17
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet (epithumeo - LXX) your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

 

[hedrick]

For Mat 5:28 the meaning seems to be sexual desire for someone inappropriate.

[The following is based on the article in TDNT.]
But the word isn't always covet, though that's the common use in the OT. It could mean desire in general. In the Stoics there was a goal of being free of the world, an ideal which was sometimes (though not always) visible in Judaism by the 1st Cent.

So the question is whether all sexual desire is lust. By Augustine's time that seems to have been a common view. I don't see it in Jesus. Paul seems to have taken an intermediate position. For him, desire for your wife seems to have been fine. I don't see him calling that lust. But still, there's an impression that being free of that kind of tie to the world is a good thing. There's kind of a muted version of the Stoic ideal visible in Paul at times.

 

[RDKirk]

It is "Covet" in the LXX Exodus 20. It is "covet" in all of Paul's letters.

It is "desire" twice in Luke 22:15

As to Matt 5, our Lord is going thru the Pharasaic teachings on the 10 commandments. So "covet" seems to be a very good fit there:

Exodus 20:17
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet (epithumeo - LXX) your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

I disagree that "covet" and "desire" can be conflated, as you do here.

 

[RDKirk]

For Mat 5:28 the meaning seems to be sexual desire for someone inappropriate.

[The following is based on the article in TDNT.]
But the word isn't always covet, though that's the common use in the OT. It could mean desire in general. In the Stoics there was a goal of being free of the world, an ideal which was sometimes (though not always) visible in Judaism by the 1st Cent.

So the question is whether all sexual desire is lust. By Augustine's time that seems to have been a common view. I don't see it in Jesus. Paul seems to have taken an intermediate position. For him, desire for your wife seems to have been fine. I don't see him calling that lust. But still, there's an impression that being free of that kind of tie to the world is a good thing. There's kind of a muted version of the Stoic ideal visible in Paul at times.

I think there is a particular reason why of all the different philosophies represented on Mars' Hill, Luke chose to point out the Epicureans and the Stoics in particular. There is something to be gained by analyzing the similarities and differences with the gospel.

Stoicism can look superficially very much like Christianity in their deprecation of the importantance of physical desires to morality, compared to Epicureanism in which physical desires are the compass points of morality.

But the Stoic ideal establishes the human mind as the foundation of morality, where Paul establishes the mind of Christ as the foundation of morality and the need for the human mind to conform to the mind of Christ.

I'd point out, also, that the secular philosophers did not consider the Graco-Roman pantheon dictators of morality. Their morality was a product of their own customs and their ethics the product of their own minds, not dictated by the gods.

 

[hedrick]

But the Stoic ideal establishes the human mind as the foundation of morality, where Paul establishes the mind of Christ as the foundation of morality and the need for the human mind to conform to the mind of Christ.

Of course. But the opposition to involvement with the world is still there. As I noted before, in muted form in Paul, but much stronger form in the early Church.

According to TDNT, this had made its way into Judaism by the time of Paul, so Paul was probably operating within a diaspora Jewish environment, not a Stoic one.