Once again, this is a FALSE application of the "stumbling" teaching in the Bible.
(For the purpose of this discussion, assume that the legality of public nudity is not a factor in any of the following examples)
According to Rom 14, if I go skinnydipping, I have caused a brother to "stumble" IF (and only if) the following happens.
- I go skinnydipping. I do so because before God, I know it's not sinful to swim naked... nor is it a sin to allow myself to be seen naked by other people.
- My Brother who is with me does not fully believe that skinnydipping is morally permissible. Yet, because I'm his brother, and he trusts me, he figures "If David is skinnydipping, what will it hurt if I do, too?" So he strips down and joins me skinnydipping.
- RESULT: because by my freedom, I was a catalyst that resulted in my brother being emboldened to violate his own belief about the morality of skinnydipping, I have caused him to stumble.
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Unfortunately, that is not what most people who invoke the "stumbling" prohibition mean.
Let me give two examples that are NOT "causing to stumble"...
1. Someone is SURE that I'm wrong!!
- I go skinnydipping. I do so because before God, I know it's not sinful to swim naked... nor is it a sin to allow myself to be seen naked by other people.
- My Brother who is with me does not believe that skinnydipping is morally right. So, he declines to participate.
- RESULT: All is well. Everyone is fully convinced in his own mind (Romans 14:5) and there is no stumbling and no sin. He doesn't have to skinnydip, and I don't have to refrain.
2. Causing someone to lust.
- My daughter goes skinnydipping. She does so because before God, she knows it's not sinful to swim naked... nor is it a sin to allow herself to be seen naked by other people.
- My Brother who is with her has a weakness with reference to sexual lust. He sees her naked and has lustful thoughts.
- RESULT: The Brother is in sin because of his lust. My daughter is not in sin... and she did NOT cause her Brother to "stumble."
- NOTE: Having a sinful response to an external impetus is always and totally the responsibility of the one having the sinful response.
- Jesus was not responsible for the Pharisees' hatred.
- Joseph was not responsible for Potiphar's Wife's lust.
- Bathsheba was not responsible for David's lust.
- The Angels visiting Lot in Sodom were not responsible for the lust of the men in town.
- The woman in Jesus' teaching is not responsible for the mental adultery of the man who looks lustfully at her (Matthew 5:28).
Consider Jesus' words in Mark 7:14-23
The sight of a woman's body is by definition "outside the man." If that sight triggers a lustful response, it only
reveals the lust that resides
within that man
already!
This conclusion is inescapable from Jesus' words. Even sexual sin comes from within a man...
not from what he sees!
In Paul's teaching, "Stumbling" has
only to do with emboldening someone to violate their own conscience... and
joining someone else in an activity they don't yet realize is not sin.
Any attempt to apply Paul's words about "stumbling" any other way is biblically false.