-
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
-
CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
Masturbation
- Thread starter FatefulFluke
- Start date
I know exactly what you mean because I started out as a Christian in a very conservative church as well. The damage it did to people was horrifying, looking back, and I was lucky to get out with any shred of faith in God intact. A lot of people didn't.
The good thing about coming from a condemning, legalistic background is that from there on, once you realize that condemnation saves no one and only the grace and forgiveness of God saves us, you can receive everything you lost before as a gift from God's grace rather than just something you have. It's quite a bit like, I think, what the original disciples of Jesus must have experienced, coming from a severely legalistic, graceless religious leadership. Jesus' grace, forgiveness and generosity were completely radical.
Upvote
0
I can certainly agree with you in the sense that the first commandment is to love God, and the second, as Jesus says, is like it; to love others. And these ought to be the guiding moral compass in our lives.
Maybe we can all agree on that?
Upvote
0
Zebra1552
Urban Nomad. Literally.
- Nov 2, 2007
- 14,461
- 820
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- In Relationship
- Politics
- US-Others
I want something that is biblical and sensical, not just some opinion. Something with substance.
And just because you say it's 'excessive desire' doesn't mean that your definition is any less vague. Who defines what is excessive?
Upvote
0
Let me restate an earlier post, maybe before you guys were involved in this thread that I hope helps clear up just what "lust" is and isn't:
The original term that seems to have started this is discussion Jesus' use of the verb EPITHUMEO in Matt 5:28 “But I say to you, anyone who stares at a woman with lust (EPITHUMEO) for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” ISV
Here are some other examples of the word from the NT:
1 Peter 1:12 Even angels long (EPITHUMEO) to look into these things.
1Ti 3:1
It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires (EPITHUMEO)
Mattt 13:17
For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired (EPITHUMEO) to see what you see, and did not see and to hear what you hear, and did not hear.
Ac 20:33
I have coveted (EPITHUMEO) no one's silver or gold or clothes.
Obviously the word has nothing inherent to do with sex.
Jesus use of it in Matthew comes straight from Deut 5:21 and Exodus 20:17, which says (in the Septuagint):
"You shall not covet (EPITHUMEO) your neighbor's house; you shall not covet 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."
The use of “lust” to refer to sex primarily is not the way the term is used in the Bible at all -and it shouldn’t be used in that way in our interpretation of it. Unfortunately modern cultural use sees it almost entirely as about sex, rather than about greed, which is more its correct meaning. (Notice that "wife" is just another in the list of the neighbor's possessions). This explains, it seems to me, why Christians too often obsess about sex and ignore greed today.
The original term that seems to have started this is discussion Jesus' use of the verb EPITHUMEO in Matt 5:28 “But I say to you, anyone who stares at a woman with lust (EPITHUMEO) for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” ISV
Here are some other examples of the word from the NT:
1 Peter 1:12 Even angels long (EPITHUMEO) to look into these things.
1Ti 3:1
It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires (EPITHUMEO)
Mattt 13:17
For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired (EPITHUMEO) to see what you see, and did not see and to hear what you hear, and did not hear.
Ac 20:33
I have coveted (EPITHUMEO) no one's silver or gold or clothes.
Obviously the word has nothing inherent to do with sex.
Jesus use of it in Matthew comes straight from Deut 5:21 and Exodus 20:17, which says (in the Septuagint):
"You shall not covet (EPITHUMEO) your neighbor's house; you shall not covet 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."
The use of “lust” to refer to sex primarily is not the way the term is used in the Bible at all -and it shouldn’t be used in that way in our interpretation of it. Unfortunately modern cultural use sees it almost entirely as about sex, rather than about greed, which is more its correct meaning. (Notice that "wife" is just another in the list of the neighbor's possessions). This explains, it seems to me, why Christians too often obsess about sex and ignore greed today.
Upvote
0
Note also that the commandment does not say you shall not "excessively" desire something that belongs to someone else, you shouldn't at all.
Upvote
0
well, im pretty sure thats only if you acknowledge that its wrong and make an attempt to stop it/prevent it from happening again
Upvote
0
Zebra1552
Urban Nomad. Literally.
- Nov 2, 2007
- 14,461
- 820
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- In Relationship
- Politics
- US-Others
So our God is an angry one that makes us be perfect? Sorry folks, but that's not what the Bible teaches: Get out of the religious ruts of the pharisees and get into a relationship with Jesus.
Upvote
0
cowboysfan1970
Forum Regular
That's maybe the biggest problem of all, and that is that people who are trained and indoctrinated into legalism really don't have any real relationship with God or Christ. They have a relationship with rules and regulations. What they fail to understand is that rules and regulations can't save us. For many years that's what I had instead of a real relationship with God and Christ. I felt that my salvation was based on how well and zealously followed those rules. What legalists do is they make a person unsure of their salvation because to them salvation is determined by a complex equation. Something like "Divide the number of laws you have broken by the number of laws you have maintained. If the number is greater than .99 you can't get into Heaven." That's a very twisted and screwed up idea. Whenever I hear people proclaiming that it's a sin to drink, a sin to dance, that touching yourself will send you to hell, those kinds of things, I know wonder what makes them come to those conclusions? The Bible doesn't come out and say that anywhere. In order to come to those conclusions a person has to twist or even re-write the Bible to make that stick, and that's not a position that I would want to be in. What they are basically saying is that God's standards just aren't good enough for them.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
