Question on putting sin to death.

[GDL]

No Gospel of John

but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

GES version.

 

[The Liturgist]

Fair enough.

Indeed I think you both interpreted it correctly. Scripture tends to have many layers of meaning and I find this is particularly the case with the Pauline epistles. For instance, the different contexts he simultaneously uses the term Body of Christ in, in 1st Corinthians.

On the subject of the OP, my friend @Paidiske and I were discussing this very problem in another thread, and I think the experiences discussed here are worth contemplating.

It is a particular tragedy @Neostarwcc that you have suffered from this from the age of ten. In so far as you were exposed to such material, people who put pornography where children can access it are committing child abuse. You can take consolation from the fact that your Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ is infinitely loving, merciful and forgiving and also expresses infinite compassion in the Gospels for children who were the victims of people causing them to stumble.

 

[Neostarwcc]

Indeed I think you both interpreted it correctly. Scripture tends to have many layers of meaning and I find this is particularly the case with the Pauline epistles. For instance, the different contexts he simultaneously uses the term Body of Christ in, in 1st Corinthians.

On the subject of the OP, my friend @Paidiske and I were discussing this very problem in another thread, and I think the experiences discussed here are worth contemplating.

It is a particular tragedy @Neostarwcc that you have suffered from this from the age of ten. In so far as you were exposed to such material, people who put pornography where children can access it are committing child abuse. You can take consolation from the fact that your Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ is infinitely loving, merciful and forgiving and also expresses infinite compassion in the Gospels for children who were the victims of people causing them to stumble.

Well ever since the beginning of the internet porn has been unfortunately very easy to access. I was a minor then but didn't care because I thought "it's so easy to access so there must be nothing wrong with it." I didn't become a Christian until late 2013 so I thought nothing was wrong with it except the fact that my parents told me I was too young to look at it and the legal age was 18. After my conversion though I felt hopeless and like I'd never break it. I did eventually and it's been years since I looked at the stuff. Praise God!

 

[Minister Monardo]

I have a question about sin and the Bible's commands for us to put sin to death. I've noticed that I get overwhelmed with trying to put all sin to death so, is this something that God takes care of one sin at a time? Like for example I thought I would never break my porn addiction, yet now several years later I've been free of porn completely. Yet, I was addicted to porn since I was 10 years old. Or is putting sin to death really something that we do on our own and it's just a coincidence I broke from a 20+ year sinful habit? I hope my question makes sense.

An excellent and challenging thread topic! Thanks for sharing your struggles. As in an old DC Talk
song lyric "Confession is the road to healing". After reading your testimony, this verse popped into
my head immediately (an example of the Helper at work).
1 Peter 4:
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind,
for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men,
but for the will of God.

Note that this is not only physical suffering. I have found by experience that the most
effective at driving out sin is the suffering of humiliation.
Philippians 3: YLT
20 For our citizenship is in the heavens, whence also a Savior we await --
the Lord Jesus Christ --
21 who shall transform the body of our humiliation to its becoming conformed
to the body of his glory, according to the working of his power, even to subject
to himself the all things.

 

[The Liturgist]

Well ever since the beginning of the internet porn has been unfortunately very easy to access. I was a minor then but didn't care because I thought "it's so easy to access so there must be nothing wrong with it." I didn't become a Christian until late 2013 so I thought nothing was wrong with it except the fact that my parents told me I was too young to look at it and the legal age was 18. After my conversion though I felt hopeless and like I'd never break it. I did eventually and it's been years since I looked at the stuff. Praise God!

Glory be to God!

I think in many cases of addiction which happens to children, baptized or not, Matthew 18:6 and Luke 17:2 applies “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Matthew 18:6 has the context of tempting Christian youth into sin, whereas Luke 17:2 I believe expands the protective zeal of our Lord to all children. As a result, I personally think there is substantially less moral culpability in this type of condition, although it is still a sin, but in our era I think it is helpful to recall the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox idea about sin as disease which causes our suffering; many sins are self destructive rather than directly harmful to others. This tends to be the case, I think, with those sins the ancient Byzantine Christians tend to refer to as “the passions.”

But in your case, we see the glory of God at work in delivering you from sin for which you were not personally responsible, which is in many respects like the ancestral sin and corruption we inherit as a result of our fallen humanity, but when God lifts us out of it, it is a profound demonstration of His enduring love for us.

 

[childeye 2]

I hate to be “that guy” because I know you are wanting to be helpful, but that passage has to do with the church fighting the lies of Satan that threaten to infiltrate the church. So it’s not us taking our thoughts captive, but taking the lies of Satan (ie homosexuality, transgenderism, co-habitation, Marxism, etc) captive and destroying them so that they don’t infect the church.

I believe the tempter uses propaganda in our thoughts that appeals to the carnal mind and incites lust. I believe a person has to be believing a lie of some sort that creates a desire to sin through deception. I believe one needs the Truth to defeat a lie. I therefore do not agree with any political church view that assumes and speaks as though virtue can be legislated (I'm not referring to you).

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

 

[Neostarwcc]

Glory be to God!

I think in many cases of addiction which happens to children, baptized or not, Matthew 18:6 and Luke 17:2 applies “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Matthew 18:6 has the context of tempting Christian youth into sin, whereas Luke 17:2 I believe expands the protective zeal of our Lord to all children. As a result, I personally think there is substantially less moral culpability in this type of condition, although it is still a sin, but in our era I think it is helpful to recall the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox idea about sin as disease which causes our suffering; many sins are self destructive rather than directly harmful to others. This tends to be the case, I think, with those sins the ancient Byzantine Christians tend to refer to as “the passions.”

But in your case, we see the glory of God at work in delivering you from sin for which you were not personally responsible, which is in many respects like the ancestral sin and corruption we inherit as a result of our fallen humanity, but when God lifts us out of it, it is a profound demonstration of His enduring love for us.

Amen. It's too bad he doesn't do that with every sin. Just the ones that are excruciatingly bad or impossible we for man to get out of, even with God's help.