Subject: 2 followups, masturbation and 1Cor7:2-5 |
Bible Note: start of part 2 of 3 Next, I'd like to respond to certain of your comments and questions to me. You said: "I would still direct you to 1 Thess. 4:3-7." OK. Here it is, complete with the Bible Gateway footnote: "3It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4that each of you should learn to control his own body[1] in a way that is holy and honorable, 5not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life." Footnote [1] reads -- 4:4 "Or learn to live with his own wife; or learn to acquire a wife." This meaning for the word "body" implies the point is to keep sexual contact limited to one's spouse, i.e. to avoid adultery and fornication, as practiced by the heathen. You said: "Please read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Your body is not your own to do with as you please! You have been bought with a price." Here it is: 1Cor6:12-20 "12Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything. 13"Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." 17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." Verses 12 tells me that not everything is good for me and I should not be a slave to anything. I concur. In verse 15, mention of the prostitute seems to again emphasize that the nature of immorality most certainly includes joining flesh with others. Of course, Christ said such sin begins in our hearts, so depending on what is in the heart, masturbation may be to adultery/fornication what anger is to murder and what greed is to stealing. You said: "And also, to use 1 Cor. 7 to justify masturbation is a blatant attempt to misapply Scripture to justify a sinful act. Do you worship and idolize your wife in such a way that you misuse your own body parts for her glorification? Or is it simply the indulgment of sinful flesh?" As I said earlier, I'm not trying to encourage or justify masturbation, but rather understand what the Bible says and does not say about it as compared to what people say the Bible intends. end of part 2 of 3 |