Posted on 04/28/2005 12:03:24 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
Christian tradition has struggled with God's law for a long time.
BS..You have no idea who I am and I haven't revealed diddly squat about what I am like although you do know that I am not a hypocrite and I don't condemn people to hell and judge them because they have had sex before marraige.
Ah, fiction (just looked it up on Amazon). I can handle that. :-)
Just because you're married doesn't mean you're having sex.
I think the rest of it would go, "I'm trying to make sure later when you want grand kids everything will still work."
First fifty or sixty pages are about the finest writing in the last 30 years. The publisher re-issued those pages as its own book Pafko (sp?) At the Fence -- I think it's called.
Oddly, nobody on this thread is saying that sex is a highly personal matter. So, let me say it: sex is a highly personal matter. And I miss the days of discretion.
WOW! Now your telling me I am not a Christian...It's people like YOU my dear that make people not want to be a Christian..I have been a Christian for a long time now, wether you agree with it or not is none of my business...
But when I able to obtain perfection I will let you know to see if you approve of me...
If I remember right you are a Calvinist? I am a Lutheran. We do believe that you can lose your salvation.
In the end, after many go rounds on the Religion forum, we kind of end up in the same place. If a person persists in unrepentant sin, then they are probably in deep trouble.
One very good book:
"Every Man's Battle" by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker.
I thought it was good, even for women to read.
For myself it made me think of how I as a woman toy with lusting after people of the opposite sex - people other than my husband (or future husband as at one time was the case) -- by fantasizing and reading romance novels, and especially after marriage, comparing my husband to other men and the qualities I liked in them that he wasn't displaying.
I rationalized that as healthy, but it wasn't.
Here's a parable that mirrors what I think the lesson of Genesis 38:8-10: I am no biblical scholar, but to me you have accepted only half the meaning that is clear to me just from a standpoint of reading comprehension.
God commanded Onan to go feed his brother's wife, as his brother was dead and she was hungry.
Onan instead fed himself, and dumped his extra food on the ground instead of feeding her. She starved, and God punished Onan.
Now. Is the lesson here that we should never throw away food? or that we should never disobey the order to feed the wife?
But he didn't know about Deut. 25., either. For that matter, it's not clear what Onan did or did not know, except that he was supposed to conceive children by Tamar. (Indeed, if we go by the laws of Deut., what should be Abram's punishment, for sleeping with Hagar, even with Sarai's permission?)
Furthermore, following this, Tamar conceived twins by her father-in-law Judah. The punishment for this at the time, per 38:24, was burning. However, once she prove that Judah was the father, the penalty was waived.
Okay, granted, Judah may have just been saving his butt and his progeny. Still, that which was considered wrong was made right by who was involved. Certainly, then, something normally acceptable may have been made unacceptable by what the situation, as well.
I am a Christian and I am a Sinner and I don't always do my best but I don't go around judging people who are good treat people well and have a decent heart just because they are sleeping with someone responsibly they care about and are not married...
Who cares what you believe????
1st Corinthians 5:9-13 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother (ie, "Christian") but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."
I wonder how man would be amenable to polygamy? And would that be a Biblical choice when godly men grow scarce?
Well, I've been told I am a Calvinist but haven't looked into it thoroughly. *LOL*
And yes, I hope you don't mind us not going 'round & 'round with it again here, at least not this time. :-)
Depends on when she lost it.
A few act of indiscretion on her part before she learned better doesn't mean masturbation is any better an option. He who looks on a woman to lust after her has ALREADY committed adultery with her in his heart. Since Christianity is primarily concerned with heart attitudes, masturbation is a symptom of that attitude.
And yes, I speak from experience. This is not just conjecture. Cyrano?
Very true!
Not sure where you stand on sex before marriage, but as a Christian I consider it a worthy subject of discussion with other Christians because it's so important to the health of the Church in general.
"Intended for Pleasure" by Wheat, "The Gift of Sex" by Clifford and Joyce Penner, and "Sacred Romance" by Tommy Nelson are just three of many far better books than 'Every Man's Battle".
Actually, you have.
although you do know that I am not a hypocrite
I don't know that, actually.
and I don't condemn people to hell and judge them because they have had sex before marraige.
I don't, either. As I said earlier, I hold nobody's repented past against them. But the Bible COMMANDS us to make certain judgements regarding a person's present, ongoing sins -- for example, expelling them from Church if they won't repent.
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