Posted on 05/15/2018 7:28:18 AM PDT by Salvation
It is a sin to have intentionally barren intercourse. That is, to choose against the natural God-designed fertility of marital acts.
"Besides, if Genesis 38 meant what you think it means, Onan and most boys wouldn't have made it past the age of 14, let alone make it to marriage."
You don't know what I think it means. It does not mean that masturbation calls for the death penalty . (!!)
You're not just arguing with me: you're arguing with all Christian history until 1930. Biblical and historic Christianity taught that Onanism (intentionally wasting the seed) is a sin. Contracepting --- impairing the natural fertility of --- the sexual act is a sin. Christianity did not, and does not, teach that it is a capital crime.
I asked first.
??
And what is that?
If you have sex with your daughter, can you be saved?
That being said, Onanism is defined as both masturbation and coitus interruptus.
Again, I am not arguing against contraception as a historical Christian prohibition; I'm just saying Genesis 38 is not a good example. Matthew Henry's commentary on Genesis 38 points out that Onan's sin is what I showed it to be, not a general prohibition against contraception. I'm not saying that he was for contraception, just that Genesis 38 is about something different.
Again, if you want to argue the fertility route that contraception is wrong, that is a different argument.
I think the point is clear. Just look at some of the posts that have been on here in the last month.
Was Lot saved?
“According to the Bible, are slavery and polygamy OK for Christians?”
Yes. “For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” - Philemon
Scripture doesn’t overthrow slavery nor forbid it. However:
“Philemon is to regard Onesimus as his Christian “brother” (v. 16) and “partner” in the faith (v. 17), which makes their owner-slave relationship no longer possible. So Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon for their reconciliation; they are both his spiritual sons, and he is the religious patron and responsible for the nurture of both. In my view, under these new and revolutionary circumstances Philemon’s only real option is Onesimus’s manumission.”
What person would make a slave of his own brother? And if it is possible for us to be brothers in Christ, then can we continue to keep them enslaved? Can we keep ANY enslaved?
The Bible does not teach that all Christians must immediately free their slaves, nor does it openly oppose the institution of slavery. But what Jesus did for us sets up the long-term impossibility of slavery as a matter of individual conscience.
Polygamy? David was, yet he was also a man after God’s own heart. However, an elder must be “the husband of one wife” - not two, or three. And “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...”
Once again, as a matter of individual conscience, polygamy is discouraged - but not forbidden.
More to the point, we are to reject sin and honor God. HOW we do that is a learning process, and we know we will fail many times in our lives. The individual sins we struggle with differ. A rich Southerner in 1823 might struggle and fail where slavery was concerned. Pride and anger are both sins, and I sure haven’t won victory against either. Nor do I expect to in this life.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin according to HIS schedule. Not mine and not anyone else’s.
The church - not “The Catholic Church”, but simply the church - also has a role to play. Teachers, pastors, and a brother privately rebuking another brother. Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean a man is supposed to wrap himself in the Bible and ignore the church that the Bible speaks so much about.
But in terms of what a man must know in order to be saved and changed, the scripture is sufficient. DO what it says. Repent. Believe. Submit. Pray. Etc.
You do not need “transubstantiation” to be saved. Theology doesn’t save a man, and many men have been ruined by it. Jesus saves. And in scripture, and by following it, you can be made complete. Paul DID teach “The Whole Counsel of God”. What Paul taught was not incomplete. If it had been incomplete, it would not have been whole.
I agree with God...Ephesians 2:8-9 - “For *it is by grace you have been saved, through faith*—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— *not by works*, so that no one can boast.”
We are saved by grace, through faith and not by works.
Couldn’t be any more specific.
Faith that saves is always followed by a life marked by good works, as a result.
You wrote:
Sorry. Your interpretation lacks logic to me.
There is no interpretation. I agreed literally with what God through Paul literally wrote! 😀
And yet, you only put forth this one passage and it doesn't teach what you claimed...
Keep in mind that NO Christian leader or denomination approved of contraception before 1930
And that doesn't matter.
not a single Christian writing between the 1st and 19th centuries saw Onan's sin as other than perverting sexual intercourse, wasting his seed upon the ground. This is a Christian consensus.
Can't wait for you to prove that truth claim! What do you have to prove that?? Also, all that matters is what God's Word actually teaches, and not what others write about it.
This lines up perfectly with Natural Law, which sees fertility as a natural sign of health, and therefore the sabotage of fertility as a harm.
There is a difference between sabotage and regulation.
Thus Natural Law teaches that intentionally impairing fertility via any deviate intercourse included contracepted intercourse, sodomitical intercourse, intentional maiming of sexual competency via sterilization, castration or sex-reassignment surgery, is a wrong. This is acting against the good of normal, healthy sex by impairing its nature.
I rank God's Words as authoritative and He spent darn little time on the topic. This is why you are turning to "natural law."
Natural Law recognizes the good design of sexual intercourse. The Biblical perspective tells us Who was the Designer of this natural good, and for what purpose.
ALWAYS ignore consensus when it disagrees with God's Word and when it adds to God's Word. If people can ignore absolute Biblical and Christian consensus on that, lasting several millennia, it would not be surprising for people to approve other deviations from natural sex as well.
Deviant sex is condemned in Scripture.
It is a development of doctrine, however,that there is today no Christian polygamy and the concept of Christian slavery is almost unthinkable: universally condemned.
Chapter and verse please, Mrs. Don-o?
It is deviant because it intentionally deconstructs the Creator's design. If you can rearrange organ and system function to suit your purposes, there's no reason you can't do anal penetration, sex reassaignment or any other form of perversion.
I sure disagree, both with your characterization of protected sex with deviance - as in a perverse act. And I point out that you have not proved this from Scripture.
It doesn't deconstruct the Creator's design. It regulates it. I note that God also gave husbands and wives brains and a full understanding of all the circumstances in their lives.
As an example, I have an aunt (her husband is departed now). She got pregnant early in their marriage. She almost died, list the baby, was hospitalized for weeks, and doctors told her not to get pregnant again. She did not. I believe they continued to enjoy the act of married love for the next +50 years. It was not perverse.
Not seeing that is like the Footprint Scene in Godzilla 1998 (worth a click) where the "worm guy" can't see the footprint because it's all around him: he's standing in the middle of it.
The rest is Natural Law Philosophy, for which you can find libraries full. It recognizes that normal, natural human sexuality is in itself a created good. Therefore to directly intend and choose to disable a healthy system is unethical, for the same reason that sex reassignment surgery is unethical: it is acting directly against a natural good.
And who said it was a good? Surely God.
And explicitly defining what that means, in terms of the sanctity of sex, is a development of doctrine which has been there since Genesis, and was embraced by all Christians until-- comparatively speaking --- 15 minutes ago.
God said, “Go forth and multiply.”
Been happening for thousands of years. God added, “to fill the earth.”
Pretty sure it’s full.
I read something a long time ago that said all the inhabitants of the world could fit in the state of Texas.
The earth is not full.
“plus the whole survey of Scripture where fertile sex is blessed, and intentionally infertile sex of any sort is never, never, ever blessed.”
You did not post “the whole survey of Scripture” to me.
Undoubtedly, children are a blessing from God. That isn’t the issue. A wife is a blessing from God, but not all marry. Some choose not to.
Your doctrine here is based on one verse about the Jewish covenant and lots of made up stuff not said by God - *nor ever commanded by God in Scripture*, except related to the Jewish covenant.
Apparently, we can’t feed them all.
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