Refraining from Sex - Advice please!

JimiTime

tommy2bad wrote: »

God ye are a harsh lot.
'The church says' 'the bible says' all so reminiscent of Jesus.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4&version=NIV

So hang on, you are (mis)using the bible to reprimand people who are using.....the bible?

If you want to use the bible on this subject, then use it. If you think people are being Pharisaic, then show how. Build an argument, and stop being so self-righteous, thinking you've all the answers unless you can actually show that you actually do have the answers. I said it to Doc earlier, people here will mostly be looking to honestly seek what the truth is on a matter. If you have a valid point to make on the topic at hand, then make it. I for one welcome any view that challenges any pre-conceptions I may have. All the post above says is, 'I think I know better than you lot, and I don't have to show you how'. Jesus hated the hypocricy of the Pharisees, and also how they'd strain the gnat and gulp the camel. He however, NEVER, minimised the damage of sinful behaviour. We can all take scripture out of context for our own ends.

tommy2bad

Have you read the OP?
Self rightious, your the one attacking Doc Farell for whining when he drew attention to the fact that most responses were so obsessed with the views of the church, the bible, the flying spaghetti monster and not the least interested in talking to the OPer as a human being.
Christianity isn't a set of rules and regulations, its guidelines and advice.
BTW what ever happened to the OPer, hope it turned out well for her and hope we didnt scare her off christianity for good. We can be a bit obsessive about the ins and outs of scripture.

MrStuffins

tommy2bad wrote: »

We can be a bit obsessive about the ins and outs......

tee hee hee

ISAW

MrStuffins wrote: »

Well it kinda does because he asked how the poster knew and you said it was in The Bible.

This is why I asked you whather or not the Bible was to be taken literally. It is your understanding that the content of The Bible is to be taken literally....... all of it? Am I right?

Far be it from me to tell you what zombrex stated but he is correct if he is saying it is in the bible or established Church teachings based on reason. It is plausible. Asking whether they have a hotline to God is not any sort of argument it is just gainsaying. and when i say established teaching i mean reams of it on the body and its relationship with the spirit.

MrStuffins

ISAW wrote: »

Far be it from me to tell you what zombrex stated but he is correct if he is saying it is in the bible or established Church teachings based on reason. It is plausible. Asking whether they have a hotline to God is not any sort of argument it is just gainsaying. and when i say established teaching i mean reams of it on the body and its relationship with the spirit.

Well what he was saying was "Well it's in The Bible, perhaps you've heard of it". THis is to say that, because it is in The Bible, it must be 100% sure and irrefutable!

i was trying to establish whether or not everything in The Bible should be held in such regard. if not, then the "It's in The Bible, perhaps you've heard of it" argument is rubbish!

ISAW

tommy2bad wrote: »

God ye are a harsh lot.
'The church says' 'the bible says' all so reminiscent of Jesus.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4&version=NIV

If you dont go by what the Bible says and thousands of years of philosophical discussion on morality by doctors of Christianity and the traditions teachings and customs handed from them and from thousands of years before Christianity what are you are going by? making it all up to suit yourself?

tommy2bad

ISAW wrote: »

If you dont go by what the Bible says and thousands of years of philosophical discussion on morality by doctors of Christianity and the traditions teachings and customs handed from them and from thousands of years before Christianity what are you are going by? making it all up to suit yourself?

Who said I don't go by the bible? Oh you!
OK first the bible isn't a set of rules and restrictions, it's a tale of examples and advice. I'm willing to read and learn. I'm not going to tell anyone who ask 'what do you think?' "the bible says..." I'm going to talk about my experience and how that can be found in the bible. This is a pastoral issue not a legalistic one.

As to going to hell for doing X sexually? the bible if full of fornicators and adulterers and incestuous relationships, If the straight to hell thing had any truth their wouldn't be a bible. Or it would read more like a slasher movie plot.

ISAW

tommy2bad wrote: »

Who said I don't go by the bible? Oh you!
OK first the bible isn't a set of rules and restrictions, it's a tale of examples and advice.

actually some of y is!
i mean the book of Laws for example?
the ten commandments and "thou shalt not.." rules?

I'm willing to read and learn. I'm not going to tell anyone who ask 'what do you think?' "the bible says..." I'm going to talk about my experience and how that can be found in the bible. This is a pastoral issue not a legalistic one.

so someon,e says they are thinking of doing something like adultery

Your position is "forget the rules against it; the traditions forbidding it; the developments in moral philosophy as to why people do it and what the should do instead; the developments ion canon law; what the Bishops have said in the past; the teachings of various christians e;g Martin Luther" and just go by your gut feeling of how your flock might feel about it or your own personal interpretation of the Bible?

i would not consider that reliable Christianity would you?

As to going to hell for doing X sexually? the bible if full of fornicators and adulterers and incestuous relationships, If the straight to hell thing had any truth their wouldn't be a bible. Or it would read more like a slasher movie plot.

One could view it more as deciding to reject God. then hell is your own choice not a punishment by god. In other words they chose what they are doing and they end up that way. the sinners in the Bible either decided to continue sinning and refused to see the light or repented. If they didnt repent then they would not tend to go to gods presence so they would in that case be in hell one could say if hell is the absence of god.

tommy2bad

ISAW wrote: »

actually some of y is!
i mean the book of Laws for example?
the ten commandments and "thou shalt not.." rules?

OK I admit I was being retorical
so someon,e says they are thinking of doing something like adultery

Your position is "forget the rules against it; the traditions forbidding it; the developments in moral philosophy as to why people do it and what the should do instead; the developments ion canon law; what the Bishops have said in the past; the teachings of various christians e;g Martin Luther" and just go by your gut feeling of how your flock might feel about it or your own personal interpretation of the Bible?
Yeah the canon law direction should clinch that discussion:rolleyes:

i would not consider that reliable Christianity would you?



One could view it more as deciding to reject God. then hell is your own choice not a punishment by god. In other words they chose what they are doing and they end up that way. the sinners in the Bible either decided to continue sinning and refused to see the light or repented. If they didnt repent then they would not tend to go to gods presence so they would in that case be in hell one could say if hell is the absence of god.

Or being in the presence of God and finding it painful.
You know exactly what I mean, If we just extract the laws and comandments from the bible it becomes nothing more than a rule book. To reduce the bible to only that wouldn't be reliable christianity either.

Peregrinus

Onesimus wrote: »

So when the Catholic church says ''Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman'' that they somehow got this interpretation of fornication from scripture wrong? and nobody knows what fornication actually is? I find that very hard to believe peregrinus.

There’s nothing in scripture to say what fornication is, at least to say it directly. Fornicatio is a Latin word employed (and, for all I know, coined) to translate the Greek porneia. On one level it’s an excellent word because it retains all the inherent ambiguity of the Greek original. St Paul condemns sexual immorality, but he doesn’t go into detail about what exactly is sexually immoral; he either expects his readers already to know that, or he expects them to work it out. And fornicatio, in the Vulgate, fills exactly the same function.

Now, we know that deciding exactly what is immoral, in terms of sexual behavior, and what is not, is not easy. We know this from scripture, because scripture shows very clearly that thinking on sexual morality developed significantly. There was a time when it was perfectly OK for a man to have sex with his slave, if his wife couldn’t have children. There was a time when it was not only OK but positively mandatory for a man to have sex with his brother’s widow, if she was childless. There was a time when polygamy was practiced. There was a time when divorce - at the instance of a man - was very straightforward. And so forth.

The Catholic church now teaches that sex outside marriage is wrong in all circumstances. You describe that as an “interpretation of fornication from scripture”, but I don’t think it is; you can point to nothing in scripture which says that, when Paul mentions porneia, he means sex between an unmarried man and unmarried woman. It seems to me that this understanding is derived not from scripture, but in the light of scripture, from reflection on human sexuality, its nature, purpose, place in God’s plan, etc.

I suggest what Paul is doing is not so much telling his readers what sexual behaviour is immoral, but telling them that sexual morality is important; sexual transgressions are serious, not trivial. In Paul’s world there was a tension about this; Jews traditionally took sexual morality seriously, even if their ideas about what was moral and what was not differed from ours. Greeks, by contrast, attached lesser importance to it (and in addition their ideas about what was moral differed from ours). Christianity, of course, was spreading both among Jews and among Greeks, and no doubt one of the tensions that this gave rise to was a differing emphasis on sexual morality. Paul resolves this in favour of the Jewish idea that sexual morality really is important. But he doesn’t really address the detail of where Jewish sexual morality diverged from Greek sexual morality (or where either of them diverged from ours).

The Christian tradition - not just Catholicism - did arrive pretty early on at a consensus that sex before marriage was wrong. But in our understanding, “marriage” there refers to a public marriage ceremony. In Paul’s time, this wasn’t so much the case. “Marriage” consisted of mutual promises or agreements between the couple (usually with the sanction of their families) plus physical consummation of the relationship, and these two elements could happen in either order. There was a ceremony - a party, basically, held in the bride’s parents’ house - but that celebrated and acknowledged the the marriage, rather than itself constituting the marriage. Not being a virgin at the time of this party was not, in itself, a problem.

At the risk of oversimplifying, Jewish sexual morality with regard to sex between unmarried people was basically this: keep it in your pants, unless you are willing, and in a position, to acknowledge and care for any offspring that result. Thus an unmarried man could have sex with his unmarried slave, but not with someone else’s slave. An unmarried man and an unmarried woman could have sex, provided they were realistically in a position to marry one another and did in fact marry one another. (Having sex was in fact part of the way that they married one another.)

Christianity moved on from this, “sanctifying” the marriage ceremony by moving it from the bride’s family home to the church, and by having the exchange of vows normally take place before a priest (though this didn’t become essential, in the Catholic tradition, until the sixteenth century - and even then exceptions were and still are allowed). The formal exchange of vows acquired a greater and greater significance, and it came to be seen as desirable and proper that it should take place before consummation rather than after. But I don’t think we can impute these views to Paul.

Peregrinus

JimiTime wrote: »

Let us examine the cultural context, and see if it sheds any light on what you reckon is ambiguity.
What happened to a maiden if it was discovered that she was not a virgin on their wedding night? What was the law in relation to a man and a woman who had sex outside of wedlock? Either there was adultery involved, or virginity involved. One involved stoning, the other involved marriage. If this is the case, then when was it lawful for the Jews to simply have sex outside of wedlock?

I put it to you, that understanding the cultural context means that we can see that sex was only seen as appropriate within the confines of a legitimate relationship, i.e. marriage, and if it was carried out outside of this relationship it was considered wrong. It was either a gross betrayal, i.e. adultery which was punishable by death, or it was made legitimate by marriage.

Your thoughts?

I’d agree with most of this, I think, but with an important qualification. When we say that sex between unmarried people “was made legitimate by marriage”, what exactly do we mean by “marriage” in this context?

We think of marriage as a specific and formal ceremony, but it was not always so. Marriage is essentially an exchange of promises, plus physical consummation. If an unmarried couple have sex you can either see this, as we do, as “pre-marital sex”, or as an incomplete or half-way-completed marriage - it will be completed when the couple commit to one another. And that’s a commitment which is usually made in public but need not be. So in fact the couple may already have made commitments of some kind to one another, and the rest of us might not know that.

And, in a culture in which divorce (at the instance of the man) is relatively easy, the distinction between an “incomplete marriage” and a marriage which was completed but then terminated early on by the husband rejecting the wife (possibly with her agreement, or even at her instance) can be a pretty hazy one.

In short, if a couple have a sexual relationship and then part, there isn’t necessarily any immorality there. There may be social disadvantage - in the Israelite world, a divorced woman was not as marriageable as a virgin under the protection of her father - and of course either or both of the couple might have behaved foolishly, selfishly, immorally in embarking on the relationship or in terminating it. But the sexual aspect of the relationship itself need not be inherently immoral.

Discovering on your wedding night that your blushing bride is not a virgin is a problem only if you expected to find that she was. The problem there is not so much sexual immorality as deceit.

Xcellor

The bible says a lot of things. Some things make sense. Some things don't. Every Christian religion has its own idea about what the bible says.

If god cared/existed don't you think he would have made it a bit clearer and removed the "open to interpretation" aspect.

Live your life the way you think you should live it.

Doc Farrell

Having read this thread the OP is now in counseling three days a week.

prinz

tommy2bad wrote: »

Christianity isn't a set of rules and regulations, its guidelines and advice.................This is a pastoral issue not a legalistic one..

Desmond 'lie without lying' Connell, is that you?

If you want to treat Jesus and the Bible as a moralistic fairytale by all means do, but don't pretend that you are Christian. Star Wars is also full of guidelines and advice. Hans Christian Andersen was also full of guidelines and advice.

As I have said we have seen what happens when people reduce the "rules and regulations" of the Bible to mere guidelines, and it's not a pretty picture.

tommy2bad

prinz wrote: »

Desmond 'lie without lying' Connell, is that you?

If you want to treat Jesus and the Bible as a moralistic fairytale by all means do, but don't pretend that you are Christian. Star Wars is also full of guidelines and advice. Hans Christian Andersen was also full of guidelines and advice.

As I have said we have seen what happens when people reduce the "rules and regulations" of the Bible to mere guidelines, and it's not a pretty picture.

While I can confess the creed, you don't get to tell me whether or not I'm a christian.
If you want to trow me out of your denomination fair enough but I don't think I'm in it anyway.
I'm hetrodox and proud

prinz

tommy2bad wrote: »

While I can confess the creed, you don't get to tell me whether or not I'm a christian.

So you're a Christian who just takes everything Jesus said with a large dose of salt, because you don't actually have to pay any real attention to it or the Bible anyway? Interesting.

tommy2bad

prinz wrote: »

So you're a Christian who just takes everything Jesus said with a large dose of salt, because you don't actually have to pay any real attention to it or the Bible anyway? Interesting.

It would be more hand wavie than that but your in the general area

Not as heretical as it would seem, I am not required to take the bible literally nor to accept every whim from a pope as true. I am required to think by God or maybe you think critical faculties are 'of the devil'

prinz

tommy2bad wrote: »

Not as heretical as it would seem, I am not required to take the bible literally nor to accept every whim from a pope as true.

You seem to be confusing Christianity and Roman Catholicism for some reason.

tommy2bad wrote: »

I am required to think by God or maybe you think critical faculties are 'of the devil'

Nice try. So you think you are required to think by God and in doing so to put the instructions we have received from God to one side and make it up yourself as you go along. You know what that's fine with me, if you want to pick and choose which bits to follow and which to ignore that's all good, but it doesn't make you a Christian in my book.

Peregrinus

prinz wrote: »

. . . but it doesn't make you a Christian in my book.

Should it bother tommy2bad whether he is a Christian "in your book"?

tommy2bad

prinz;
So you think you are required to think by God and in doing so to put the instructions we have received from God to one side

So where have I don't that ? If I am in error point it out.

but it doesn't make you a Christian in my book.

Good thing for me your book dosn't count.

prinz

Peregrinus wrote: »

Should it bother tommy2bad whether he is a Christian "in your book"?

Did I say it should? I don't think I have. If people want to go around claiming to be Christian on the one hand and on the other say we shouldn't bother referring to the Bible except in the broadest possible terms to please themselves then as I said that's their business. I don't have to accept that they are Christian.. and they don't have to pay any attention to me either way.

tommy2bad

prinz;
say we shouldn't bother referring to the Bible except in the broadest possible terms

In fact I'm saying the opposite. We should refer to the bible in the broadest terms. Historical context, metaphorical context and revelation. Up to and including our own experience. Live with it, use it daily and try to see how its relevant to you in a car going to a shopping center to get a dvd and some pasteurize milk in a cardboard carton.

Except is a qualifier, I'm saying that it's not qualified by anything, you cant restrict the bible like a legal code, it has a life of its own like all the best books. God breathed? Maybe.

Peregrinus

prinz wrote: »

Did I say it should? I don't think I have. If people want to go around claiming to be Christian on the one hand and on the other say we shouldn't bother referring to the Bible except in the broadest possible terms to please themselves then as I said that's their business. I don't have to accept that they are Christian.. and they don't have to pay any attention to me either way.

The problem is, Prinz, that that is not what tommy2bad has said about his approach to scripture. You are attributing to him views that he doesn’t say he holds, and then using that attribution to say that “in your book” he is not a Christian, which you then concede is not something that need bother him. I’m not quite sure what the point of all this is but, overall, it’s not very edifying.

Coming back to the point of this thread, the bible doesn’t directly prohibit pre-marital sex, as such. If tommy2bad were to treat the bible as a list of prohibitions, he would have to conclude that pre-marital sex was not prohibited. (He would come to the same conclusion about polygamy, incidentally, except for bishops.)

He is squarely in the Christian tradition, though, in not reading the bible in this way. While the bible does undoubtedly contain prohibitions, their role is not to define Christian morality but to inform it. Only the most literal Christians would the main point of Genesis 3 as a prohibition on eating the fruit of certain trees, for instance.

We do find prohibitions and injuctions in the bible which are not rules that we now have to follow – the one just mentioned, for instance, or the one about impregnating your brother’s widow. And, on the other hand, we find in the bible moral principles which lead us to regard as prohibited things which the bible does not prohibit. You mentioned Ponzi schemes yourself, and of course there is polygamy. And this happens because, broadly speaking, the Christian tradition does take tommy2bad’s approach to scripture; it’s not analogous to an instruction manual.

In general the Christian tradition does regard pre-marital sex as wrong, not because the bible prohibits it – it doesn’t – but because the bible, and our prayerful reading of it, has led us to form a view of human sexuality which finds pre-marital sex to fall short of what we are called to. But there is a huge amount of reasoning and reflection and experience which needs to be unpacked there before we can really understand why the Christian tradition has come to this view. “It’s in the bible” is just a cop-out.

prinz

tommy2bad wrote: »

Live with it, use it daily and try to see how its relevant to you in a car going to a shopping center to get a dvd and some pasteurize milk in a cardboard carton....

... and how does that coincide with your reprimanding of other posters for referring to what the Bible says in their advice to the OP? "Use it daily" just don't refer to what it says? "Use it daily" just don't adhere to what it says in your own life? Thou shalt not steal.... "ah sure it's more of a guideline, I can steal away that part isn't relevant to me."

Peregrinus wrote: »

The problem is, Prinz, that that is not what tommy2bad has said about his approach to scripture. You are attributing to him views that he doesn’t say he holds, and then using that attribution to say that “in your book” he is not a Christian, which you then concede is not something that need bother him. I’m not quite sure what the point of all this is but, overall, it’s not very edifying..

tommy2bad's approach to scripture has been to criticise other posters for referring to it, on a Christian forum. The point to all this is that a la carte Christianity reflects badly on everyone claiming to be Christian, and personally I don't appreciate people saying 'O I'm Christian, I just don't buy into all the do's and dont's stuff, moral relativism is what it's all about'.

Peregrinus wrote: »

He is squarely in the Christian tradition, though, in not reading the bible in this way. While the bible does undoubtedly contain prohibitions, their role is not to define Christian morality but to inform it. Only the most literal Christians would the main point of Genesis 3 as a prohibition on eating the fruit of certain trees, for instance..We do find prohibitions and injuctions in the bible which are not rules that we now have to follow – the one just mentioned, for instance, or the one about impregnating your brother’s widow. And, on the other hand, we find in the bible moral principles which lead us to regard as prohibited things which the bible does not prohibit. You mentioned Ponzi schemes yourself, and of course there is polygamy. And this happens because, broadly speaking, the Christian tradition does take tommy2bad’s approach to scripture; it’s not analogous to an instruction manual. In general the Christian tradition does regard pre-marital sex as wrong, not because the bible prohibits it – it doesn’t – but because the bible, and our prayerful reading of it, has led us to form a view of human sexuality which finds pre-marital sex to fall short of what we are called to. But there is a huge amount of reasoning and reflection and experience which needs to be unpacked there before we can really understand why the Christian tradition has come to this view. “It’s in the bible” is just a cop-out.

I agree with all of that above.

What I don't agree with is moral relativism and relegating Jesus and the word of God to the sphere of 'good ideas but not to be followed if it means I don't get to please myself' which it appears to me, and not only me by the way to be what tommy is advocating which seems to promote putting 'life experience' before Jesus and everything else.

tommy2bad

Ahh prinz your missing the point. I wasn't reprimanding anyone for using the bible, I was questioning the value of prooftexting without any effort to understand where the other person is coming from.

Lets take the op example which asked for peoples thoughts, not admonishments or injunctions to do this ,don't do that. What she got was several posters quoting scripture and catechism. What she wanted was a chat about it. No wonder she left and never came back.

tommy2bad

what tommy is advocating which seems to promote putting 'life experience' before Jesus and everything else.

Misreading me then, what tommy is advocating is putting Jesus into life experience. Not abstracting some morals from dusty tomes and following them blindly (not that thats what your doing, but it can read like that at times).

gbee

Nevore wrote: »

No sex at all: I can see the point
Just skipping penetrative: I don't see the point.

This is what I'd have liked to have said if I replied in this thread.

wolfsbane

Marriage is the only alternative to celibacy:
1 Corinthians 7:8 But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; 9 but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

If having sex with a steady partner was OK, marry would not be the only alternative to burning with passion.

*********************************************************************
1 Corinthians 7:1 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

tommy2bad

wolfsbane wrote: »

Marriage is the only alternative to celibacy:
1 Corinthians 7:8 But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; 9 but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

If having sex with a steady partner was OK, marry would not be the only alternative to burning with passion.

*********************************************************************
1 Corinthians 7:1 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

Thanks Wolfsbane for that perfect example of what I was saying :rolleyes:
Dear God I hope you were being ironic.

wolfsbane

tommy2bad wrote: »

Thanks Wolfsbane for that perfect example of what I was saying :rolleyes:
Dear God I hope you were being ironic.

I'm perfectly serious. Your idea of putting Jesus into life experience. Not abstracting some morals from dusty tomes and following them blindly is accurately translated as making up my own concept of Jesus and using it to suit my wants, rather than heeding what the historic Jesus said.

Why bother calling yourself a Christian if you won't do what He says?

*****************************************************************
Luke 6:46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”