Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Keeping it real

I wanted to bring your attention to the comment from Pastors Tony and Kim Moore (http://www.radicallove.blogspot.com/) on the July 11th post. Here’s what they wrote:

Although, the Bible does not seem to address and take a position on masturbation, it is found in a broader category that scripture is definitive about: Taking Matters into Your on Hands! The bible never endorses us serving or pleasuring ourselves! In fact, when Jesus had an opportunity to serve Himself, He declined. Perhaps we need to think about masturbation along these lines.

Amen!

2 comments:

Josh Justice said...

I think the root of the issue is, what does the Bible mean by "sexual immorality"? Porneia is I believe one of the main words for it. 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 seems to provide a good definition of porneia.

Paul writes, "Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband." What is the solution to sexual immorality? Marriage between a man and a woman. Any sexual expression that does not fall into that category is sexual immorality, rather than the solution to it.

Otherwise, Paul would also have said, "since there is so much sexual immorality, a person can masturbate, to keep from having to give in to immorality." Why is that not an option? Because masturbation is sexual experience outside of the context of marriage, so it's included as sexual immorality. The one solution to sexual immorality (other than celibacy, of course) is married intercourse.

I think this argument is stronger than an argument that masturbation is wrong because it's bringing pleasure to oneself. Otherwise, we shouldn't watch movies or eat tasty food! If we admit those, then we can't exclude masturbation only because it's bringing yourself pleasure.

Petula said...

Josh, Thanks so much for your insight and comments! ...very well written and interesting.

I definitely agree with you... although I'm still batting the "bringing pleasure to oneself" analogy around in my head. I've never thought of it like that before... anyone care to comment?