Re: The nature of the 'gift of celibacy'
Submitted by sally on April 4 2002 20:57:23
In reply to The nature of the 'gift of celibacy' submitted by Forgiven on April 3 2002 16:19:01
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the mainstream view - is that celibacy, whilst being a gift, doesn't mean that you aren't sexually attracted, just that you've learn to live without genital sexual expression and to find your intimacy needs met in a variety of different relationships rather than with a spouse. What mainstream view? This is not the view of the mainstream of Christendom, surely. Nor is it the biblical view. The passage in 1 Corinthians 6 says that the one who is not going to marry is devoted to the Lord and is not entangled emotionally with a spouse. There is not indication that he is entangled emotionally with other people. Clearly he is devoted to God! Clearly he is not emotionally entangled. Where in all of creation do you get the idea that "genital sexual expression" is different from any other kind of sexual expression? You have not gotten that from the Bible, I don't think. Do you mean that french kissing a child is OK since it is not "genital" sexual expression-- rather it is some other type of intimacy? Define genital sexual expression, please, and then tell me how the Bible differentiates between it and other forms of sexual expression. if he had a gift of celibacy which means that he didn't have to fight this battle, he got off lightly!! I tremble for you. When was the last time you sweat blood at the thought of obeying the Father's command to you? How dare you say such a thing about the sinless man who became sin for sinners and sacrificed his life that hell-bent sinners might live?! How dare you think that your petty little struggles have been heavier for you to bear than the weight he bore?! And you failed to answer my question about bestiality. Do you think Jesus was sexually attracted to the donkey? Do you think that he was sexually attracted to the idea that he should drug and rape young boys and then cut them up and eat them? Sorry for being so gross but you seem to be saying that the Bible claims that Jesus was tempted to commit every sin that Jeffery Dahlmer or any other man has ever dreamed up. Is that what you are saying? Did Jesus have to deal with the same temptations as Dahlmer? And do you honestly think that Dahlmer's sexual appetite was neither good not evil, it just was? It is not what he loved but how he dealt with it that was broken and warped? Is that your contention? Clearly Sally goes to far with the comment: any desire besides that of a man for his wife or a wife for her husband came about after the fall. how else would you ever be aware of the possibility of being attracted to someone. Then who, pray tell, was Adam attracted to prior to the fall other than his wife and who was Eve attracted to prior to the fall other than her husband? Do you suggest they were attracted to the animals? There was no one else for Adam to be sexually attracted to! So any attraction for one other than his spouse had to come after the fall. And again I feel that she is assuming that ALL sexual attraction is inherently wrong - a claim I still don't see any biblical evidence for. Why are you speaking about me in the third person all of sudden? You may "feel" what you wish but you are wrong to say that I assume ALL sexual attraction is wrong. I believe that sexual attraction between husbands and wives is good and pleasing to the Lord. It's not that the desire for evil is good or bad. It is just there; As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean but what comes out. Each one is tempted when, by his own EVIL desire he is dragged away and enticed... Look up these verses. Desires are not neutral. They are either good or evil. There is no middle ground. Either what I love is pleasing to God or it isn't. He may not care if I choose to have chocolate or vanilla ice cream but he does care if I want to have sex with my husband or someone other than my husband. One is pleasing to him and one is not. That does not mean he is unable to love me even when my desires are evil. He does love even me with my filthy heart and evil desires and one day he will wipe all evil desires out of my heart. But right now my heart is filled with evil. Every time I desire a sinful thing I am sinning. I think it is the same as looking at a cream cake that we don't have the money to buy (or which we are too overweight for it to be appropriate for us to buy!). We can pretend there is no attraction there - we can wallow in the desire to buy it - or we can thank God for the gift of good tasting food - and walk on by. It would be appropriate to thank God for good food and to walk on by. But I think it would be inappropriate for us to start a support group for cream cake lovers who were born with this pastry love and could not change it no matter what. And it would be inappropriate to talk about cream cake for hours on end and to refuse to eat vegetables because we are simply not attracted to vegetables-- we are born cream cake lovers and we cannot whip up a desire to eat the veggies-- or maybe some of us are attracted to veggies but not as attracted to them as to the cream puffs so we would be wrong to eat the veggies since they are second best. Anyway, we all know that Christ also loved cream cakes and it is not evil to love cream cakes and to refuse veggies because the gift of "vegetable refusal" does not mean we do not still love to eat it simply means that oral digestion is not open to us and we must get our love for food fulfilled in non oral ways with intimate relationships with cream cakes that do not actually entail eating.... Even the support group for cream cake lovers might be appropriate... as long as we supported others with the truth and didn't try to convince ourselves that keeping the cream puffs under our pillows and stroking them every now and again and even rolling them around in our mouths once in a while, was OK as long as we didn't actually swallow. =0) By all means thank God for little boys and walk on by, Forgiven. I will applaud you if you do that. Is that what you are doing here? I thought instead of walking by you were hanging out with the boys and deriving some sexual pleasure from nonsexual contact. To condemn the BL for being energised by the sight of a cute boy is as logical as condemning a diabetic for wanting the cake which would do them a lot of harm. First of all you have define "condemn" if you are charging me with condemning anyone. I do declare all sexual desires for people other than one's spouse to be sinful and if that is what you mean by condemn then I am guilty. But I have never condemned any sinner in the sense of sentencing them to hell and I never will. It is not my job. Besides, it is my fervent desire that all sinners, including Jeffery Dahlmer and Adolph Hitler, are in heaven. Secondly you have to explain what it means for a BL to be energized. What is this term? I've never heard it. Thirdly no one answered my question about what you all do when you are out with your boys? Do you share the bathroom? If the diabetic who is not allowed to eat cake hangs out in the bakery you'd better believe he is being stupid. It is sinful for him to want cake if God has told him he can't have the cake. Just as it was sinful for the Israelites to lust after the flesh pots of Egypt and to cry out for meat. But he could remove the temptation for cake from him almost completely if he would fill his tummy with foods that were allowed and stay away from the bakery. He really could. sally@paraklesis.com |
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