Lust if you do, lust if you don't
Submitted by Nate on 2002-10-31 21:47:33, Thursday
In reply to You got it submitted by Drifter on 2002-10-30 10:24:02, Wednesday
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Not masturbating is not going to prevent the act of lust from occuring. In my experience the opposite is quite true. The desire for sexual release increases until I take care of it, and I am capable of lusting after amazing things if I wait long enough. It seems to me that Jesus was trying to get us to look at issues of the heart with his words about lust. Turning his teaching into "don't touch that" is an oversimplification and ignores what he said. In fact, I think that he was fairly clear about the futility of "harsh treatment of the body" and strict rule-keeping as a spiritual exercise. There is one mention of ejaculation in Leviticus: KJV 15:16 And if any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even. NAS 15:16 Now if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening. I was always taught that this refered to nocturnal emission which, of course, can't be helped (if one is lucky enough to have one), but looking at the Hebrew words indicates the "act of laying (sexually)" as the cause. Hmmm. There we go again. Somebody has extrapolated the scripture to mean something that it doesn't say. BTW, that "unclean until evening" thing was a pretty common result of not meeting the requirements in Leviticus. What it meant is that you were not cool to go up to the Temple and take part in ceremonies until you could get "clean" again. By comparison, a woman having her menstral flow would be "unclean" for seven days, and that seems like a fairly natural occurance to me. Peace, Nate |
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