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Why fornication is a sin

For Fapstronauts who are disciples of Christ

  1. nfpexperiment

    nfpexperiment Fapstronaut

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    Hi all,

    I know fornication is a sin, the bible is very clear about this no doubt. The question is why ? What if two adults who are financially secure and make a good plan to fornicate, it is just another well organized project for them, they are hurting no one. People who are too young for example teenagers I can understand why fornication is a bad idea, they cant even take care of themselves, are not mature yet, much can go wrong.

    Br,
     
  2. It is a spiritual issue mostly but has physical consequences also, the Bible talks about when two people have sex they become one flesh and are bound to each other, the same thing happens with marriage, the two shall become one. You do not want to unite yourself with anyone other then your wife because your body is a temple of the Lord. You have the physical consequences also such as std's, unwanted pregnancy. Even if it does not make full sense to us we must trust Gods words and stay away from these things.
     
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  3. nfpexperiment

    nfpexperiment Fapstronaut

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    There could be no physical consequences when well planned, that why I said two mature adults not immature teenagers. If I look at fornicating couples for example people who live together and are not married I do not see any consequences for some, eventually they get married.
     
  4. That is not for sure true, what if she has an std and does not know it and they exchange saliva, or the comdom gets a tear in it and she gets pregnant, birth control does not always work either since I am proof of that. Even if you have no physical consequences the spiritual ones still remain.
     
  5. nfpexperiment

    nfpexperiment Fapstronaut

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    Std get tested, I observed some fornicating couples they dont get pregnant, there are ways to not get pregnant, just use ur imagination. What exactly are the spiritual consequences ?
     
  6. Sex unites us deeply with another person. When that union is broken, it is incredibly painful. God's best design is that this union be with one person, until death. Just as divorce tears a family apart and has often been compared to having a limb amputated, breaking a sexual union once it has been established will tear your heart apart.

    Worse, if we do this often enough, we become hard and calloused against the pain. We do not allow ourselves to connect any longer through sex. It becomes to us merely physical. This is a very bad place to be, as we become hardened against many spiritual things through our focus on physical pleasure. This is the hedonist's trap, and it is where every person who loves pleasure for its own sake ends up.

    Every God-given pleasure is good, and each one has its proper context in which it can be safely and fully enjoyed. The proper context for sex is marriage. Anything aside from that will lead to problems.

    Or do you know better than God? :)
     
  7. CPilot

    CPilot Fapstronaut

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    God didn't make laws for us so He could deny us pleasure or to manipulate us like mice in a maze. In His incredible love for us, He made them to benefit us. Look at each one of the ten commandments and you will find a reason why that commandment is beneficial to man. It is clear, for example, that coveting someone's goods will only make us unhappy. Someone, will always have newer, better or larger numbers of things. Stealing only leads to unhappiness and perhaps violence. etc. etc. etc.

    So it is with sex outside of marriage. When marriage is treated as a lifelong union between man, woman and God, the bond will be hard to break. When the difficult times come, the bond is likely to survive until more genial times return. Sex is a strand within this bond. When reserved for marriage only, the strand helps bind us together.

    Now consider, the pain and complications that sex without marriage causes. If there are children involved and the relationship breaks apart, the children suffer and the adults deal with their own emotional suffering. Children or no children, there is always heartache, frequently jealousy and perhaps a desire for retribution, violence and hatred.

    Ignore God's laws if you wish. He gives you that choice but your risk of unhappiness on earth is amplified and you are putting your eternal life at risk.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2021
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  8. CPilot

    CPilot Fapstronaut

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    I want to thank Nxpexperiment. Your question drew me to some important verses today. I found them very helpful in bolstering my own determination to avoid sin and I pray these are helpful to you in your experiment.

    In Romans 1:20 -24 (NAB),
    "20 Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made. As a result, they have no excuse;21 for although they knew God they did not accord Him glory as God or give Him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.22While claiming to be wise, they became fools23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes.24 Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts 15 for the mutual degradation of their bodies.

    That wonderfully inspired genius, St. Paul, recounts for his Roman flock one of the numerous periods in the history of the ancient Hebrews where they chose to ignore God's directions. They made up their own rules and reaped the consequences. As they say, history repeats itself and so modern society is now repeating this ancient mistake of believing themselves to have outgrown God and his instructions, vainly believing themselves to possess a new and superior intellect with predictable results. There truly is nothing new under the sun.
     
  9. nfpexperiment

    nfpexperiment Fapstronaut

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    Thing is two mature adults who choose to fornicate after planning this good to avoid std amd unwanted pregnancy are not hurting any one else but thenselves, what if they know this and choose to do so, it is a sin I know, God is not approve this, but why ?
     
  10. somebodysdad

    somebodysdad Fapstronaut

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    Maybe it would be clearer to ask your question the other way around. What is the advantage of not getting married before having sex? I think most people would say that they don't want to make the commitment until they're ready. But God says that marriage and sexual union are a profound mystery that points to the relationship with Christ and the church. It may feel like not committing is safer or easier in the short term, but it also cheapens the bond and leads to long term problems.

    Ephesians 5:31-32“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
     
  11. Sin is anything that we allow to cut us off for full enjoyment of God and his goodness. If we choose another person over God, then we make them an idol and they cut us off from him, taking his place as central in our lives. We can have intimacy with another, but only with God at the center of that union. If your union is one where God is at its center, then all is well. if it is not, why are you wasting time with it?

    Enough with the hypotheticals. God is not a rules lawyer and he is not interested in keeping score. He wants all of you, without reservation. If you are trying to back him into a corner so that you can do whatever it is you want to do, stop bothering. Just do as you wish. But this is not the way of the disciple. A disciple sets aside his own way for God's, many times without fulling understanding why, because we trust him.

    Luke 17
    7 “When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, ‘Come in and eat with me’? 8 No, he says, ‘Prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.’ 9 And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. 10 In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.’”

    Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."
     
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  12. CPilot

    CPilot Fapstronaut

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    When we consider that God has one son. A divine being whom He sent to earth to humble himself as a human in order to teach us and to atone for our sins through a process of being tortured to death we get a glimpse for how much He loves us. A being who loves us flawed humans that much, clearly wants good things for the souls He has created. If two consenting adults choose to sin and ultimately hurt only themselves, God is not ambivalent to their personal sorrow.
    By the same token, God seeks real love in return for His love. Loving someone else is never a matter of selfishness. If I tell my wife I love her but I only do what I want to do and otherwise ignore her needs and requests, I am not loving her. When we obey God, we are also demonstrating that we really love God.
     
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  13. CPilot

    CPilot Fapstronaut

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    In reply to StarRider - I see you have done a lot of study to rationalize this sin for yourself. I entered into this discussion because of a sincere desire to assist those who seek assistance but now I see your intent is to rationalize a sin and buoy yourself by leading others to do the same. So, I won't continue with this thread.

    God gave you a free will to do as you wish but recognize you are on very dangerous ground by attempting to convince others to join you. When posting here, I pray we all carefully consider the words of Christ as recorded in Mark 9:42 "And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea."
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2021
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  14. Nxpexperiment, I think the fundamental biblical reason fornication is sin is because God created man and woman to image and reflect the relationship between God and his people, which we eventually see come to fruition in the relationship between Christ and his church. In other words, a relationship between a man and a woman of a sexual nature needs to demonstrate a covenant commitment and faithfulness, it needs to be God-like. A purely sensual relationship as you describe is a corruption of that "imaging" of God's relationship with his people. So you can think of a man and a woman as a this-world "imaging" of God's purpose for all of creation: that of a faithful, loving relationship between God and man.
     
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  15. Genesis 1:26-27 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

    We are created in God's image/likeness, thus every aspect of our being is to "image" him.

    Leviticus 19:2 2 "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

    Another comprehensive call to be "like" God.

    Malachi 2:14 14 But you say, "Why does he not?" Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

    Marriage is a "covenant." The Hebrew here is ברית (berit) which is the same word used to describe just about every other covenant in the Bible.

    Ephesians 5:22-33 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

    Paul draws an explicit parallel between Christ and the church, husband and wife. The call is to be Christ-like, which is synonymous with God-like, and in the case of Ephesians 5 there's a direct application of Christ-likeness to the husband-wife relationship.
     
  16. Incidentally, the Greek word πορνεία (pornaia) (which Paul uses, for example, in 1 Corinthians 5:1) has this fundamental meaning from the standard NT Greek lexicon (BDAG): "unlawful sexual intercourse, prostitution, unchastity, fornication." Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems you're limiting the meaning of the term to doing something with a self-proclaimed prostitute. The word has a broader meaning than that. It refers to any unsanctioned sexual intercourse, unsanctioned in the Christian context in the sense of being outside of marriage.
     
  17. What definition do you think the word has? And which Greek lexicons and Christian Greek authors are you using to support that meaning? I just quoted from the standard Lexicon for NT and early Christian studies.
     
  18. Doesn't apply to Christians? Let me suggest that you do not correctly understand how the OT applies to believers today. Or perhaps Peter could benefit from some of your enlightened instruction?

    1 Peter 1:15-16 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

    Some of the earliest manuscripts of Ephesians don't even include the words "in Ephesus" in chapter 1 verse 1. There is a possibility it wasn't even written specifically for that church.

    The letters of the NT were copied and read as inspired instruction for all the churches, not only for those to whom they were originally written. Obviously there are elements of each letter that are more personal, but it was understood that the teaching applied to all. Hence commands from the apostles to have the letters copied and read in multiple churches:

    Colossians 4:16 16 And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

    1 and 2 Timothy, both letters to an individual, both conclude with "Grace be with you," and the "you" is plural.

    Titus, written to an individual, also concludes with a greeting to "you all":

    Titus 3:15 15 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.

    I mean, look, friend, you're quoting from how Luther translated into German, the KJV into English, and you cite Wiktionary. What do these three sources have to do with determining the meaning of Paul's use of word πορνεία? I'm quoting the definition from a recognized standard Greek lexicon that has done the work of surveying the use of the word exhaustively in the NT and thoroughly in Greek literature over several hundred years. Do you know Greek? Or Hebrew? Things are more nuanced than you realize because through the Septuagint we learn what Greek words Hellenized Jews used to translate Hebrew terms from the OT. The Septuagint's use of the Greek was more influential on NT authors than pagan use of the language. In other words, the Hebrew words are just as pertinent to this discussion. Use the Septuagint and do a word search and figure out which Hebrew words are translated into Greek with πορνεία.

    Do you think a Hispanic in LA who speaks English as a second language uses English words exactly the same as some highly educated man in London? The situation is not very different when it comes to NT authors. Are you suggesting that NT authors use Greek words with the exact same meaning as pagans in Greece, and even when it relates to ethical issues? Polytheistic Greeks used the word "fornication" with a slightly different semantic range than the ancient Christians did. Christians used Greek words and filled them with their own meaning and nuance, that's how language works. The NT and ancient Christians spoke of believers as "brothers" and "sisters" and of "eating" the "flesh" of Jesus Christ. The ancient pagans had great time mocking believers over misunderstandings related to such common words as these.

    I say this in all love, friend, but you do not know what you are talking about. The apostles and ancient Christians didn't derive their sexual ethics from the way unbelieving Greeks did or did not use the word πορνεία, and neither should you. But I'm not here to debate this topic, so I'm going to bow out here. G'night.
     
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