See the movie "A Man
Named Jon", and laugh about the "fornication" that the Preacher
always talks about. It's a great movie - rated PG-13
Next, here is the original Greek:
πορνεῦσαι
Pronounced "pornefsai" (porn-EF-say") or:
porneuó
Pronounced "porn-ee-WOE"
Means "to commit fornication/you are fornicating"
And yes, this is the word that "porn" came
from.
Sex, or "fornication" for those unmarried, is NATURAL - and actually
NECESSARY for the continuation of the species ... , yet deemed WRONG by
God - until marriage (LIFE-LONG COMMITMENT). 99.99999% of College
youths - are out for ONE THING...
It's WRONG, and they will all end-up MURDERING their offspring, but as Nefarious
says "You humans can't even see evil whet it's right in your faces!!"
NOTE: NO PHOTOS on THIS PAGE (ha ha) but see
my "porn"
page for my views on that. Don't worry - it's PG -13 !! And
you will be pleasantly surprised.
WHAT IS FORNICATION?
Written By Benjamin Wyatt
"Shun sexual immorality! Every sin that a person commits is outside the
body, but the sexually immoral person sins against the body itself.”
1 Cor. 6:18
"For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual
immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
Matt. 15:19
"Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is
idolatry).”
Col. 3:5
Fornication is an odd word. The Bible is quite clear that fornication
is a bad thing. If you look in the Bible for a definition of it,
though, you’ll come up empty-handed. Most modern Bibles now use
the phrase “sexual immorality” instead of fornication, since it’s
slightly clearer language. But if you want to know what kind of
behaviour is sexually immoral, that phrase isn’t much more help!
Some people will tell you that they know exactly what fornication is –
it’s "any sexual activity between two people who aren’t married". In
fact, these people will often tell you that everyone, everywhere, has
known that fornication is unmarried sexual activity, and anyone saying
otherwise is just looking for an excuse to sleep around. Leaving aside
the question of when exactly activity becomes sexual (kissing is a
sexual behaviour, after all, but few people think premarital kissing is
a sin!), there is a bigger problem with this view, which is that it
just isn’t true. Plenty of societies throughout history have not
equated unmarried sex with wrongdoing. In fact, a few centuries ago in
America, it was generally accepted that a couple could begin sleeping
together when they had become engaged. This is actually where the
practice of engagement rings came from; by giving a woman an expensive
piece of collateral, the man was promising that he was committed to her
and would not abandon her after they slept together. ven in a society
very similar to our own, views of fornication are far more diverse than
some would have you think.
The biggest problem with this view, though, is even more basic: the
Bible never actually says that fornication is the same thing as
unmarried sex. In fact, most biblical passages that directly deal with
fornication are so-called “vice lists” in which the speaker gives us a
list of bad things to avoid without elaborating on what any of them
are. Even looking back at the original Greek doesn’t provide many
clues. Fornication is used to translate the Greek word porneia, which
is a catch-all word to describe any kind of immoral sexual activity. In
other words, the Greek "porneia" is just as broad as the English
“sexual immorality” – and just as unhelpful if you want to know exactly
what these immoral behaviors are.
The picture gets even more complicated: sometimes, the Bible says that
fornication happens between a married couple.
In Numbers 25, the Israelites who are currently en route to the
promised land have a big problem. Many of their men have married
foreign women, who are influencing them to commit idolatry – the
worship of false gods instead of the one true God. This action is
described as “fornication,” and Greek translations of the Old Testament
render it as "porneia". Now, clearly the problem here is not that the
Israelite men are having unmarried sex – these women are their wives!
The problem is that their sexual relations are causing them to become
unfaithful to God. Their marriages tempt them to betray their values.
A similar case of married fornication happens in the New Testament. In
1 Corinthians 5, Paul learns with horror that there is “sexual
immorality (porneia) among [the Corinthians] that is not found even
among gentiles, for a man is living with his father’s wife” (v. 1). The
key phrase here is that this man is “living with” his father’s wife. We
do not know whether the son and wife were formally married, or whether
they had entered into a common law marriage or cohabitation
arrangement. They do, appear, to have been living in a marriage-like
arrangement, and yet their sin is still fornication. St. Paul condemns
their union for the same reasons that people across history have
condemned incest: it damages and distorts intimate family
relationships, and often leads to the exploitation of one or both
members.
Alright. So sometimes sex between married people can be fornication.
Where does that leave sex between unmarried people? Does the Bible ever
say that unmarried sex can be alright? The answer is complicated.
The Bible never comes out and says that unmarried sex can be alright.
However, the Bible does present several cases of unmarried sex that it
does not condemn, and that seem to even be celebrated. The most famous
of these cases is in the book of Ruth. Ruth is a single widow trying to
provide for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth begins working in the fields
of a wealthy farmer named Boaz, and they strike up a relationship. The
Bible tells us that Ruth “uncovered his feet” one night (Ruth 3:4),
which is a Hebrew euphemism for sexual activity. The Bible doesn’t
comment on Ruth’s actions directly. However, the book of Ruth generally
portrays her as a faithful, loving woman. Her story ends happily; she
and Boaz are married and she becomes the ancestor of the great King
David. There is no condemnation of her premarital sex to be found here.
In a similar but more complicated story, Genesis 38 relates the tale of
Judah and Tamar. Tamar is Judah’s daughter-in-law. After her husband’s
death leaves Tamar widowed, her brother-in-law Onan is required by law
to sleep with her to give her a son. However, Onan declines to
impregnate her and dies without leaving her a child. Judah, now having
lost two sons who married Tamar, refuses to give her his third son in
marriage. Tamar needed children for the same reason that most ancient
people needed children: the harsh conditions of ancient history were
almost impossible to survive unless you had children to help you.
So _Tamar tricks Judah by dressing up as a prostitute_ .
Judah sleeps with her, and she becomes pregnant. When she reveals to
Judah that he is the father of her child, Judah says, “She is more
righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son” (Gen 38:26).
Now, there are some things in this story that are obviously not right.
Deceiving other people is not a good thing, especially in a sexual
relationship. The sexual relationship between Judah and Tamar probably
makes your skin crawl. Although in the Bronze Age a relationship
between father-in-law and daughter-in-law would not usually have been
considered incestuous, it usually is today - and probably was
considered as such in early Christianity too. What is remarkable about
this story, however, is that Tamar is not condemned for her
extramarital sex. Tamar is a desperate woman in desperate
circumstances, and at the very least she is more righteous than Judah
in how she has gone about seeking what she needs. Moreover, Tamar is
mentioned later in the Bible as one of the ancestors of King David – an
illustrious pedigree to possess.
So far, I have mostly told you what fornication is not. If you are
reading this article, there is a good chance you are hoping that I will
tell you what fornication _is_ . That’s the title of the article,
after all, and you have a right to have your question answered.
Moreover, it’s a question many people have a personal stake in. Perhaps
you are considering a sexual relationship, but aren’t sure how God
might view it. Perhaps you have teenage children and are wondering what
to tell them about their bodies. Perhaps you have been damaged by
Christian purity culture and are wondering what to hold onto and what
to cast away.
I’d like to spend the second half of this article pulling some threads
together to help you with that. Certain kinds of sex acts are not
inherently good or bad. Having sex is no more good or bad than
extending your fist; the difference is whether you are holding a door
open for someone or hitting their nose with it. Just so with sex; it is
an inherently relational act, and we need to see how it will impact our
relationships to know its goodness or badness.
So what makes sex good, and what makes it fornication? To start off,
look back at those Bible verses at the beginning of the article. What
sort of things do Jesus and Paul group with sexual immorality? Evil
intention, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, slander, greed, and
impurity. Notice how almost all of these are ways of harming other
people by using them as a means to an end, or by violating our
commitments to others. Just so with sex. Sex becomes fornication when
it damages our commitment to God or disrupts relationships with other
people. Sometimes sex can be bad for us simply because we are not ready
for it yet. After all, the Bible tells us that the intense passions of
love can sometimes be overwhelming, especially when the beloved is not
around. Therefore it says, “Do not stir up or awaken love before it is
ready!” (Song 8:4).
This citation takes us to one final biblical text that can give us
insight into sex: the Song of Songs. This book is a celebration of
sexual love between two people. It’s where the Bible gives us our
closest look at what good sex looks like. Probably the most important
factor in the Song is the characters’ praise of each other. They are in
love, and like lovers throughout history, they spend most of their time
telling each other how wonderful they are. The compliments are a little
dated – I don’t recommend telling your lover that their stature is like
the palm tree (Song 7:7) – but the feelings behind them are timeless.
Each person is deeply, truly enamored of the other, and they sincerely
want to tell them that. Their love is strong enough to overcome
obstacles that may face them.
https://earthandaltarmag.com/posts/4ky81n00k3vrcxopcd6f1o28c4k3gd
Sex before marriage
The Bible clearly condemns sexual sins: adultery (consensual sex
between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse) and
fornication (sexual immorality in general) are specified. Sex before
marriage, or premarital sex, is not addressed in that exact term.
The Bible mentions sex before marriage in a couple of different
passages. One is 1 Corinthians 7:2, which says, “But since sexual
immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his
own wife, and each woman with her own husband.”
Another verse that presents sex before marriage as immoral is Hebrews
13:4, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept
pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
Here, we have both adultery and fornication contrasted with what
happens in the marriage bed. Marriage (and sexual intercourse within
marriage) is honorable; all other types of sexual activity are
condemned as immoral and bring God’s judgment.
Based on these passages, a biblical definition of sexual immorality
would have to include sex before marriage. That means that all the
Bible verses that condemn sexual immorality in general also condemn sex
before marriage. These include Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13, 18;
10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians
3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 1:7; and Revelation 21:8.
God designed sex, and the Bible honors marriage. Part of honoring
marriage is the Bible’s promotion of complete abstinence before
marriage. When two unmarried people engage in sexual intercourse, they
are defiling God’s good gift of sex. Before marriage, a couple has no
binding union, and they’ve entered no sacred covenant; without the
marriage vows, they have no right to exploit the culmination of such
vows.
Too often, we focus on the “recreation” aspect of sex without
recognizing that there is another aspect—procreation. Sex within
marriage is pleasurable, and God designed it that way. God wants men
and women to enjoy sexual activity within the confines of marriage.
Song of Solomon 4 and several other Bible passages (such as Proverbs
5:19) describe the pleasure of sex. However, God’s intent for sex
includes producing children. Thus, for a couple to engage in sex before
marriage is doubly wrong—they are enjoying pleasures not intended for
them, and they are taking a chance of creating a human life outside of
the family structure God intended for every child.
"Unnatural sex acts":
People quote "Jude 7", but there is _no Jude chapter 7_ -
there is only one chapter in Jude. The original Greek of Jude 1:7 reads
as follows:
ὡς Σόδομα Γόμορρα πόλεις περὶ ὅμοιον τρόπον ἐκπορνεύσασαι ἀπελθοῦσαι
ὀπίσω ἑτέρας σαρκὸς πρόκεινται δεῖγμα ὑπέχουσαι δίκην αἰωνίου πυρὸς
Literally meaning: “as
Sodom
Gomorrah a
city
about
resembling a
way/manner to give yourself
up to fornication
to go
away
back/behind
other
flesh to be set
before a thing
shown to hold
under
justice
agelong fire”
(JKV) "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like
manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire."
So, his translation of "sexual immorality" - is not even close. The
actual term "ekporneusasai" means .. Also, "in pursuit
of unnatural desire" is not even in there. It is “other
flesh”. And “vengeance” was a “scare tactic” for
“justice”. Use the correct words, King James!!
If you are translating, DO IT RIGHT!
Also, according to the KJV, bodybuilding
is "unnatural", and is
therefore evil. Your tattoos are unnatural (and evil). Your
thoughts?
