(April 25, 2012 at 6:10 pm)deciple Wrote: ....
Hmm? "thought crimes" not so much. What he said was "if you look at a woman to lust after her, you have commited adultery with her already in your heart" He didnt say you cant admire the beauty of a woman. What he meant by that was, we shoulnt look at a woman and think... "man, id like to fuck that, and i think im gonna try" He knew that thoughts lead to actions. Im not a woman but im pretty sure they dont want to be objectified as sex objects anyway. I dont see where there should be a problem with this.
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This isn't directly related to the conversation at hand but anyways...
The verse you're referencing, Matt 5:28, probably wasn't originally meant to be taken as being against "lusting." The word translated "lust" really means "desire" or "covet" and it's used in a positive light in the NT several times. The word translated "woman" in Greek I'm told can mean either woman or wife. If it's used in the context of marriage, it means wife, not woman. Well guess what. Adultery in the biblical sense always means specifically sex with another man's wife, not simply fornication. The verse probably should be read something like "But I tell you that anyone who looks at another man's wife with desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Otherwise, if it meant "any woman" that would include your own wife, and the entire book of Songs would be sin. There's even an early church father who interpreted this verse as being against coveting a man's wife (not "lusting" at women in general).
The More You Know!
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"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
