How come preachers never apply Matthew 5:27 to WOMEN? It is not possible that men commit 100% lustful sins.
Remember what Jesus said to the woman after he saved her from the stoning. “Sin no more.”
Jesus is referring to a person’s heart; he was not advocating Thought Control in a 1984 type way. And Jesus said this because he remade Moses Ten Commandments into only two: Do unto your neighbor as you would do unto you, and, do not do unto your neighbor as you would not do unto you.
You’re taking Jesus’s teaching way out of context and ballooning it up into some advocation of ‘thought control’ for men.
Remember what Paul said,
“It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
Does the man have any authority over his wife’s body? Looking at all the female land whales, I would say definitely not.
How absurd the times are. Men are being attacked for watching porn while single motherhood is skyrocketing, STDs are out of control (way more women infected which should tell you something), and women commit abortion (men has no legal authority at all in that situation).
Jesus stopped a woman from being stoned and just said saying “sin no more” after she committed adultery. Now, how can you honestly believe Jesus would say anything remotely that you are saying about porn if he didn’t say anything, remotely as severe, about an adulterer right in front of his face?
You’re not about helping your fellow man. You are about creating a moral superiority tower to stand on. Jesus would not approve.
And I imagine He would be outraged at how Western women behave. After all, men from every non-Western country are disgusted. And judging by the rising trend of unmarried men, Western men are wising up to the sham of Western Woman.
Who said men are 100% of the problem? I didn’t. But let’s not be coy. Men ARE most of the users of porn.
Other than your blanket denial of the obvious sense of the wording, what evidence do you have that Jesus is NOT speaking against lustful thoughts with respect to “looking at” women other than one’s wife (or, by extension, women having lustful thoughts “looking at” men not their husbands)? I am hardly taking Jesus out of context. It seems, rather, that you are gutting His context. How is looking at/acting out scenarios in/masturbating to pornography (while with or without one’s spouse) NOT lustfully looking at someone? How does that not fulfill the immediate context of what Jesus is saying in Matt. 5:27? Please be as expansive as you need, while citing authority sufficient to override the obvious and “perspicuous” wording of the text.
Bad analogy. Jesus did not say that the woman was not guilty of adultery. He merely exercised His mercy and asked anyone there who was without sin to cast the first stone. His mercy trumped His justice, in a way. So it might be with each of us, when we transgress His commandments. But we should not presume on His mercy! He called the woman's adultery a "sin," just as he called the actions in Matthew 5:27 a "sin." As I said in an earlier post, I readily concede that there are gradations to the various "sins" we can commit. Neither direct adultery nor lustful thoughts would be as serious a sin as mass-murder, I suppose. But that certainly doesn't excuse them as inconsequential! Perhaps "looking a someone with lustful thoughts isn't "as bad" as direct, physical adultery, either, but that hardly excuses! It is still sin; Jesus says so directly. As such, it needs to be eradicated. One at least needs to try. Sure, God might take habituation, addiction, etc. into consideration when He judges us. But we don't have a clue to what extent He might do so, if He actually does at all. We only suppose He does to the extent that He judges our "free" actions, and acting under spiritual compulsion of addiction is not really engaging in "free acts." But it is sheer folly to barge on ahead with our objectively sinful acts on this basis! What about the obligation to confront our concupiscent impulses through cooperation with God's grace, as St. Paul more than suggests is necessary in 2 Corinthians 12:9?
We are not mere animals. We are charged to control the baser things our fallen and wounded nature finds attractive. Our life is a probationary period in which our eternal destiny is determined to the extent we succeed in self-mastery under God's grace. We all fall short of that to some extent over the course of our lives. But our victory is in the battle. If we don't even try, how much can we presume God "excuses"? If everything is "excused" as beyond our strength, how can we make sense of not only 2 Corinthians 12:9, but also 1 Corinthians 10:13, where we are promised that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength? It is one thing to fight and occasionally fall short of the ideal through innate weakness, while subsequently repentant; it is another thing to simply not bother to fight at all.
For non-Christians, especially those who are non-Christians by choice, perhaps this whole business is just nonsense. If Christianity is based in Truth, however, that mindset is the real nonsense, for its implications are eternal. But, again, the author of the article which is the basis for this thread is not addressing them. He is talking to, and about, people striving to be better and more consistent Christians. If you want to snicker, go ahead. But this is the Religion Forum, so please consider that many here will have a less materialistic approach to this issue, and might find the author's POV constructive.