----- Original Message ----- From: "Edmund Storms" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 9:17 PM Subject: Re: OffTopic: Lust and the bible
> > > revtec wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Edmund Storms" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: <[email protected]> > > Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 4:43 PM > > Subject: Re: OffTopic: Lust and the bible > > > > > > > >>>I admire your effort to calculate the size of the common flesh pool, > >> > >>which essentially makes us all brothers and sisters in sex. However, was > >>Paul not using this concept as a quaint way to describe making a baby? > >> > >>Ed > > > > > > I don't think so. Here is the verse in New King James version: I Corinthian > > 6:16 > > > > Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? > > For "the two" He says, "shall become one flesh." > > We all know that we do not become literally one flesh when we have sex. > We do not even join in any spiritual way. The act is simply the sharing > of pleasure, except if a child results. The only time "one flesh" > results is when love is present before the act. Therefore, this way of > describing the sex act must have a nonliteral meaning. What do you > think the nonliteral meaning might be? The idea of becoming one flesh with every sex partner you ever had, in addition to being one flesh with your wife, is perhaps just a way for Paul to help us visualize how bad he thinks it is to have sex outside of marriage. However, is it not possible or even likely that casual sex can have harmful effects on a person at three levels: physical, mental and spiritual. In the context of verses 9 to the end of the chapter, it is a disgrace to us, and dishonoring to God, to conduct ourselves in a promiscuous way. We must keep in mind that Paul is addressing believers who have accepted Jesus' sacrifice on the cross as the full penalty paid for their crimes against God. For us to continue in that behavior after being saved is, to say the least, not good. Jeff
