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Prostitution vs adultery
- Thread starter FollowingHim
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I’ll start a new thread this weekend. We haven’t examined this in a long time.
@The Revolting Man
I’m not going to engage in the minutiae of this topic. I don’t have the time to delve into it. I agree it’s important in reference to polygyny, but that gets lost in the verbal weeds of trying to win the argument. I think you need to emphasize this each time it comes up. WHY is this such a passionate point for you? WHY do you feel it to be so essential? I think that’s just as important.
The problem you run across with many folks is that they view the concepts of a biblical family holistically. After reading all of scripture, from beginning to end, what thought or idea would someone walk away with? Individual situations may be exceptions to a bigger rule. I know it sounds like a cop out or weak way of approaching scripture, but some may not require absolute formulas for the recipe, especially when much of this topic is lost to us by a cultural divide of millennia.
I’m not going to engage in the minutiae of this topic. I don’t have the time to delve into it. I agree it’s important in reference to polygyny, but that gets lost in the verbal weeds of trying to win the argument. I think you need to emphasize this each time it comes up. WHY is this such a passionate point for you? WHY do you feel it to be so essential? I think that’s just as important.
The problem you run across with many folks is that they view the concepts of a biblical family holistically. After reading all of scripture, from beginning to end, what thought or idea would someone walk away with? Individual situations may be exceptions to a bigger rule. I know it sounds like a cop out or weak way of approaching scripture, but some may not require absolute formulas for the recipe, especially when much of this topic is lost to us by a cultural divide of millennia.
For some reason I can’t see the text after the letter “A” but someone sent me this text:
The answer is that death undoes one flesh. Sinful sex brings the penalty of death. Death undoes the one flesh. Death is both spiritual and physical, the primary death being spiritual.
Sinful sex is like adding the thing you’re subtracting. You end up with nothing.
Sinful sex is like adding the thing you’re subtracting. You end up with nothing.
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I understand your logic, but it breaks down when I try to apply it to the topic at hand - sex with a prostitute.
So, we know sex with a prostitute makes you one flesh, as per scripture directly saying so. Running with your use of one flesh as equivalent to marriage, the next guy to sleep with that prostitute would be committing adultery against you, sex deserving death, so not one flesh if adultery is not one flesh. But scripture says sex with a prostitute is one flesh. Hang on, you weren't the first guy to sleep with her yourself...
So going with your logic, sex with a prostitute is simultaneously one flesh, and not one flesh. It doesn't work.
This shows that however clean the logic may sound, it has to be wrong.
I say sex always creates one flesh, and I think that is far more consistent with scripture. Because I can't think of a single verse that states someone can have sex yet not be one flesh, or that death undoes one flesh. This is something you have invented yourself and are adding to the Bible.
You are way over complicating this and I’m not sure why.
When God joined Adam and Eve they were one flesh. When Christ taught about divorce He juxtaposed it to one flesh. Paul said sex with a harlot made you one flesh.
All three things have to be true. They have to reconcile.
I have been getting sniped at for years over this, such as being accused of making things up and adding them to scripture, but I’m the only one who has an explain that only uses the words and concepts explicitly attached to marriage in scripture.
Everyone else has to add in covenants and intent and all of these things that aren’t in the text. It gets so bad that people rely on stories of rape to try and find some kind of straw to grasp at.
It’s fine if you disagree with me. But don’t insult me by saying I’m adding to scripture. I’m the only one who hasn’t added to scripture on this topic.
Sex is one flesh. We see that irrefutably in 1 Corinthians 6:16:
“Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her?For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”
We know that divorce allows a woman to leave a one flesh relationship and seek another man. Matthew 19:3-6 is again irrefutable:
| 3 ¶ Some Pharisees came to fnJesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to fndivorce his wife for any reason at all?” |
| 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, |
| 5 and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? |
| 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” |
And when God instituted “marriage” He called it one flesh. Genesis 2:24, is again, irrefutable:
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Those three facts have to be true. If they are false then the whole thing is false and we’re wasting our time. There is only one way to reconcile those three facts. Sex has to be one flesh and one flesh has to be “marriage”.
Well this is silly. All you have to do is reverse it; the adultery destroys the existing one flesh and then a subsequent one flesh is formed. There’s not even a contradiction here.
So show us where this is in scripture then:
Please note that you are not just claiming that when someone actually dies their one-flesh relationship is broken. That is obvious. You are claiming that when someone does something deserving of death, no one-flesh relationship is formed. That is a greater claim that is not covered by citing a verse giving the death penalty for something. Your claim is that even if the death penalty is not carried out, no one flesh is formed. Show us where that claim is in scripture.
If it is not in scripture, you are adding to scripture. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean you cannot claim a moral high ground on who is adding to scripture.
Furthermore note that if I understand you correctly, I believe you have contradicted yourself completely here. You claim that:
1) Adulterous sex with a wife does not form a one-flesh bond. The original marriage takes precedence, preventing a new bond from being created. The wife is still one flesh with her husband (man 1), and not with man 2.
2) Adulterous sex with a prostitute breaks the existing one flesh bond with man 1 (her last client/ current "husband"), and forms a new one-flesh bond with man 2.
Those are exactly opposite claims. They are identical physically and practically, but in one you claim the woman does NOT end up one flesh with the new man, and in the other you equally fervently claim she does end up one flesh with him.
They cannot both be true. If one is correct, which one is it?
1) Adulterous sex with a wife does not form a one-flesh bond. The original marriage takes precedence, preventing a new bond from being created. The wife is still one flesh with her husband (man 1), and not with man 2.
2) Adulterous sex with a prostitute breaks the existing one flesh bond with man 1 (her last client/ current "husband"), and forms a new one-flesh bond with man 2.
Those are exactly opposite claims. They are identical physically and practically, but in one you claim the woman does NOT end up one flesh with the new man, and in the other you equally fervently claim she does end up one flesh with him.
They cannot both be true. If one is correct, which one is it?
Or, if both are true, what is the difference between the two situations which accounts for this difference in the implications for one flesh?
Again, your attack would greatly strengthened if you had a verse to back up anything you believe in this area or if you even had a clear and clearly stated set of beliefs on it but fine. It is very clear that adultery destroys the one flesh bond. A man is able to send away an adulterous wife even if he doesn’t exercise the death penalty. This is an explicit teaching of Christ. The one flesh was destroyed. The husband is not allowed to send away, or I would contend even divorce, a non-adulterous wife. With or without the death penalty there is a spiritual death that has occurred.
I may not be understanding you but I don’t make this claim. I believe sex always forms or breaks a one flesh. I have been explicit about if that for years. I am still waiting for the right moment to reveal that I do believe there is a covenant involved in marriage because the act of sex is a covenant.
But it is in scripture, as I just demonstrated it’s in the Words of Christ Himself.
Uh oh. Someone is wanting to win. That’s supposed to be bad I’m told.
Incorrect.
I think you have fundamentally misunderstood me and the issue. When a couple commits adultery the woman has destroyed her one flesh bond to her husband and the man has formed a one flesh bond with a married woman. This is of course an extreme perversion of the natural order. It is representing the existence of two (metaphorical) Christ’s in one church; or two Yahweh’s with one Israel. It’s not supposed to make sense. It is a representation of the worst perversion in all of existence. The foundational rule of Creation, “Hear o Israel, I the lord your God am One.”
The state of adultery is inherently a disordered contradiction that has to be resolved with death.
I am forming my opinion. I have not arrived. Thank you all who are contributing.
It may be helpful to arrive to understanding in real life situation I know. A chaplain for prisoners announced to his wife that he is a sodomite (homosexual) , and they went through divorce. Eventually the sodomite chaplain got cut pursuing relationship with male minor and sent to prison.
In light of the following passages (1 Corinthians 7).
10 And unto the married I command (yet not I, but the Lord): let not the wife depart from her husband.
11 But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife.
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.
At what point a new man could form one flesh union with this woman. If I understand @The Revolting Man position then, the union can be formed after the man committed act worthy of death. After he told his wife that he had sex with a man?
It may be helpful to arrive to understanding in real life situation I know. A chaplain for prisoners announced to his wife that he is a sodomite (homosexual) , and they went through divorce. Eventually the sodomite chaplain got cut pursuing relationship with male minor and sent to prison.
In light of the following passages (1 Corinthians 7).
10 And unto the married I command (yet not I, but the Lord): let not the wife depart from her husband.
11 But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife.
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.
At what point a new man could form one flesh union with this woman. If I understand @The Revolting Man position then, the union can be formed after the man committed act worthy of death. After he told his wife that he had sex with a man?
This is a brilliant question and one I’ve been wrestling with. I don’t have an answer yet. My gut reaction is yes but my head says no.
In your particular case the woman is free because the man issued her a divorce but that’s incidental to the real question; if the death sentence imposed by adultery dissolves a one flesh does the death sentence imposed by homosexuality (or invest or bestiality) dissolve one flesh. I want it to. I don’t think I can make that statement though.
Incredibly insightful and thoughtful question though.
Funny because I'm always thinking the same of the opposition.