Desiring wrong?

Originally posted on February 02, 2006 – by Andre Piet

For centuries already, the church has built a reputation of aversion to sex. Priests and other clergy were not allowed to marry. Boys and girls had to sleep with their hands above the covers. From the pulpit, it was preached that we must hate ‘the flesh’ and even fight against it, etc. This preaching has caused untold suffering and guilt. To this very day. For it is an unnatural doctrine.

Paul foretold the rise of this doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1–5). He calls it, without hesitation, “the teaching of demons, in hypocrisy of false expressions” (Concordant Version). Note the word “hypocrisy.” That is, one says this, but does that. It is well known that those who teach that we must fight against the flesh, often secretly indulge in that same ‘flesh’ to the full. That is, indeed, hypocritical.

Some decades ago, a pope made a blunder by claiming that Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, “…everyone who is looking at a woman to lust for her already commits adultery with her in his heart…” (Matt. 5:28), also apply to one’s own (married) wife! That is, of course, absurd! Jesus did not speak disapprovingly of sexual desire, but with His remark He referred (among other things) to Exodus 20:17, where it says: “You shall not covet your associate’s wife…” Read the context:

“…you shall not covet your associate’s house; you shall not covet your associate’s wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your associate’s.”

It is not desire itself that is the issue, but the coveting of something that belongs to another. For that is the source of adultery.

It is completely normal for boys and girls, and men and women, to be sexually attracted to each other (= desire). That is how all living nature is structured, and none other than God Himself designed and created it that way. Why? “… to be taken with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4).

Desire is not to be fought, but directed.

“For every creature of God is ideal and nothing is to be cast away, being taken with thanksgiving, for it is hallowed through the word of God and pleading.”

Delen: