For Men Only...Question #5

Yep. Sure 'nough.

 

I will add that a woman does not have to be immodestly dressed to lust.

 

Indeed. It may be a bit more of a temptation, but the root of the problem lies in the heart.

 

lust is in the heart of a man, he either does it or he doesn't, and it doesn't have to mean anything about the way a woman is dressed.

 

Yes and no. A women doesn't have to be dressed immodestly to lust after her, but being dressed immodestly doesn't mean that I will lust after her either. Reality is that every man struggles with lust in some way shape and form.

 

The plain truth is that perverts will lust after women or even other males, no matter what they are wearing! Suggesting that someone else is responsable for the perverted thoughts of another is a nonsense!

 

So Ben, what's your answer to the actual question? No one is asking who you should blame it on. The question was if you have ever struggled with impure thoughts when you see a woman dressed immodestly?

 

shouldn't each person be responsable for their own sin, not someone elses? when we can start blaming it on someone else then we are no longer taking responability for our actions. blaming it on someone else sounds like a cop out.

 

Sounds great Donna, but is it biblical? I don't think so. Christ pronounces a great condemnation (millstone around the neck) of those who cause his little ones to sin. Paul said in 1 Timothy 5 that a pastor who ordains another man too hastily shares in the responsibility for his sin. The Christian liberty passages (e.g., 1 Cor 8) make clear that actions that cause another to sin are destructive to the body. Other passages could be cited.

Suffice it to say that you are responsible when you cause someone else to sin, whether it is by what you do, what you eat, what you where, what you say, etc.

That does not take away their blame. BUt it means you share in it.

 

I think how the woman looks would play into it. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt if Roseanne Barr were immodestly dressed, I would not be lusting.

 

Ja 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Ro 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

seems to say to me we are resposable to God for our own sin. not someone elses. If says give account of, who(?) himself, not for someone else, for himself.

 

The short answer Larry is no, yet let me qualify that a little.

Ever scince I can remember, people have dressed in a manner that could be termed immodest, depending on that persons view of what is immodest. This morning I called in at a local service station - BP to get the morning paper, and in the magazine rack they would have had at least thirty different porn magazine titles as well as a number of DVDs. Porn is hugely rampant in Australia and is sold at virtually every corner store. It is legal for women to go topless on the beach and has been scince the 1970's before I was born.

The point being that as a Christian, you are overwhelmed with that much temptation, that you just automatically switch off to it. I praise God all the time that I was born again as a child because God has helped me with many godly people that he has put in my pathway to help me be discipled into the faith. One piece of advice that I was given was that when you are tempted with immoral thoughts, to pray for that person, and the thoughts soon go away. As a result I have done that in that situation and it works very effectivley.

Christians all around the world are subject to the sewer of porn that floods our respective nations. We have to move past that temptation as a part of our growth into God - that was my experience anyway, yet I concede that others grow differently in their understanding of God and what He would have them do about a particular situation when it is presented to them.

I am all for both sexes dressing modestly. Pants on a women can be more modest than a dress. It does bother me to see people acting to worldly standards in churches, yet our role in that is to help them come to the revelation of what God is saying to them and to see them reject that style of dress because they understand that God has called them to do it, rather than making it a rule and having them doing that yet still having the attitude.

 

As I said, Donna, each is responsible for their own sin. And Jesus seems to indicate very clearly that it is sin for you to do something that causes someone else to sin.

Do you disagree with that? What is your understanding of Jesus words about hanging a millstone around the neck of someone who causes another to sin?

 

Mt 18: 6But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Mk 9:
42And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Lk 17:
2It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Sounds like He is talking about children, not "someone", to say it means "someone" other then children is to take scriptre out of context.

 

Donna, please tell me you are kidding.

There is no legitimate way to limit the teaching of that passage to simply what we do with little children. Christ was clearly using children as an example of the kind of faith that we must have to come to him. That is, after all, the point of the passage.

Your position would have Christ recommending the amputation of little children's arms and legs and eyes. It is clear in the passage that the "little children" are the ones who humble themselves to come.

Furthermore, you still have ignored 1 Cor 8 (and other Christian liberty passages), 1 Tim 5 where one is culpable for another's sins by the laying on of hands, the passage on Christian love and concern for one another.

Isn't it very clear that a woman has some cupability in the lust of a man by the way that she dresses. Her dress does not excuse his lust, but she is culpable. That is the clear teaching of Scripture. That's why Paul teaches women to be modest in 1 Tim 2.

 

I can't believe anyone thinks we are not responsable for our own sin. So you think I can actually go and blame my sins on other people and get by with it?
Whatever happen to the choice to sin(you act as if a man has no choice, he has to sin becasue of a woman), and accepting blame for wrong doing, instead of placing blame on others? What about self control, saying no to sin. If a man has aparticular weakness he can not blame others when he gives in to sin.
God didn't accept Adam's excuse of blaming a woman for his sin either.
Heres a thread you might be interested in, it's all about blaiming someonee else for sin, and people not being responsable for their actions.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=30192
And as for the scripture, all I know is what Jesus said.