jasonpiao

Liquid rage:

Actual, I don't think I would ever say "Well the bible says...". I imagine more of a:
Well you know you are living in sin.
Who says so?
The bible says so.
Where?

I don't expect they will even know the answer.

HelenM

That doesn't prove it's not in there, though. If 'fornication', translated as 'sexual immorality' in some newer versions, means sex outside of marriage, it's all over the place, in fact...

e.g.

1 Thess 3:3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;

Eph 5:3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.

Gal 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

...to list but a few.

If your in-laws don't know where it is in the Bible, don't you think they'll find out, as soon as they realize they don't know? And then come back at you with verses? Then what will you do? Say they don't mean what they seem to mean?

In the end your premise is that the Bible has no authority. So why not start there instead of discussing what the Bible says about it and then changing tack to say "well, I don't believe it has any authority anyway".

take care
Helen

jasonpiao

Hmmm, you again make some good points HelenM. But still, it would be quite fun to actually MAKE them read their own bible, hehe.

I have to say that I personally don't think sexual immorality means sex out of marriage. If that's what they meant, they would have just said it. The union between man and woman is just not immoral, and if there was an all knowing god he/she would be pretty mature about sex, not a prude.

I have thus concluded that 'living in sin' is indeed a man-made concept, having been presented with no convincing argument to the contrary.
In china, they used to bind women's feet. The muslims cover them from head to toe. The xians are simply more subtle in their mechanisms of control over the female body and perpetuation of their patriarchy.

HelenM

Oh, I agree! If they claim to be using a Biblical argument they should know where it comes from. I see nothing wrong in asking them for it and if that reveals that they don't really know, so be it...

I agree that it's not obvious what a Bible phrase like that means. One would have to understand the culture of the times to know what was meant by it back then. Certainly, Christians can jump to conclusions about what something in the Bible means and be wrong because of the way things were when it was written. I expect most people married early in those days so there wasn't pre-anything before marriage. And I've heard mixed things about whether sex was permitted between engaged couples. What seems evident is that there was a definite marriage ceremony in the time when the NT authors wrote.

I understand that - but, since you don't believe the Bible is authoritative, what the Bible says about it, if anything, wouldn't change your mind anyway, would it? So, I think you will just confuse your in-laws if you push them about whether it's a Biblical concept, when in fact it makes no difference to your beliefs whether it is or not.

I think someone else alluded to this - I wonder whether your in-laws are primarily morally outraged or whether they are afraid that your not 'making it official' implies a lack of commitment to their daughter - and they're afraid you might run off if she gets pregnant [and you didn't want that to happen] say. This might be their real concern. Who knows. I can understand them wanting their daughter to be with someone who is committed to her. Does that make sense?

It seems you have a thing about 'control' - you don't want an official marriage because you don't want the 'state' to interfere in your relationship
and you think Christianity is all about control too.

In some ways it is. But - I think that your aversion to anything that seems like it could be controlling might end up hindering you in some ways, in life. And if you do ever have kids you'll find out that they end up 'controlling you', to a large extent - their schedules, their needs...at some point you may decide that resisting anything that seems at all controlling may not be the best way to go. But - that's just my opinion...!

take care
Helen

galiel

Where does "Living in Sin" come from?

Final Fantasy X.

Brother Daniel

Bingo. I'm not going to weigh in on the question of whether it's worthwhile, in your circumstances, to bother making an argument from the Bible. But if you do, then you're absolutely right.

"Sexual immorality" has to be a mistranslation, because it almost always appears in the context of a list of things that are forbidden (in some sense), while everything else in the list is described specifically. (For example, in the story in Acts of the Council of Jerusalem, "sexual immorality" appears along with things like the eating of blood.) If something is already understood as "immoral", you don't need to specifically forbid it. The Greek word ("porneia", transliterated into Latin as "fornication") must have meant something specific, not just "whatever sexual acts we consider to be immoral". Many experts on the Bible (including some whose final conclusions are conservative/traditional) say that the word "porneia" would have been understood by the original readers as referring to the prohibitions of one of the chapters of Leviticus (either 16 or 18, I can't remember): i.e. incest (interpreted broadly), homosexuality (of the male variety - lesbianism being apparently unknown to the OT writers), and bestiality. This is far more credible (as the intended meaning of porneia) than its modern meaning (sex outside of marriage), because imposing the modern meaning on the word would render many other Biblical prohibitions superfluous and unnecessary. (Though perhaps I'm implicitly making an erroneous assumption of Biblical consistency here. )

As for "sex outside of marriage", there are many examples of concubinage in the stories in the Bible - and concubinage is EXACTLY what modern Christians call "living in sin", nothing more or less - and there is nothing in the Bible that even hints that there is a problem with it. The OT does treat it as a problem for a woman to be sexually active while economically dependent on her parents ("living in her father's house"), but has no problem with an independent woman moving in with her boyfriend.

For what it's worth...