Why weren't Jesus and the Apostles clearer on some stuff? Like, why didn't Jesus just say "all that will try to reform and/or split from the Catholic Church are damned", which would nip non-Apostolics in the bud? Imagine all the problems that could have been avoided. Why didn't Jesus just say "masturbation is wrong"(it's obviously wrong, but I've seen people on THIS VERY BOARD try to argue otherwise and doing extreme mental gymnastics to justify their sins, even when presented with Matthew 5:27-30, just because it doesn't outright say the word "masturbation"), which would destroy all these shitty people who try to twist Scripture to their own lifestyle instead of doing the opposite. I've noticed that humans will try to legalistically twist the Bible as much as they can if the Bible doesn't outright state that "X is a sin, The End".
JUST LOOK AT THIS GUY:
Entire paragraphs of trying to jump backwards and try to prove that somehow does not condemn masturbation.
I am Roman Catholic, and I believe that Jesus is God obviously and that He is infinitely smart. So what's the reason Jesus did not state some things extremely plainly so that no one would be able to twist it? Humans are pure scum and will try to do anything to excuse their sins. Anyone has a theory on that?
Could you fit every possible outcome of the entire history of the world and every possible situation into a book? That would be like placing the mind of God into a finite space.
Grayson Reyes
You call people shitty. Case closed. Humble yourself and get saged.
Jaxson Taylor
Stop whining. If you can't refute their points you have no place to start calling other people scum.
Brandon Johnson
Even if Scripture was clear on the matter, liberals and modernists would find some way around it
Just look at all the liberal Protestant churches that have female pastors/priests and teach that homosexuality isn’t a sin, despite Scripture forbidding these things
Robert Mitchell
Because Bible is not up to personal interpretation, but it's a part of the Tradition of the Church (2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Peter 3:16)
1 Corinthians 1:10, Galatians 1:8
It says so about homosexuality and people still twist Scripture to justify it
People like this just don't want to follow God. If they can't twist Scripture, they'll ignore or reject it.
Isaiah Young
God was clear. It's just that we are naturally dumber than Him, so it's like trying to explain complex Theology to a child, except infinitely more difficult. Some things are mysteries by definition, such as how God acted prior to the creating of time. Or WHY did He create the world. And we're temporarly retarded because Nominalism rules and people now think numbers in the Bible were merely quantities to the writers and Church Fathers. The lukewarm know what God says, they just don't care.
Jackson Adams
It is clear. Some other things that the Lord was also perfectly clear about, however, are:
It is the whole of tradition, see 2 Timothy 3:16-17. The scripture you cited, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 proves that the word of God can be spoken or written equally well. This scripture does not prove there was a secret second tradition that was to be oral-only and never written down. Such an idea is nonsense.
Are you implying we should use gematria or something?
Look at pro-gay Christians. They take the most black and white, straightforward statements possible, and manage to twist and contort them to mean something else. If they can do it with that issue, they could do it with any other straightforward clarification God could have put in the Bible.
Eli Lee
Thanks very much for posting this. I am also a Roman Catholic and interested in matters like this.
When God speaks to humans, he speaks under a veil. If you think about it, there's no possible way for humans to ever understand God completely in His essence, because we are not God. Therefore, anything that God speaks to humans will always be a little "ambiguous".
The whole point of the Christian life is that God offers you a choice, and it is up to you whether or not to resist God's love. We see many encounters in OT and NT stories of people who hear but refuse to listen.
Trying to make these words to be "unambiguous" and "legalistic" would 1) defeat the purpose of the NT message, which is a new covenant about the spirit of the law, 2) would destroy the natural beauty of the Gospels, which would prevent Christ's message from spreading.
God always reveals Himself in a veiled form. When He showed Himself to Moses, Moses could not bear to look at Him. The people who will listen to the Truth of God have their own choice to make.
That man who is justifying masturbation is just making himself unhappy. He knows what he is running away from.
With respect in this case it's not ambiguous, at least not from the very mouth of Jesus Himself. The only "ambiguity" in this is that someone is deceiving themselves to believe that "masturbation" does not fall under the genre of "sexual immorality" and as it is not mentioned by name by Christ, it is therefore licit. It would be like justifying doing cocaine because Jesus never said anything about it.
Recognising this is not "legalism", it is honouring the Lord's commandments. I wouldn't even call the Word ambiguous, it simply a case that we do not understand it. If someone is explaining something complex to me, it doesn't mean they are being ambiguous, I just don't understand it.
Ryder Johnson
actually tbh i think you can do cocaine, although that's a different topic. just depends on how intoxicated you get. cocaine can be actually really quite mild.
Gabriel Ross
God uses pictorial speech because it is naturally better for communication. Unless you live in a nominalist society where descriptions take the place of it.
Not him, but gematria implies hidden knowledge which is kaballic. And not everyone who doesn't take the enlightenment ideas of numerals as true is a kike. What is Christian is symbolism and pictoral descriptions, since God is not an autist. Much like the number 666, the expression "the eight day" and others are basic writing tools that non-autists prior to the 18th century used and understood. Gothic Churches plannings weren't made for pure utility, almost nothing was in the medieval and classical world.
Chase Jenkins
Ok there's a number of things wrong here. Without being too critical, I'll try to keep it short. First, "sexual immorality" is the insert codeword used in modern versions where the Bible had originally said "fornication." The main reason for this seems to be changing the meaning of Matthew 19:9, and giving people justification to commit divorce for whatever they think is "immoral"— while at the same time, in other parts of the NT, if people personally do not consider it "immoral" then it lets them pretend that fornication isn't a sin. In any case, the genre of "sexual immorality" is entirely fabricated and inserted where it should say fornication.
Secondly, doing drugs and getting intoxicated is self-destructive. Just like with mixing, it is viewed in Scripture as a negative consequence and a thing nobody would want to do unless they were willfully destroying themselves. So I see it more as a sign of self-destruction than some specific sin aside from that.
Ok you're going to have to come up with some real examples or we're just going to assume it's gnostic in spirit when you start saying that words quite simply no longer mean what they mean.
Xavier Peterson
begone cathocuck
Jaxson Bailey
The problem is that the guy you are quoting is not incorrect. Matthew 5:27-30 doesn't actually say masturbation because it has nothing to do with masturbation.
Adultery means two different things in the Bible, the first is cheating on your wife. Jesus quickly covers that in Matthew 5:27-28 but the other adultery is religious syncretism. Worshiping other gods, idolatry etc. Matthew 5:29-30 is dealing with the religious form of idolatry, the eye and the hand are metaphors for leadership of the Church, which should be cast out for false teachings.
Masturbation can fall foul of Matthew 5:28, provided that one is married and is looking at porn, for instance, but this doesn't apply to unmarried people, or married people as a general rule. The real condemnation of masturbation is usually related more to Christian inspired virtue ethics, than actual scripture. Thus nofap bullshit is capable of being taken to idolatrous levels, idolatry, which is actually an instance of adultery against the Church.
Essentially, you are falling into the same error as the temperance movement, trying to achieve moral purity from abstaining from a single vice which is wrongly elevated in its importance. You aren't wrong, porn is terrible, masturbation can be lustful, but this board blows it out of proportion.
Honestly 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 could have been a little bit clearer regarding the whole fornication (does it include masturbation as a sin thing) thing.
