I don't think there is anything in the bible that states that one is allowed to show off their parts to others. Is there anywhere where Jesus said to do that? Did Jesus do that himself? Is that the kind of example he set?
From your post, you are implying that my motivation for nudity is to "Show Off My Parts", in other words, if I may take the liberty, exhibitionism. This implies a sexual motivation to the action.
This is not true in my case and the case of the overwhelming majority of the posters here. I do not streak, flash or run around naked in front of those not expecting it. There are many motivations for those that post here to be nude.
Mine, in particular, is relaxation. When I am on a beach, with the sun beating down on my body, without the restrictions of clothing, even the bathing suit, I am relaxed. Those around me don't worry about my beached whale appearance, I don't worry about theirs. It is for me, a very worshipful experience.
Your post also implies that if Jesus didn't do something, we should not either. There are Sects of Christianity (the Amish come to mind right off) that prescribe to nearly that logic as well. I myself prefer to drive my car to church, cook my meals in Microwaves and use my computer to earn a living.... Jesus didn't do that either. There are also medications that were not available during Christs time, that without them, the user would live a much shorter life, in fact, the Bible does not really advocate medications or doctors except Luke being a doctor and Paul saying we should take a little wine for our stomach.
So lets back off and look at the principles. The bible states that we should not lust, steal, should love others as ourselves, have the fruits of the spirit, etc. The only talk of clothing in the new testament is the whole Armour of God and that is allegorical. Of course Saul was filled with the spirit and prophesied naked (1 Samuel 19:23-25), God didn't give Adam and Eve clothing until they sinned (one text I read suggests that their wearing fig leaves was the second sin). Many of the texts of the Bible where clothing is removed or torn suggests that people are using this to get closer to God.
There are several people on this site who have studied this more than I have so I suspect they will weigh in and correct any mistakes I have made.
Welcome to the forum... Unfortunately, I love to debate and sometimes am not the most gentle about it... Forgive me if you are offended by my post above.
As long as it is civil then we can make progress.
Rom 4:23-24
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,
24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, (NKJ)
I hope you agree.
I don't know if you have ever noticed, but when Jesus walked the earth, there was no microwaves, computers or cars when he was around so that was a bad example.
However, what was available for Jesus was for him to walk in the nude but he never walked in the nude nor did he teach in the nude. Did he go around telling everyone to go take off their cloths? No, instead he told everyone to go and repent.
2 Cor 7:10
10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (NIV)
Are you sure Jesus did not preach in the nude? Do you know how the prophets preached? Did you know that many of them prophecied in the nude? Publicly?
Did you also know that baptism was done in the nude...publicly? Jesus was baptised as they were in those days. It was several hundred years later (the dark ages came) before they quit baptising people in the nude. And those who still practiced it, did so in separation of men and women. But before that, it was a public and open baptism.
If this scripture is speaking about physical death, what's wrong with dying. If getting to heaven is the goal and you have to die to get there, death should be welcomed. That's why I never understood Jesus working miracles to raise the dead.
Another thing I don't understand. If a person dies and goes to hell, and Jesus works a miracle and brings them back to life and out of hell, I'm sure the person would be happy. Upon dying again, would this person be sent back to hell, or do they have a shot at betting to heaven. If so, wouldn't that be unfair to all the others in hell? But what if they were in heaven and were brought back. Seems like a dirty trick to me.
Or, if that scripture is referring to spiritual death, how does the "Christ in you, the hope of glory," a full grown man in Christ, at one with his father, die? If Christ and God are one, can God die?
Personally, I am not so sure about "eternal life in hell" to be "tormented day and night forever". At least for the human. For Satan and his demons, yes. They are spirit and cannot die.
We were created to die. If we are not saved by grace, and that may or may not be in this "life time", then we would be put to eternal death. No life at all.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eteral life." If a gift of God is eternal life, and the wages of sin is death, then how can I be alive in hell? If the wages of sin is death, the the only "hell" I would know of would be separation from God. Death is that separation.
God is merciful. I don't think of man going to a burning hell being tormented continuously by Satan. If that were the case, then Satan would be punishing us for not doing God's will. Funny Satan would do that for God. Then Satan would be God's "henchman". I doubt it seriously.
But eternal life, now that can only come as a gift from God.
There is no where in the bible to "show off your body". We were not called to do that. We are told to "show off God". We are created in His Image.
God called everything that He created, very good. And later, we were warned to not call what God says is good, evil and what God called evil, good.
Do you find God's image sinful? Did Jesus have a body like ours? If so, was it evil, sinful? Then was Jesus sinful?
Since Jesus was obviously not sinful, are you afraid of being like Jesus? Are you submisive to Him? Is Jesus fully God and fully man? If not, then the scriptures lie. If so, then we are to be like Him as He is.
God threw off the coverings at Jesus death. The veil, (that which covers) was torn in two, and as a result, we now have FULL access to the Creator of our bodies. We are at one with Him.
We (Adams race) hid from God using fig leaves. God did NOT create us that way. Why did we hide? Because of fear. Are you still living in fear? Are you still afraid to let God see you fully? Are you still hiding from God? Are there still sins in your life you do not let God see? God already sees it. But you are hiding it from yourself. Therefore, you are pretending it is not there and then not letting God know about it. You are still afraid.
Even we naturists who claim the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives have fear. We too find ourselves struggling with the sinful nature. But we found that clothing (the veil, the figleaves) do not hide our sins. They only temporarilly displaces us and keeps us from the fullness of Christ. We are counting on our clothing to take our sins. But it only hides the obvious. After all, everyone knows what we really look like. But we pretend otherwise. We sin by lying to ourselves and others.
No, we don't "show off our bodies". We live as God created us. Unfortunately, we will find ourselves in a quandry in this world of sin. Because of sin, this world insists that we wear clothing, even to the point of punishment if found naked and unashamed as Adam was before sin. We are punnished for being unashamed before God.
We admit our sinful nature, God forgives us, we are no longer in the sins of Adam, but under the blood of Christ. Jesus was called The Second Adam because we are now created in His image spiritually. We are no longer under the sins of the first Adam. That has been forgiven. Why live as though we are still under the first Adam?
There is no "Plain or simple passage" in the bible that says, we shall NOT be naked.
Assuming those people of the Bible actually existed and actually said the things attributed to them, it is plain they did not know that the human body, like all manifestation, is constructed of atoms, atoms are tiny universes with their own frequency, their own sound, their own note, held in coherency by magnetic attraction.
They were not aware of the existence of testosterone in men and estrogen in women; had no way of knowing that an overload of these hormones creates lust, and in some cases uncontrolled sexual desire. so they mistakenly attrivuted lust to be caused by Satan, or at least a demon. BTW, people with excessive testosterone and estrogen don't need Jesus, they need Depro-Prevera (I'm sure I misspelled that).
But this is the 21st century and we now know it isn't a devil causing these problems. I'm sure the real cause, maybe a gene, will one day be identified and eliminated. It is both interesting and disturbing to know there are those whose intellects are still dominated by the ignorance of the people in the Bible. It's like their mental vehicles got stuck in neutral about two thousand years ago. It is also disturbing to know our president is one of these people.
I fail to see your point here. Just because we know of atoms and hormones, that does not mean we are smarter or better. It only means there was a lot more that God created than we thought. After all, they only thought (in their ignorance as you pointed out) that God created man, earth and those specks in the sky. What they didn't know was the expanse of the universe and the "universe" within our bodies! That is AWESOME!! What do you think those people then would do today if they found out what God really created!
That means God is even greater than we thought before!!! Can you imagine all these things creating themselves? Why, that would mean dead dirt is smarter than us!
But I would rather have God in my life. Without God and our Savior Jesus Christ, we are as good as dead. But the only way to eternal life is through Jesus.
And I suppose (since it's obvious that you are mad at the president right now) that nearly all of our presidents has been Christian. Why get upset by this one? And the next one would probably be Christian too.
the human body is just a pile of atoms and the gens are 99% identical to those of pigs. So what's the difference between me and a pig, because for example a 1% increase on my payslip does not make me a rich man
BTW the stories in the bible never attributed sexual lust to damons. The older I get the more I am convinced that the human nature despite all the modern knowledge have not changed at all since the time of the bible: even with gallons of testosteron or estrogene there ususally is some room in the human body for an organ called brain.
Jack
You seem to have a very scientific outlook on why the Bible isn't true.
Okay, let's go with that. Look up entropy. Basically, entropy states that without outside intervention, no organized system can go from a less complex state to a more complex state. If that's true, how do we walk around in the most beautifully complex machine, our bodies, that has ever existed, if it wasn't for the fact that God designed it for us?
Oh, one more point: intelligence has nothing to do with the amount of knowledge available. Just because the people in biblical times had less scientific or empirical knowledge does not in any way mean they were stupid.
When people did show off, those who complained got cursed.
July 28 2004, 7:34 AM
Noah's son didn't like seeing his father naked and got his brothers to cover him. The son who didn't like it got cursed for his efforts.
David's wife saw him exposing himself while bringing the ark back to Jerusalem and complained about it. God cursed her.
These incidences are pretty damning in terms of how God views people who complain about seeing "parts" exposed. Therefore, it's pretty clear that God doesn't view the viewing of "parts" as bad. We shouldn't either.
Nudity was so widespread at that time that it was not particularly mentioned when it happened. Poor folks who couldn't afford clothes went naked (Job, about ch 20ish). They still do in Haiti and India. The "shame" of doing this was that they were poor. Jews (and Chinese are the same way) view having money as a main goal in life. Chinese, in particular, think nothing of asking you how much you make, how much you paid for your house or car, etc. It would be very shameful to them to not have enough money for clothing. Clothing in the old days was relatively a lot more expensive or had to be made laboriously by hand weaving, etc.
I'm convinced that Jesus was naked on the cross, naked when he washed the apostles' feet, when he was in the garden after resurrection, when he was baptised, etc. It just wasn't mentioned. There was no point in doing so. The female lover in the Songs of Solomon was likely nude when she had to go pick grapes. She mentioned her tan breasts and having to pick grapes. Most of the poor workers she worked with (but her brothers made her do it; she apparently wasn't poor) likely were picking grapes naked. Early Christians were baptised naked. Lots of this stuff is in Boyd's web site. Read it before you start causing trouble here.
we never left it, we just decided we are better at designing our own geometric environments with practical clothing to keep us warm. That tree of knowledge that made us realize we are naked. That cause of our current dillema.
Sure Jesus fixed that and provide us with a path home, but I feel when we do enter paradise we will find ourselves sheding our clothes spontaniously. :0
RE:""That tree of knowledge that made us realize we are naked. That cause of our current dillema.""
Sorry, what have teached such mistakeful assumption?? The Satan was those who suggested people was nakey, but tree only symbolized or worked as lackmuss paper to irreversibly PROVE the fact (or made it obvious) that both people DONT WANT more to be OBEDIENT to Gods law system and want make there own laws (or Satan suggested law system). The very tree had the same role as the pot in the game "dont touch this pot on the table" not telling that under the pot one alive mouse is pulled under. As one lift the pot, the mouse says "bue, bue!".
Our current dilemma was set due the unobedience to the God initial set of rules and willingful modification of it to the wrong rails.
Note that humankind had received the clear order there in Eden - let make a children:, but when they was borning? Many time after expelling out from Eden. Dou You think the reason was too good condoms or antifertility hormon-tablets? No, our First pre-parents was eager violators of everything God commanded to do and the eager contra-doers of everything He said dont do. If at least some children they would born before the Sin (disobedience) then part of humankind would be Perfect (=Immortal) and perhaps their "mark signed in the head" would been a capability to walk nekey (I quess). And Christ sacrifice would not be needed at all.
You are partly right. However, the Tree of the knowlede of good and evil was put there by God, NOT to say "don't touch it" but for God to give at His own time.
God has the right to say "This is mine". After all, He gave us the Tree of life. So God was NOT holding anything back! He was saving the other for later.
God does not tempt us. so it was not put there to tempt us or educate us. Man took what was not his. Satan decieved, man took.
You did pose an interesting question: What if Adam and Eve had children before the fall? Would they be "special" in not needing Jesus' sacrifice? I doubt serioiusly that would have been the case. In order for that to happen, the children of Adam would have to be children of an Adam that has already taken the Tree of Life before taking the Tree of good and evil.
The tree of good and evil was there for man, but only AFTER God gave it to him on God's own terms. It was knowledge man needed, but man could not handle this knowledge without God. Just having knowledge is not enough. We can destroy ourselves with knowledge. We have to have God's spirit within us to be able to handle it. So Adam would have to have taken the Tree of Life first.
Remember, the Tree of Life was NOT forbidden. Adam and Eve had free access to it, just as we have free access to Jesus Christ for our redemption. So Adams children would have been born before the tree of knowledge, but after the tree of life. Then God would have given the tree of good and evil to Adam and Even AND their children thereafter.
But Adam did NOT take the tree of life first. He first took for himself the tree of good and evil. Now God had to expel man from the garden so "he would not also take the Tree of life" as it says in the scriptures.
Had Adam taken the tree of life after his sin, things would have been far, far worse!
The two catalysts had to be there, but taken in the right order, and the second tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, had to be given by God. It was His tree after all.
By the time children came along, Adam and Eve would have already taken the tree of life. Then the children, ALL of them now, would have been under the correct rule of God.
I guess I should have read more before I posted. See my post in response to yours below to see several incidents where Jesus was in fact nude. Somebody also mentioned one I forgot: the garden.
Also, if nudity is bad, and God will never TELL us to sin, why did He command Isiah to preach naked for three years (Isiah 20) ?
