A while back I joined a relatively new Christian Forum site that Jon-Marc alerted us to somewhere. It is not a Naturist site but it does have a couple of forum sections for discussion on Naturism. Two threads are of particluar interest because of one persons (Havila) assertions that in the Bible Naked does not mean "with nothing on". She backs it up with references too. Boyd given your articles can you check and comment.
Unfortunately, most Bible dictionaries and many Bible commentaries are written by those whose thinking was groomed by the many centuries of church teaching that came after the early church (when Christians were commonly baptized nude or attended the public Roman baths that way). Those who appeal to these sources to condemn naturism cannot see, as those Bible scholars could not see, how socially nude situations could be anything less than scandalous. When I first heard about the early church practice of nude baptism, I went to check it out in my church history books. One had nothing about it. Another mentioned it, not it the text itself, but safely hidden in a fine-print footnote at the bottom of the page. Nobody who has eaten at the long table of church history that came after the first couple of centuries can stomach the idea of acceptable social nudity. If they see something that points to it in Scripture or church history, there must be some other explanation.
However, take a look at Exo 22:26-27 (NKJV), "If you ever take your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious."
Perhaps the rich had undergarments or more than one garment, but not the poor. Clothing was expensive. So, even if this "day-light" stark nakedness was only the lot of the poor, it was still a part of the social scene. And clothes didn't get less expensive in New Testament times, which explains what happened in Mark 14:51-52 (NIV), "A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind."
Christians who are scandalized by the idea that believers of an earlier era did not have the intense body-shame that has been so well perpetuated and nurtured by multiple centuries of church teaching MUST have a "naked" in the Bible that does not mean "naked without any clothing." This is why Christian naturists have "uncovered" so much that was not being seen in the status quo reading of Scripture by most Christians. I know this is true for myself, even after a Bible College degree, a graduate degree in Christian studies, and several times of reading through the Bible in various translations. This seeing of certain Bible passages under new light is not new, just reformational (reforming a broadly accepted but unacceptable attitude) and radical (going back to our "roots" historically and Biblically). But an acceptable social nakedness is such a novel concept to an extremely large majority of the present-day church that bringing about a widespread radical reformation in the church's unhealthy attitude toward "normal nudity" will not be an easy or quick task. However, knowing the truth, but not trying to change that unhealthy attitude, would be truly shameful behavior.
I read the threads and both sides seem to agree that clothing was given to us for protection. But is it just protection from thorns and sunburn and freezing? Or are clothes also protection from lust, from being objectified, from loosing our human dignity? Adam and Eve didn't need such protection before the fall. But after the fall they did. Even from each other. They were still in the garden, in paradise, free from physical harm, when they felt the need for clothes right after the fall. They needed protection from themselves and they realized it. Lust and using another's body for selfish pleasure is wrong outside of marriage and also inside of marriage. We are to give our bodies to one another in marriage just as Christ gave his body for his bride, the Church. Christians thoughout many centuries have seen the need for such protection.
But now that we are Christians, we presume that Christ died for our sins. Our sins have been cleared, we are no longer under the penalty of the sins of Adam and Eve. ALL of it! If we were still under the penalty of their sins, then what did Jesus do? We are still dead! There is no life in us! We cannot go to the Tree of Life (Jesus) and partake of it's fruit (fruits of the holy spirit). Remember? Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden (Gods' presence) and was denied access to the tree of life!
Now assume you went to a naturist resort and was nude. You have a choice: Either lust because they are nude, or be a Christian and treat them as human beings created in the image of God. Your choice.
Now keep in mind, God gave Adam and Eve two choices: One he warned against.
Choice one: Eat of any tree of the Garden you want, (which included the Tree of Life, since it too was in the garden).
And stay away from the other tree, (Implying it is a choice if you want to die).
They chose the wrong one.
One represented Gods' original plan. Gods wonderful understanding of Him and his creation.
The other represented human reasoning outside of God's wisdom. The result, sin, shame, degredation, lust, fear, death.
So again, we have a choice. Do you want fear? Then go ahead and be afraid and cover up. Do you want to view others lustfully? Then you need to be covered up. Do you feel shame? Probably because you chose the second one.
But if you have respect for God's creation, do not live by fear, do not lust after others, or worry that others will lust after you (even if they did, it is them, not you) and understanding of God and his plan of salvation, then it is because you have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord and his sacrifice. Your sins have been cleansed and you now have access to the Tree of Life, which you partook of (see "Communion"). You have been given the fruits of that tree of life which is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, etc. via the holy spirit at the time of conversion and forgiveness of sins. (See Galations 5:22)
God also said, "I lay before you life and death. Choose life so that you may live" Funny: God had to give us a hint of which one to choose, and then had to explain what life meant!
But you still have a choice. Now it is up to you whether you want to walk around hiding in shame or live in glory.
If you then agree and say that things have now changed becuase of Christ then how can you keep claiming the Isaiah account proves public nudity was ok then? That was before Christ redeemed us.
The Bible says Isaiah was commanded to walk naked as a sign. If nudity was common then it would not have been much of a sign. If anything this proves nudity was not common.
We cannot interpert the Bible as if it was written in English last week. It wasn't. It was written in different languages at a different time and to a different culture. I don't know if naked means in underwear or not in this passage. I do know if somebody a thousand years from now read something written today that said it was raining cats and dogs they might think it was sign. They might misunderstand. Have you ever read Old English, I mean a couple hundred years before Shakespear? I have. It is very hard to understand. If we have trouble with our own language after a few centuries imagine what a few thousand years plus a different culture can do. We must not come to "a priori" conclusions and then seek Bible verses to agree with us.
It is not ok to use one's wife to satisfy lust. Marriage is about giving and being unselfish. Being selfish leads to contraception and abortion and masterbation and adultery and other self centered, self gratifying sins.
I respect all my Christian brothers and sisters, clothed or not.
Peace to you all in Christ.
The funny thing is, it never said that being naked was NOT Ok, before Christ. I'm just saying that any sins that were committed by Adam and Eve and humanity paid the penalty for, is cleaned and paid for by Jesus. Therefore, the garden is opened back up again to allow us to come before God and Christ (The Tree of Life). Naked or clothed
We assumed that being naked was a sin. God never said that. But if anything, we can be nude even more so now than we could then.
We must remember that the original covering was made by man, not God. God did cover us, but it was NOT because being naked was a sin. It was because we sinned and we are no longer worthy. We were ironically covered by the sacrificial skins of a dead animal. Not a good sign. I would not be proud to wear a reminder of my sins all my life. I would rather be forgiven and cleansed and be free to go to my Father in heaven for my forgivenss of sins and even more important, to have a special relationship with him. That relationship was severed by our sins.
We were "marked" for our transgressions. Yes, some people did go nude on occasion, and some even lived out their lives pretty much nude, but it wasn't because they were sinless, nor did it mean that they were sinning.
But even if it were "sin" to be nude before Christ, that does not mean that it is sin today. In fact, it may very well be sinful to force others to wear clothing if it were going to imply they were not of Christ. Forcing clothing on others against their will to fulfill a non-existant law would be forcing people to live by dead works and not faith. In fact, clothing represents dead works. Sacrificial animals is a dead work in more ways than one! Clothing is a form of "works for salvation" if used as a covering for our sins as was before.
We do not say that clothing itself is a sin, nor is wearing them a sin. We just don't use them to hide "our shame" since we have no shame to hide. We serioiusly believe that God forgave us of ALL our sins, not a trace of shame left to our name. Our bodies were created in His image and likeness, and that has never changed. God still creates us naked and unashamed, and has always done so from the beginning.
If people can say "I was born that way, I cannot help it", then how much more can we? Not only are we "born that way" but we also have the honor to be created in the Image and Likeness of our Creator God! What do I have to be ashamed of? What do I need to hide? Only sinners and those fearful need to run and hide. Those who are guilty are the ones who are in danger. Not the innocent. Are we innocent? Only through Jesus Christ. But when being filtered through Christ, we are so spotlessly clean and innocent, it's as if we had died and were resurrected again in a brand new body....oh yeah...that was what baptism represented! Our death and resurrection with Christ in a new, sinfree, shameless body!
That is what I have seen as well. The only negative references to nudity in the Bible (either partial as in the "he didn't completely undress, or total) is to be merciful, helping the person out of the fix they were in.
I also don't think we can blame the change in thought on the "Hollywood" sector and even Playboy and its companions shouldn't be blamed for the strict view within society. Looking through Kings and Chronicals, nearly every time you see a new King show up, there is a comment in The Message like "But he failed to get rid of the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines". It is really cool that God and even the people throughout the Bible seem to be able to make sense of good nudity. Now if we in America could only figure that out...
But Adam still called himself naked even after he had his leaf apron. How is that?
As far as clothing and lust- clothing alone does absolutely nothing to eliminate lust. Modesty is a state of mind, not a dress code. I can be completely modest and without lust while completely naked, and people prove all the time that they can be overwhelmingly immodest and full of lust while clothed from head to toe. It's how you THINK, not what you wear.
While using your spouse's body for you own selfish gratification is wrong, I do believe that it is possible to have a proper kind of lust for the one that you married. This is kind of bold, but haven't any of you married folks out there ever WANTED you partner- RIGHT NOW!! As long as your focus is correct, I believe that's okay.
Hast du keine Lust?
I remember learning that phrase in a beginner's German class and snickering. Then I learned that lust in German means desire, not necessarily improper desire and not usually sexual desire.
The English language (derived from Old Low German) took the morally neutral word lust and made it mean inordinate desire, not just desire.
A man should lust (desire) his wife, but that desire should not be inordinate. Inordinate means out of order. In other words, first things are not first when your desire is inordinate.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you!
Even God agrees with this in the Old Testament where he instructs the use of a "second tithe" where you set aside a second ten percent (after tithing your firstfruits) to save until a time when you come together to feast before the Lord during the Fall festival (Festival of Tabernacles). Among the things to use it for is to help you travel, pay for expenses, and of course buy food, drink, including "hard" drink and "anything your lusts after", which really means "desires".
There is lust, desire, and there is lust or being overcome with inordanant desire.
You said very well what I was trying to say, and only managed to very poorly.
We can have (and should have...) a strong, proper desire for our spouse. At times that might be desplayed (privately of course, just to each other) in ways that the world would call lustfull.
As prevoiusly stated, that should never be solely for the reason to satisfy our own desires, but as a way to come together as a couple as God intended.
Paul said its better to marry than to burn. The wife's body belongs to the husband and the husband's body belongs
to the wife.
I wish my wife would lust after me and want to
satisfy her desires! Well, actually she does enjoy
being with me, but I thought I'd turn the idea around
and show that lust for our spouce isn't a bad thing.
I assume you guys want your wife to desire you sexually.
Now if a spouce only wanted his or her own lust
satisfied and didn't do anything to help out his or
her spouce, then I'd agree that the lust was selfish
and not representative of Christian love.
They cited a Bible dictionary in that forum saying that Isaiah wasn't really naked. Wonder why NO translation doesn't just say, "Go out in your underwear..., Isaiah." Because it isn't so. It says he was naked.
They twist stuff their way. We cite the true facts, and they don't believe us.
It all comes down to looking at the Bible time through our current cultural understandings of our day, and not concidering that the people of old lived in a different society. So we now have words that had to mean something different then than they do now, because if words meant the same then as now, then how could God possibly work with such a people, and how could God command such blasphemy? After all our understanding of culture is the only one in which He could work with. Obviously this saying is full of errors, and although they won't come out and say it, that is what they believe.
I think that they actually believe that words change their meaning, but human culture remains constant. My bible tells me that the only thing that doesn't change is God. Therefore culture has to have gone through several changes over the years, as we have gone several hundred years from the time period in question. Just look at the cultural changes that have occurs in just the last 20 years here in th U.S. I wonder what the culture of Isaiah's time really looked like.
Isn't it funny how our "typical Christian" church refuses to believe that nudity is really nudity.
I remember the Wine issue. Since the Church I grew up in, the argument went something like....
"The wine in the bible was really just Grape Juice so there was no alcohol in it. If there was alcohol, it was so weak you couldn't get drunk."
"The wine in the Last Supper was really just Grape Juice... (see the argument above)."
The standard reply was.... Why then, in Jesus' first miracle did it mention that the host usually started out with the "good" wine and then, as the party progressed, brought out the bad stuff. To follow the logic above, by the time a couple of rounds of drinking the "Grape Juice", they wouldn't recognize that the bad "Grape Juice" was brought out?
That is also what I think about the nudity issue. There are too many references to nudity in the Bible to think that these people were just stripping to their underwear.
1 Samuel 19:24 talks about Saul ripping off his clothes. Picture him sitting around in his underwear... Doesn't make sense to me.
