Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: I Cor. 7:1 Message-ID: Date: 16 Oct 89 04:21:52 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 52 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) writes: >Basically, I don't see the point in arguing over I Cor. 7:1, when we >have Matt 5:28, which is both more straightforward and more restrictive. Your reply illustrates that I suspect I have still not been understood correctly. I'll try once more. 1 Corinthians 7:1 is the clearest passage in the Bible with respect to acceptable conduct between a man and a woman who are not married. Other similar passages do not clearly indicate that they also refer to two unmarried people. People in modern cultures, even those who fervently proffess Christianity, tend to involve themselves in extremely erotically stimulating behaviour with those whom they are either dating or engaed to. I am well aware that there are many other passages in the Bible which state that this ought not to be done, however this particular Scripture is the clearest. It categorically states that there ought not to be so much as even the slightest degree of touching between unmarried people. This standard of premarital conduct is sadly lacking in our world today. Translations like that used in the NIV even remove it from the Scriptures. We must remember why this particular discussion began in the first place. I had raised this verse as an example of why we ought to use the most reliable translation that we can find. The NIV translators apparently traded away a word-for-word translation in favour of trying to help us understand what God meant. In doing so they have lost many difficult to see yet extremely important messages from Him. This is because they would only have included those messages which they could see. They either forgot that the Scriptures are a revealed truth or assumed that God had revealed all of it to them. Readers of translations such as the NIV, which did not adhere as strictly as possible to a word-for-word translation, must realize that the verses they are reading are tainted with a higher degree of man's sinful nature than would otherwise be the case. Surely an all knowledgeable and all wise God does not need us sinful human beings to clarify what He says. Surely His Holy Spirit does not require the rephrasing of His Words by us sinful human beings in order to bring people to salvation. We ought to leave His Word in tact and just simply trust that He will bring its full power to bear on whomsoever He pleases. Any attempt to change His Words makes them become the words of men and cease being the Word of God. 2 Peter 1:20 warns "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.". Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3