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From: bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Seventeenth Century Language
Message-ID: 
Date: 3 Oct 89 00:13:41 GMT
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In article  
bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes:
(actually, our moderator appended)
>...  No commentator that I looked at
>saw Dave's suggested meaning of "married woman", i.e. someone else's
>wife, 

This is regarding 1 Corinthians 7:1 which says "Now concerning the
things whereof ye wrote unto me: {It is} good for a man not to touch a
woman.".
 
It would appear that there has been a slight misunderstanding. I never
meant to say that I thought this verse teaches that it is good for a
man not to touch someone else's wife. This is extremely good advice,
but that is not what I believe God is saying here. I believe that He is
telling us something much more restrictive, which is that it is good
for a man not to touch any woman at all unless she is his wife. This is
yet another Scriptural principle that really goes against the grain of
today's sociological norms, but the Bible does declare that the ways of
the world tend to always contradict those of God. The NIV's it is good
for a man not to marry is not only unScriptural, after all God Himself
caused Adam to marry, but also entirely removes the principle that this
verse declares. One who guided his life by the NIV's version of this
piece of divine advice would easily convince himself that things like
extra-marital dancing and even fondling are acceptable before God. God,
on the other hand, wants us to know that the only place for any form of
intimacy between a man and a woman, and the only place for even those
things which may tempt one toward such intimacy, i.e. physical contact,
is only within the marriage relationship itself.
 
    Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014
    856 Grenon Avenue
    Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
    K2B 6G3