Is masturbation really a sin?

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This kind of question always brings out the religious folks. So it begs a lot of other questions. And many other scenarios.

Phoenix1708 said:
Excuse the crude nature of this post, I just have really been struggling with this lately. Is it a sin? Where is the line drawn?
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I would rather be in the act of your OP When the Lord Comes back Then in the act of judging people for it.

For most believers today......They have no idea how to live the Christian way of life because most believers are teaching "do's and don'ts."


Learn how to NOT grieve or quench the Spirit. Learn how to be filled and walk in the Spirit. All this nonsense of do's and do not will melt away......And it helps with the self righteous prigs who will send you to hell for your sins.
 
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Once Satan has his foot in the door, he asks grandiose questions & uses psychology to impress the weak & downdress spiritual authority, doing everything but accusing them of self-righteousness. Instead he makes them look that way to destroy their witness & take control of the Op with their own reasoning, which isn't biblical.
That person wins when they solidify the beliefs of the weak.
A professional narsissist has the ability to do that.
 
ALWAYS expect false teaching to rear its ugly head when christians are on the verge of breaking strongholds.
 
Phoenix1708 said:
Excuse the crude nature of this post, I just have really been struggling with this lately. Is it a sin? Where is the line drawn?
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Matt 22:37-39 " Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Being a Follower / Believer of Christ, I too, have consider this "struggle" and concluded that ALL SELFISHNESS, ever since Eve desired the fruit, is SIN.

In The Father's Commandments, Exo 20, I see it expressed as "Idolatry" v5 "You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God" and "Covetness" v17.

I believe that Idolatry is anything that we idolize as much as, or more than our Lord & God. .. eg.. food, sex, creature comforts, your favorite football team, etc. .. it ALL misdirected worship.
 
Brasspen said:
The debate of masterbation is just like the debate with Artwork. People where condemned to death because of paintings. It was also viewed that any position with your wife other than missionary was an act of evil. Many people had been burned to the cross for it, that and masturbation.

Some people still practice the religion of condemning artwork, saying that it's idol worship.

God would not have us be religious. He wants us to be free from that.

The debate is what's called, 'trained behavior'. Whether you condemn it or not, is trained behavior. Right now there is a fight going on with two sides attempting to train the behavior of the other side.
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what a ridicules comment and post. No one is condemning anyone. That is a false narrative created to further allow people who suffer with sexual addiction to continue to be abuses and be under the condemnation of a stronghold created by the spirit of lust.

Liberal Theology is demonic. Just like liberal democrats who cry racism about everything so do those of the liberal Theology mindset.

Paintings, burned to the cross. That has not happened in centuries. But what is happening is a vast amount of men and women are in much pain because of sexual addiction and sexual idolatry. I have yet to see one LGBTQ person burn at the stake. In fact, I have yet to see one person arrested for introducing children to Tran drag sexual perversion in libraries. Please spar me the self-righteous act.


IF you are bound by sexual perversion own it stop playing the victim card. Jesus can set one free from this addiction.
 
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My thoughts on this. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, where it says 'thou shalt not covet' uses a word for lust or covet. It is a grammatically infected form of the same word Matthew 5:28 uses where it tells how Jesus warned that a man that looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

We are talking about covetousness here. If I want to drive my own car, it's mine, so I don't covet it. If I am thankful to God and have a good attitude, it's okay to drive my car. If I want to have sex with my own wife, she's my own wife, so it's okay for me to desire that. If I were to use some kind of piece of rubber (no thank you) or something like that.... how does that somehow make it covetous? She's still MY wife birth control or not. She's not some other man's wife or someone else's daughter who is not married to me.

Does masturbation 'satisfy the lust of the flesh.' I'm not sure how that fits into the covetous concept one way or another. I can't find any specific scripture on masturbation, one way or another. Onan didn't raise up seed to his brother. That seems like coitus interruptus. Whether he used a bit of masturbation to make that happen, I don't know. Having sex with the woman, but not being willing to raise up seed to his brother... taking the sex... robbing her of the chance to have a child if he'd passed up on her and she'd gone to another relative... there is a lot going on her. But later theologians latched onto the non-reproductive sexual act aspect of it and named masturbation as 'Onanism.' I don't see anything in the passage that indicates that this is why God was displeased with him.

The man who has a seminal emission in the night in an Israeli war camp has to wash his clothes and be unclean until even and whatever it says in that passage. Normally, that might be an involuntary thing during sleep, but would the wording fit if the guy just did that. But the guy is unclean. A man and woman are unclean after the sexual act... assuming he 'finishes' in Jewish law, then they wash their whole body with water and are unclean until evening (which sounds to me like it encouraged couples having sex around 4 to 7 PM depending on the season of the year, about an our or a half hour before sundown so they didn't have to walk around a whole day unclean.) Being unclean isn't sinning. Jesus touched lepers.

I remember a guy in college thinking the verse about cutting off the hand or eye that causes you to sin being about masturbation, and he was glad it didn't say to chop off the other part. The idea of those verses being about masturbation had never occurred to me, and probably had more to do with his on guilt and conscience than the text. There is a verse about cutting of hand or foot, too.

I'm not going to tell someone to go masturbate, but I don't see from scripture that I have any right to condemn people for it, or for using birth control. I do see 'be fruitful and multiply' and if you have three kids between two people, that's multiplying. It doesn't say 'Thou shalt not use birth control.' If it's wrong to use birth control, then is it wrong for the married to abstain from sex during ovulation without a good reason (sickness, periods, etc.) because they are avoiding pregnancy? Is it wrong, then, to not have every sex every night because a couple could be missing out on having a baby...or every hour.... or during some sort of time where she would become pregnant at all times if she happened to ovulate during that interval. Of course, if everyone did that last approach, I think we might have all nearly girls because the XX cells hang around longer and the XYs swim faster. Is it wrong to delay marriage until you are ready to have a baby?

Keep a clean conscience in everything you do. Don't do something you feel is a sin against God.

Also, pray intensely for a spouse. Study the scriptures on who you are allowed to marry. Marry. Before marrying, study I Corinthians 7:4 and get some assurances that your partner is going to take this seriously... for life... if you marry. It's like signing up for a job for life with no option for quitting, not a light commitment. :) Vet your potential partner for evidence of faith, Biblical values, ad also for commitment to staying married for life. The current philosophy of this world is contrary to the level of commitment Christians need to have to staying married and also to the idea of having a debt in the 'due benevolence' department to one's spouse.
 
presidente said:
Onan didn't raise up seed to his brother. That seems like coitus interruptus. Whether he used a bit of masturbation to make that happen, I don't know. Having sex with the woman, but not being willing to raise up seed to his brother... taking the sex... robbing her of the chance to have a child if he'd passed up on her and she'd gone to another relative... there is a lot going on her. But later theologians latched onto the non-reproductive sexual act aspect of it and named masturbation as 'Onanism.' I don't see anything in the passage that indicates that this is why God was displeased with him.
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Exactly. Spot on. Onan wasn't masturbating... he "pulled out" and did not impregnate his sister in law... which God had told him to do. His sin was not "masturbation".... it was disobedience to God's instruction/demand.
 
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hornetguy said:
Exactly. Spot on. Onan wasn't masturbating... he "pulled out" and did not impregnate his sister in law... which God had told him to do. His sin was not "masturbation".... it was disobedience to God's instruction/demand.
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I don't know if there is any evidence that God told him to do that. The lavrite law was given later. But it was the custom... and he was sleeping with her.

We also don't know that he didn't masturbate either, or if he was just good at timing.

It tooks some 'theological reasoning' to get from that to story 'onanism'.
 
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DeplorableMenace said:
Spilling your seed in vain is sin. Whether on the ground or in a bag. Find a church.
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Why doesn't the Bible say this sin? What if some guy is sleeping on the ground and wakes up in the morning and there it is, or some young fellow just gets too excited too soon on the wedding night?
 
Suze said:
People have been masturbating long before pornography 🥴 I'm guessing they just used their imagination and I'm guessing that lots of people don't access pornography but do masturbate . I despise pornography and their is no defence for it .
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Curious why someone has to 'use ones imagination' or be thinking about anything in particular. Especially, young men, early in the morning.

Have you ever heard of even married men thinking about baseball? I think you are conflating this with 'lustful thoughts.'
 
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Many here are well focused on the psychical action of "Self-Gratification." Just because the Bible doesn't speak of a sin by name, one should be able to discern if that act is praiseworthy or godly. The action is the effect of the root cause of something.

Jesus said "Lust one one's heart " Matthew 5:28-30. This "LUST" will take you down. It will come upon you suddenly and feel harmless. Yet the end result is to control and torment. If this action is so harmless why so many men of God who did this harmless act ended up in fornication, adultery and homosexuality? Lust is a sin of the heart that is the cause that drives one to do. I fully believe each parson here knows fully this is not godly act to thing to do. Youn know. Stop trying to lie to us and yourself. There are many things that are sin that are not named in the word of GOD. Saying " the Bible doesn't name this as a sin" in that immature lack of self-control voice will not take away from the action is not praiseworthy. If what you do in private where God can see you and ask is this what Jesus would do and can continue in that action free from condemnation, guilty, unfulfilled and able to testify of it. You go right ahead keep on doing it. Displaying lack of self-control and the ability to discern right from wrong.

Sins of Intent: there are sins which are not named in the Bible but are sin because the intent.
 
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James 1: 13No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted [m]by God”; for God cannot be tempted [n]by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death.

Lust is used against us during temptation to promote sin. Therefore following lust is sin against God.
 
2Peter 2: 12But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, using abusive speech where they have no knowledge, will in [k]the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, 13suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their [l]deceptions as they feast with you, 14having eyes full of adultery [m]that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having hearts trained in greed, accursed children; 15abandoning the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the [n]reward of unrighteousness; 16but he received a rebuke for his own offense, for a mute donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the insanity of the prophet.
19You know this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Now everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20for a man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God. 21Therefore, ridding yourselves of all filthiness and all [t]that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. 22But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves.

Those who follow lust live also in greed.
 
CS1 said:
Many here are well focused on the psychical action of "Self-Gratification." Just because the Bible doesn't speak of a sin by name, one should be able to discern if that act is praiseworthy or godly. The action is the effect of the root cause of something.

Jesus said "Lust one one's heart " Matthew 5:28-30. This "LUST" will take you down. It will come upon you suddenly and feel harmless. Yet the end result is to control and torment. If this action is so harmless why so many men of God who did this harmless act ended up in fornication, adultery and homosexuality? Lust is a sin of the heart that is the cause that drives one to do. I fully believe each parson here knows fully this is not godly act to thing to do. Youn know. Stop trying to lie to us and yourself. There are many things that are sin that are not named in the word of GOD. Saying " the Bible doesn't name this as a sin" in that immature lack of self-control voice will not take away from the action is not praiseworthy. If what you do in private where God can see you and ask is this what Jesus would do and can continue in that action free from condemnation, guilty, unfulfilled and able to testify of it. You go right ahead keep on doing it. Displaying lack of self-control and the ability to discern right from wrong.

Sins of Intent: there are sins which are not named in the Bible but are sin because the intent.
  • Sins of Intent: These involve the intentions behind the action. Their actions that may not be named in the Bible but still have spiritual implications.
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Like it or not, there are probably justifiable reasons for some masturbation.... doesn't make it "right" or "wrong"... just is what it is.
Too many pious people here that think that everything we do, minute by minute should only be done "to the glory of God".... Is drinking that extra Dr Pepper being done to the glory of God? How bout the FIRST Dr Pepper? What about making un-necessary trips back and forth to Home Depot, spending money on gas unnecessarily? Is THAT to the glory of God....

Good grief.... we as believers are to do the best we can, with our very human abilities and limitations... not all of us can live up to the standard of sinless perfection like many of you here claim to have.... not pointing any fingers, but it's easy to armchair quarterback OTHER people's lives... "Lord I thank you that I am not like that sinner over there....."
 
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1John 2: 15Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.

The lust of the flesh is worldly.
 
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