(no subject)
This is an article written by a friend of a friend that I thought would be appropriate to share with you all. This articulates very well what I believe is wrong with romantic relationships between men and women.
Lust
by Derek Weiss
This is something I wrote for a friend who asked me for a Biblical definition of lust. Its really long, and I haven't edited it, but whatevs.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God created man, and man was surrounded by material things. God had taken time - more time than he needed, five whole days! - to create a world in which Adam could live and relate to. And God wanted Adam to “subdue,” or care-for-for-his-own-benefit, these things. (Genesis 1:28) God gives Adam all the vegetation, and tells him to harvest and eat it. (Genesis 1:29-30) God wanted Adam to relate to those things, to work with them, and to benefit from them. When the story is fleshed out in the second chapter of Genesis, we see that there was a point in time when God had given Adam the Garden of Eden to tend (2:15), but had not yet created Eve (which happens in 2:21-22). Let’s call this phase in Adam’s life “pre-Eve Adam.”
At this point, Adam would have rightly thought that every existing thing existed for him. As long as he gave glory and time to God, Adam could be essentially selfish. With the exception of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had forbidden him to use, he could go out and make use of all of the natural resources of the world. If he wanted to cut down some trees to make a house, he could. If he wanted to milk a cow for milk, he could. He did not have to ask the trees or the cows what they thought: he did not have to relate to them as persons. The only being he had to relate to as a person was God.
Now, given the environmental quagmire we humans have put ourselves in, it is important to realize that he was suppose to be a gardener and not an exploiter. He was not given a mandate to destroy the earth, but to develop it for his own benefit and God’s glory. I like how Eugene Peterson paraphrases Genesis 1:28: “God blessed them: ‘Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.’” We are to be responsible for the earth. I think God will hold us responsible if we choose to destroy it.
But that is an aside. Let’s continue with the story. God sees that Adam is alone, and decides that this is not good. (2:18) The Biblical writer goes out of his way to mention in the next couple of verses that the animals were not suitable helpers: Adam needed more. Here is where we get into our definition of lust, because lust is essentially the denial of God’s first pondered thoughts in this narrative. Lust says, “It is good for man to be alone.” Lust is, at bottom, a choice to be alone, even when in the company of another. Lust is the denial of relationship. But I am getting ahead of myself.
God creates woman out of the rib of man. He does not create her out of the ground, as he had created the animals (2:19), but out of Adam himself. Adam realizes this: He exclaims, “Flesh of my flesh!” We can relate to woman differently than we relate to plants and animals because she is a part of us. She is essentially connected to us. She is not an “it” or a “thing.” She is not a plant or animal for us to use.
Lust is a denial of God’s gift of woman as companion. Lust treats woman as if she is another plant or animal created for us to subdue. Lust tries a retreat to Adam’s pre-Eve state. We may think when we are lusting - when we are looking at or touching a woman lustfully - that we are appreciating her. But lust is not a matter of appreciation, but of confusion. We are confusing “woman” (literally “From-Man,” and thus “From-Us”) with “plant and animal.” We are denying the goodness - and fleeing from the risk and hard work - of genuine community.
Much has been written on the evils of “consumer culture.” But I think one of its greatest evils is that it makes us more selfish and inward-looking. It purveys the lie that I can live as pre-Eve Adam, forgetting the existence of other people except in how they can serve me. But when Eve was created, Adam was drawn outside of himself into community and relationship. Lust is the denial of true relationship and the affirmation of complete solitude.
A tragically common example of this denial is the person who fantasizes excessively about sexual partners who live to please and worship the fantasizer alone, while never actually going out and having real relationships. This person needs others, but chooses to cut themselves off from real relationship. This person needs God and others to help them out of their terrible solitude.
God was not content to leave Adam alone. He lovingly seeks to provide Adam a “helper.” (2:18,20) The word “helper” there is intriguing. It has been used in the past to justify exploitation of women. But the word is also used in Hebrew Scripture to refer to the way that God “helps” Israel: God is Israel’s “helper.” Implicit in the English word “helper” is a sense of lowliness and servitude, but this is not the case in the Hebrew. Eve was Adam’s helper, and, in many ways, his savior. Adam alone is not good. When Eve was created, Adam was drawn outside of himself, into relationship.
When you lust, you choose to treat someone like an object to be used, instead of a person to interact with. An extreme example of this is pornography: you will probably never meet the woman on the page or screen splayed out before you. She is simply an object to you. If you actually knew her as a person - her friendship, warm love, her story and life - or if you were actually related to her - perhaps as her brother, or father, or husband - you would think very differently about her image. In fact, you probably couldn’t think about it lustfully, because relationship - that great destroyer of lust - would prevent it. But as things are, she is merely an object for you to subdue to your own desires. Martin Buber called this the “I/It” relationship, contrasted with the “I/Though” relationship of two people who relate to one another well, as Adam and Eve were intended to.
A similar thing can happen when you are touching a woman. You forget the relationship - you may forget the person altogether - and desire only to fulfill what you want.
Or, you remember the relationship: you touch HER, the one who is a part of you, drawn from you, the one God has given you, made in His own image, who reminds you of Him, the one you know. You connect with your mouths, and exchange the breath of life that God gave each of you.
I have not presented you with a complete definition of lust, of course. As the above paragraph hints, it needs to be filled out with the details of how we may best selflessly give of ourselves to others in real relationship. And the challenge in good relationship is not just to avoid lust, but to rightly love (I think it is possible, though highly uncommon, for Christian couples to have premarital sex without lust. In this case, each would be selflessly be giving to the other, and not treating the other like an object. The problem in that scenario would not be lust, but an incomplete view of selfless love.)
True love, contrary to popular belief, should include knowledge and wisdom. If an outstandingly unwise friend of a recovering alcohol decides to buy that friend a beer on his birthday, because he knows the friend really wants a beer, that friend, despite having the best intentions, has not selfishly lusted or coveted or turned that friend into less of a human being, but has, without a doubt, failed to love. Love requires understanding. And Christians should understand that premarital sexual intercourse is mutually destructive, and therefore not loving. The reasons why may perhaps be an occasion for another letter.
Those last few paragraphs are all to say that lust is not your only enemy. But it is one enemy, and one you may face at the initial stages of your relationship. The more and longer you selflessly care for a woman, the harder it is to lust after her. You’ll desire contact with her body: contact for your eyes, and for your hands, and for every part of you. But your desire for contact should always be with the realization that she is relating to your contact in return. You must respect and pay attention to her response. Lust dies or flares in her response, and in your response to her (in the relationship). To pay attention to this sort of thing will not only help you be a more morally upright person, but a much more enjoyable lover. Sex (and its predecessor making out) is about connection and community.
Lust
by Derek Weiss
This is something I wrote for a friend who asked me for a Biblical definition of lust. Its really long, and I haven't edited it, but whatevs.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God created man, and man was surrounded by material things. God had taken time - more time than he needed, five whole days! - to create a world in which Adam could live and relate to. And God wanted Adam to “subdue,” or care-for-for-his-own-benefit, these things. (Genesis 1:28) God gives Adam all the vegetation, and tells him to harvest and eat it. (Genesis 1:29-30) God wanted Adam to relate to those things, to work with them, and to benefit from them. When the story is fleshed out in the second chapter of Genesis, we see that there was a point in time when God had given Adam the Garden of Eden to tend (2:15), but had not yet created Eve (which happens in 2:21-22). Let’s call this phase in Adam’s life “pre-Eve Adam.”
At this point, Adam would have rightly thought that every existing thing existed for him. As long as he gave glory and time to God, Adam could be essentially selfish. With the exception of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had forbidden him to use, he could go out and make use of all of the natural resources of the world. If he wanted to cut down some trees to make a house, he could. If he wanted to milk a cow for milk, he could. He did not have to ask the trees or the cows what they thought: he did not have to relate to them as persons. The only being he had to relate to as a person was God.
Now, given the environmental quagmire we humans have put ourselves in, it is important to realize that he was suppose to be a gardener and not an exploiter. He was not given a mandate to destroy the earth, but to develop it for his own benefit and God’s glory. I like how Eugene Peterson paraphrases Genesis 1:28: “God blessed them: ‘Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.’” We are to be responsible for the earth. I think God will hold us responsible if we choose to destroy it.
But that is an aside. Let’s continue with the story. God sees that Adam is alone, and decides that this is not good. (2:18) The Biblical writer goes out of his way to mention in the next couple of verses that the animals were not suitable helpers: Adam needed more. Here is where we get into our definition of lust, because lust is essentially the denial of God’s first pondered thoughts in this narrative. Lust says, “It is good for man to be alone.” Lust is, at bottom, a choice to be alone, even when in the company of another. Lust is the denial of relationship. But I am getting ahead of myself.
God creates woman out of the rib of man. He does not create her out of the ground, as he had created the animals (2:19), but out of Adam himself. Adam realizes this: He exclaims, “Flesh of my flesh!” We can relate to woman differently than we relate to plants and animals because she is a part of us. She is essentially connected to us. She is not an “it” or a “thing.” She is not a plant or animal for us to use.
Lust is a denial of God’s gift of woman as companion. Lust treats woman as if she is another plant or animal created for us to subdue. Lust tries a retreat to Adam’s pre-Eve state. We may think when we are lusting - when we are looking at or touching a woman lustfully - that we are appreciating her. But lust is not a matter of appreciation, but of confusion. We are confusing “woman” (literally “From-Man,” and thus “From-Us”) with “plant and animal.” We are denying the goodness - and fleeing from the risk and hard work - of genuine community.
Much has been written on the evils of “consumer culture.” But I think one of its greatest evils is that it makes us more selfish and inward-looking. It purveys the lie that I can live as pre-Eve Adam, forgetting the existence of other people except in how they can serve me. But when Eve was created, Adam was drawn outside of himself into community and relationship. Lust is the denial of true relationship and the affirmation of complete solitude.
A tragically common example of this denial is the person who fantasizes excessively about sexual partners who live to please and worship the fantasizer alone, while never actually going out and having real relationships. This person needs others, but chooses to cut themselves off from real relationship. This person needs God and others to help them out of their terrible solitude.
God was not content to leave Adam alone. He lovingly seeks to provide Adam a “helper.” (2:18,20) The word “helper” there is intriguing. It has been used in the past to justify exploitation of women. But the word is also used in Hebrew Scripture to refer to the way that God “helps” Israel: God is Israel’s “helper.” Implicit in the English word “helper” is a sense of lowliness and servitude, but this is not the case in the Hebrew. Eve was Adam’s helper, and, in many ways, his savior. Adam alone is not good. When Eve was created, Adam was drawn outside of himself, into relationship.
When you lust, you choose to treat someone like an object to be used, instead of a person to interact with. An extreme example of this is pornography: you will probably never meet the woman on the page or screen splayed out before you. She is simply an object to you. If you actually knew her as a person - her friendship, warm love, her story and life - or if you were actually related to her - perhaps as her brother, or father, or husband - you would think very differently about her image. In fact, you probably couldn’t think about it lustfully, because relationship - that great destroyer of lust - would prevent it. But as things are, she is merely an object for you to subdue to your own desires. Martin Buber called this the “I/It” relationship, contrasted with the “I/Though” relationship of two people who relate to one another well, as Adam and Eve were intended to.
A similar thing can happen when you are touching a woman. You forget the relationship - you may forget the person altogether - and desire only to fulfill what you want.
Or, you remember the relationship: you touch HER, the one who is a part of you, drawn from you, the one God has given you, made in His own image, who reminds you of Him, the one you know. You connect with your mouths, and exchange the breath of life that God gave each of you.
I have not presented you with a complete definition of lust, of course. As the above paragraph hints, it needs to be filled out with the details of how we may best selflessly give of ourselves to others in real relationship. And the challenge in good relationship is not just to avoid lust, but to rightly love (I think it is possible, though highly uncommon, for Christian couples to have premarital sex without lust. In this case, each would be selflessly be giving to the other, and not treating the other like an object. The problem in that scenario would not be lust, but an incomplete view of selfless love.)
True love, contrary to popular belief, should include knowledge and wisdom. If an outstandingly unwise friend of a recovering alcohol decides to buy that friend a beer on his birthday, because he knows the friend really wants a beer, that friend, despite having the best intentions, has not selfishly lusted or coveted or turned that friend into less of a human being, but has, without a doubt, failed to love. Love requires understanding. And Christians should understand that premarital sexual intercourse is mutually destructive, and therefore not loving. The reasons why may perhaps be an occasion for another letter.
Those last few paragraphs are all to say that lust is not your only enemy. But it is one enemy, and one you may face at the initial stages of your relationship. The more and longer you selflessly care for a woman, the harder it is to lust after her. You’ll desire contact with her body: contact for your eyes, and for your hands, and for every part of you. But your desire for contact should always be with the realization that she is relating to your contact in return. You must respect and pay attention to her response. Lust dies or flares in her response, and in your response to her (in the relationship). To pay attention to this sort of thing will not only help you be a more morally upright person, but a much more enjoyable lover. Sex (and its predecessor making out) is about connection and community.