Jesus didn’t speak on every possible situation humans

Posted on: May 29, 2024 at 00:03:11 CT

could encounter. He was addressing first century Jews. Textual evidence points towards Jesus upholding the Mosaic Law, but beyond that the customs of first century Jews. To say that Jesus never spoke against kissing in public or touching a boob ignores that dating/marriage practices were entirely different. The potential groom paid a dowry to the potential bride’s father. The bride’s father having a say in whom his daughter marries. So it is entirely meaningless to say Jesus never spoke of kissing in public. It was ingrained in culture that this didn’t happen.

Does that mean kissing in public is a sin? No. Whether fundamentalist Christians want to acknowledge it or not, much of their beliefs are shaped by the culture they live in. Few would see it as sinful in western culture because our culture does not see it as sinful. Maybe in the 1950s it was frowned upon but not now.

It doesn’t mean it was ever sinful either, even in Jesus’ time and before. It is just that according to Paul, Christians are not to even give the appearance of wrongdoing.

If culture decided to shift back to unmarried people kissing in public is sinful, so should Christianity to not be a stumbling block to others.

Also your post speaks of Christianity as one unified belief system. That is quite not the case. Eastern Orthodoxy rejects much of Protestant views on Adamic sin and penal substitutionary atonement.

Progressive churches like Episcopalian, Disciples of Christ, United Methodists reject much of the sexual rules of fundamentalist Christianity pointing to a progressive trend of the Bible stepping farther and farther away from rule keeping to practicing actually loving others.

Even among evangelical Christianity, a bomb is about to be dropped in September as Richard B Hays, the scholar most cited in defense against prohibition of homosexuality has reversed his position and is releasing a book to argue why.

Christianity is quite diverse.