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Preacher's Sermon On Nudity Question?

bapmom

New Member
Originally posted by Frenchy:
OK back to the topic at hand, still not getting any solid answers to how a missionary family deals with such nudity of the natives. i know the natives are not saved and don't know any better. my question is how are "godly" people and their families (children) effected by this? we are told by some, if we watch too much TV or movies we are exposed to sin and that it is wrong. now how is that different than being exposed to naked people if we lived around them all the time. And see them having you know what in the open or where ever these missionaries saw them. (remember my example of missionaries teaching another way, ie missionary stye)?
I do believe that John of Japan's very first post to you was an excellent answer to your initial question. In short, yes, sometimes a missionary will become tempted and fall due to the heathen culture around him.....is this not the same thing that happens in America far too often? However, the same steps that we take here in the States to keep ourselves from temptation are the same ones we will use on the mission field.

You might say, "Well, the women here in America don't have a culture of walking around nekkid". Have you been to the mall lately? Or any beach in any of the coastal states? Much of the time the attire in America may as well be gone altogether for all it hides.....and preachers here have to deal with seeing it walk into their services all the time. What do they do? How do we here keep our families safe? We try to minimize the impact, give them instruction and training, and yes, AVOID the places where we KNOW these sorts of things will be more prevalent.
 

Scarlett O.

Moderator
Moderator
What's going on? What have I missed?

Did someone call me stupid??

Oh, well...I have definitely been called worse than that over my 44 years and lived to tell about it.
 

John of Japan

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Originally posted by kornfucious:
I have no problem believing that mexdeaf did not notice the breastfeeding incident.
I had something similar happen on a mission trip to Venezuela. We helped to build a church south of Valencia and went down last year to put the final touch to the building. The men in our group took different nights teaching and/or preaching. The services were held in the late afternoon, but before dark. The church had no air-conditioning, but had hugh windows that remained open, during the service, for ventilation. One evening while the service was in progress, I walked around the outside taking photos of the the church and a group of kids sitting around outside having devotion. Sitting on the window sill, turned slightly toward me, listening to the preaching, was a lady holding a young child. I took a picture of her as I passed and she smiled and I thought no more of it until we got back to our camp and we were looking through the photos I had taken earlier. As we scrolled thru the photos we went past the one of the lady in the window. One of the guys said "go back" and sure enough the lady was breastfeeding. I immediately deleted the photo, and took some good-natured kidding about the whole incident. I can assure you that I did not notice, even after seeing the photo, until it was spotted.
And BTW Shiloh, I am neither a women nor gay..........
Good testimony, relevant to the OP, and a wonderful website, kornfucious! I love the song and the pictures. Praise the Lord for your opportunity to serve God in S. America and learn what missions is really all about!

By the way, does "kornfucious" mean anything other than corny, or are you thinking of my part of the world? :D ;)
 

Gershom

Active Member
Originally posted by Frenchy:
Gershom wrote </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Shiloh,

Is it possible for you to use the "quote" function when quoting a post or do you not have that option? Makes it easier to follow.
Careful i was chastened severly for correcting a posters spelling since it was hard to follow her post. ;) </font>[/QUOTE];)
 

Frenchy

New Member
Sorry Bible-Boy i was trying to be as descrete as possible. I understand what you are saying bapmom. i think it was said best and I believe also that the parents try and teach their children what is right and wrong like we do at home, since our kids are going to see stuff that isn't appropiate. and i also think after awhile it becomes normal and no one gives it a second thought to the way people are dressed. i would think there is quite a differnce between the way women look here and the way they look there. what is attracive here may not be the same there. know what i mean ;)
 

kornfucious

New Member
John, Thanks for the kind words. I was totally blessed from the trip and came back richer, wiser and humbled from the experience.

As for the name. I worked in radio in the early 70's. Two of the other D.J's and myself would leave each other notes full of wisdom and cornball humor. The other guys signed theirs Wilhelm and Wolfgang. I came up with the name Kornfucious, which I though appropriate given the contents of the writings.
John, again thanks for the word of encouragement.

Grace and Peace through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 

Bible-boy

Active Member
Originally posted by Frenchy:
Sorry Bible-Boy i was trying to be as descrete as possible.
It is okay. However, as discrete as you may be, if people begin to answer your questions who knows what kind of graphic answers may be posted here in an open public forum. Therefore, the Webmaster has made it BB policy to restrict all such topics to either the Private Men's or Women's Fora.
 

Frenchy

New Member
I see where you are comming from no problem, pm's are welcomed. how does one get on the private forum. not sure i would be welcomed on the womens one. can i join the mens?
 

Bible-boy

Active Member
You have to PM the Private forum Moderator or Administrator and ask them to admit you to the forum. Then you either get a password or your profile is marked somehow in order to allow you access. Women only in the Women's Private Forum and Men only in the Men's Private Forum.
 

bapmom

New Member
Frenchy,

Im not sure what you are thinking the mission field in general is like.....but there have been a few advances over the last coupla years. On the whole, there are no longer many tribes running around with no clothing on. Granted, there are some, but we have some here in America, too.

If a Christian ALLOWS himself to become tolerant of wrong things, than yes, he will get "used to it." But modesty transcends differences in culture. It is not just a case of "well, they look different than we do here." In the vast majority of the world, I daresay they dress MORE modestly than we tend to here in America. I say that we Christians here are the ones who have just learned to tolerate too much. (NOt talking about taking up arms or anything, just what we tolerate in our own lives.)
 

mcdirector

Active Member
I certainly believe MexDeaf preached a sermon and didn't notice any number of things. I taught an entire algebra lesson once and had a kid spit tobacco juice in the corner and I didn't notice. It was years ago when I was a new teacher, but I'm still amazed when I think back on it that i didn't know what he was doing. Talk about disgusting! (I did make him come back and clean it up btw.)
 

Scarlett O.

Moderator
Moderator
Well, let's just say that a hypothetical male missionary did notice a woman in another culture breasting feeding in a preaching service.

I do not believe that simply because he is a man that he is automatically unable to continue preaching with taking his eyes off of her or of thinking impure thoughts about her.

I have said before in another thread that men are "visual creatures". But that does not make them blithering idiots, unable to focus on benign tasks or spiritual tasks.

Sure, it will take him "aback"...possible startle him.

But to say that his preaching becomes ineffective is tragic.

If a preacher is so easily sexually aroused or sexually "disturbed" by women to the point that in this hypothetical instance, he could not preach effectively anymore, then I would submit that it wouldn't take a breast-feeding woman to put him in that state of mind.

Any woman, clothed or unclothed, that he found physically attractive would make him an ineffective man for the Lord.

Yes, people should be clothed modestly at all times.

But, they aren't...

...and a missionary's preaching shouldn't suffer for it.

If we waited for the world to become moral and righteous before we preached to them, then there would be no preaching.
 

Frenchy

New Member
bapmom, why do we have to look at today's mission field to answer my question? the same principle applies yesterday today and tomorrow.
the real issue was this preacher Sanderson's idea that nakedness was considered showing ones thigh, mens chest and the obvious? he made a big deal out of NOTHING!

I just think God is bigger than we give him credit for, to handle many issues. i think too many times we make mountains out of molehills.

[ April 07, 2006, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: Frenchy ]
 

Frenchy

New Member
I do not believe that simply because he is a man that he is automatically unable to continue preaching with taking his eyes off of her or of thinking impure thoughts about her.
Why does this answer always involve a pastor "preaching" and seeing a naked women? I am talking about EVERYDAY life walking around interacting with these people. must have been hard at first to deal with people hardly dressed if at all and the issues and problems it caused. our TV's and movies would be considered tame compared to that.

what got me thinking about this was the documentary of the missionaries who's husbands all died and the women continued to reach out and live with these people back in the 50's. these natives were not only brutal but very naked! they even made a movie about it the name i can't remember. "END OF THE SPEAR" i think.
 

Salamander

New Member
According to the Bible, showing the thigh is nakedness. Now if you want to delegate authority over the Bible due to cultural change, then be advised, that is not according to the will of God.

Man as a whole fits this description: evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.

It's just as wrong for a man to be bare chested as a woman, though not for the same reason considering the use of the woman, but we live in a day of rampant behaviour of sodomy. Why even women are "turned on" by bare chested men, so how is it anyone can deduce it to be acceptable?

God has already handled the issue: anything that allures towards the flesh is ungodly, the flesh is at enmity with God. What else is there left to figure out about that?
 

DHK

<b>Moderator</b>
In Queen Victoria's day women had to have their ankles covered. It was a mark of shame and impropriety if they didn't.
Come to think of it that wouldn't be a bad standard for today either.

DHK
 

Ransom

Active Member
Salamander said:

According to the Bible, showing the thigh is nakedness.

Depends on how you read it. Carelessly, then you're right.
 
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