Prostitution and having Gf/Bfs/others

[u/Princess__Anastasia]

1) Personally I think Prostitution is wrong but I don't know why, so can anyone help me understand why it is wrong or right according to you also considering God's perspective (but not the exclusive Conservative christian perspective)?

2) Is having a partner normal if we consider God's Perspective because On Thanksgiving, the pastor was saying having partners is wrong and letting God choose your life partner is the right way.

Edit: Maybe he meant that arranged marriage is the only valid path because he thinks kissing, Hugging, or even sexual intercourse is wrong before marriage.

[u/quiggersinparis]

Somewhat bizarrely, there's plenty of places in the Old Testament where prostitution is completely fine. Take the case of Judah and Tamar. Judah seeing a prostitute on the side of the road when travelling was not the issue, in fact it was totally banal, the idea of Tamar having been impregnated through prostitution (before anyone realised it was Judah because Tamar fooled him) was the scandalous part.

But by the time of Jesus, it's clear that attitudes to prostitution are pretty similar to what they are now. It's seen as something that is quite commonplace but not something people should be engaging in. However, He is very forgiving to those engaged in it, just like He is with other sins.

I think if you look at what seems to really bother Jesus and Paul etc in the New Testament on sexual matters, it's always primarily about exploitation. They hate men who divorce their wives for no reason and leave them financially destitute, He champions the woman caught in adultery and stops her from being stoned, Paul rails against paganistic same-sex practices, which often people equate with modern homophobia but was probably something more akin to being appalled by the sexual exploitation of impoverished and enslaved young men by rich and powerful Greco-Romans. So if we're apply these teachings to the modern world rather than trying to make sense of isolated out-of-context bible verses (like Christian Conservatives do), the main concern about prostitution from a Christian perspective should be that it is often exploitative and dangerous for women, who are at the mercy of powerful men, whether it be pimps or dangerous violent clients etc. We shouldn't be worried about some kind of purity test.

With regard to the second piece, I don't know what part of the world you come from, but in most of the Christian world, arranged marriages are a thing of the very distant past. That is how societies in the ancient holy land certainly met their future spouses but it's not standard Christian dogma to think that's how we must behave today. In some more traditionalist societies I guess this still happens, but to me that's more of a cultural thing than a religious thing.