Is It Sinful to Watch Shows with Nudity in Them?

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00:00

there were articles that were written about those kind of scenes that you're talking about and how degraded the actors actually were and how that affected them long -term, right?

00:11

So this thing that you're talking about that's just supposed to be for this greater purpose of showing the evil of the

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Nazis and all that, they were debased and humiliated and shamed. All right,

00:40

Tim, the question for today's episode is, is it sinful to watch shows with nudity in them?

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I think the obvious answer to that should be yes, but then with some sort of qualifications on it.

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But most people, when they hear that question, they should just instantaneously say yes. The general answer should just be, yeah.

01:00

Yeah, obviously, yeah. Now, I'll qualify it to say that there are certain programs out there like Bit Angel where you can cut a lot of that stuff out.

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And it may be that there's a perfectly fine show to watch that has an unfortunate scene in there just for the sake of upping the ratings and all that, and you are living in a pagan society and culture.

01:22

But then putting that aside for a second, let's say you can remove it, then I think you're just talking about a different kind of situation at that point.

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And maybe the overwhelming and obvious answer, it might not be yes at that point, assuming that you can remove it without thought.

01:40

But other than that, then the obvious answer should be yes. So why should it be yes? I feel silly asking you that question, but I mean,

01:51

I have to. It's the nature of the episode. Fair enough, yeah. Well, all right.

01:57

This is something that we shouldn't have to explain to people as if they were five -year -olds or something like that.

02:05

But yeah, I mean, there is such a thing called lust. And so, part of this is related to a lust discussion.

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You can some kind of horribly desensitized person who can say that they can just look at nudity and not be...

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It doesn't do anything for them. Doesn't do anything. And if that's them, then you're one step away from being Jeffrey Dahmer or something like that.

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So we should be praying for you because if you're that desensitized to it, there's something significantly wrong with you.

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And we should be praying for you. So part of it is like a lust discussion. But then even beyond that, you can read through the

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Old Covenant. And one of the things you're going to find over and over and over again is there's a euphemism in the

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Bible for sexual intercourse. And that euphemism is called uncovering the nakedness of your relatives.

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And so, post fall, God instantaneously gave Adam and Eve clothes in order to cover their nakedness.

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And that's something that's just built into the fabric of society that God has made. So nakedness belongs to...

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It doesn't belong to anyone and everyone. It is something that's intimate and personal and belongs to your spouse.

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And so you have this euphemism for sexual intercourse in the Bible called uncovering the nakedness of someone.

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And Leviticus 18 .7, here's an example of this. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother.

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So notice how her nakedness belongs... The father's nakedness belongs to who?

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To the mother, right? And you can think about in that the story of Noah becoming uncovered and Ham basically making him into a mockery at that point, and the brothers

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Shem and Japheth walking backwards in order to cover their father up. So you have an actual story that happened that is now being explained within the law.

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But basically, the premise behind the whole idea is that a person's nakedness does not belong to anyone and everyone.

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And yeah, certainly that's a euphemism for sexual immorality. But then I think also it's a principle that you shouldn't ignore there as well.

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But then you can go to 1 Corinthians and Paul will play upon this idea with the body metaphor, basically saying in 1

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Corinthians 12 .23, in the parts of the body that we think are less honorable, we bestow greater honor, and the unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty.

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So there's this doctrine in the Bible of modesty, and you need to basically cover yourself, and this is what

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God has instituted. So this isn't just a matter of how it affects a person. It's a matter of God's design, and nakedness belongs to certain people, and it doesn't belong to everyone else, if that makes sense.

04:59

So what about shows with nudity that are not explicitly meant to be sexual in any kind of way?

05:14

Yeah, it doesn't really matter. So think of Village being a

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TV show about the Holocaust or something. Yeah, the Schindler's List. So something like that, where it's not meant to be sexual.

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So the point though is just to say, and I think this is something that people don't understand, nakedness actually doesn't belong to everyone.

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So it doesn't matter whether or not a person can handle it, or thinks they can handle it, or the context of it.

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Is it done in art or whatever else, or is it done for a purpose? The point though is to say that fundamentally, objectively, this doesn't belong to you, and it's not for you.

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And so it's not for you, it doesn't belong to you, and it needs to be covered.

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And in that way, you're running against the passages that I just read about uncovering nakedness of your close relatives.

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So you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. So that nakedness of your father belongs to your mother, it doesn't belong to anyone else.

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So in that way, the context of it doesn't matter how well you think you can handle it, it doesn't matter. Now I remember watching, with the

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Schindler's analogy, that was something that we watched. We had to sign a waiver form growing up or something like that to watch it in high school, basically, for history and all that.

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But I remember there were articles that were written about those kind of scenes that you're talking about, and how degraded the actors actually were, and how that affected them long -term.

07:07

So this thing that you're talking about that's just supposed to be for this greater purpose of showing the evil of the

07:12

Nazis and all that, they were debased and humiliated and shamed. And there was an act of debasing them and shaming them and humiliating them.

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And by watching it, you're participating in that debasing them, shaming them, humiliating them.

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You're doing something that's voyeurism, essentially, it's a sin of voyeurism in that way. And you're basically playing the role of Ham in that encounter, no matter what your motive is.

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Does that make sense? Yeah, so speaking about the actors themselves, right?

07:45

I'm saying, you're playing the role of Ham by watching it. Right, right. You're degrading the actors themselves as they're trying to portray something that was evil, right?

07:58

That's right, yep. Yeah, that reminds me a lot too of, I guess, maybe it's

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Job who says, you know, I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look at anything unclean, right?

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And he's presented to us as an example of someone in the Bible who is the most righteous person on the entire earth, right?

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And he's basically saying, I don't look at these things, right?

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If I can help it, I've committed to not trying to look at anything. And nudity in all of its forms would fall into this category, right?

08:36

That's right. Now, I mean, what people will bring up, you know, just as by means of, like what people do is they like to ignore the plain sense of what we're talking about here by appealing to just rare examples, right?

08:49

And so, and that's a bit of a frustrating thing where you can't establish a general principle, does that work?

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And in the people, if there's any counterexample whatsoever, then all of a sudden you have, you know, fundamentally overturned the rule.

09:02

So what about like, you know, doctors who have to perform surgeries on people and things like that?

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Like, you know, now, like, or gynecologists or things like that. Well, let me say with gynecologists, if you're a male being a gynecologist, you need to change your job, man.

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Like, you know, it's not, it's like, you're a creeper, you know, it's not intuitively obvious to me that you're not doing something fundamentally wrong.

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Like, let a lady do it. Then, you know, like my wife has commented on that, like over the years, how like, she doesn't want to go to a male gynecologist.

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I've heard plenty of women tell, you know, just mention offhandedly throughout the years that that's something that would make them feel very uncomfortable.

09:38

Very. Yeah. So, I mean, like, like the, the issue is though, is there some place for someone like, um, performing surgery on someone because they're an expert in their field and they have to, sure.

09:48

You have to do open heart surgery. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, fine. But I mean, like the thing is like, you can, there is some kind of care that can be taken there.

09:57

And when, you know, God pictures himself seeing Israel, like, um, as a naked, you know, virgin in the wilderness and God comes and he covers up her nakedness.

10:07

Right. And that should be our, our posture. And there may be like rare exceptions to that. And, you know, making them as gender, um, specific as you possibly can, that's helpful, but that doesn't

10:18

Right. Yeah. Right. Last question. And I think you've covered this a little bit, but, um, what about like, you know, uh, so a lot of, a lot of times

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TV shows like this, they're showing, you know, a lot of female nudity, right?

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There's, there's not really a lot of male nudity. So if a, if a woman is watching that kind of show, is that still, you know, she's not, she's not attracted to women in any kind of way whatsoever is still wrong.

10:49

If a lady is watching the female nudity. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the same thing as ham. Okay. Yeah.

10:55

I mean, ham's a male, like it just doesn't belong to you. And the more that you do that, the more that you're doing something fundamentally immoral.

11:01

Okay. Fair enough. This has been another episode of Bible bashed.

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Now go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.