Adultery isn't exclusively a Christian sin - I don't know of any religion that accepts it. That said, my WSTBXH and I were not particularly religous - raised in Christian households but not regular churchgoers. His OW was raised Jehovas Witness. OWH is a practicing Catholic, regularly attends church, was responsible for their DDs religious education and had her attending Catholic school. OW and WSTBXH got custody of DD, without telling anyone moved to another city because they didn't want OWH in their lives. (court frowned on this but did nothing to help OWH). Anyway, they not only registered her in a Catholic school, they've begun attending church there as well. It's totally weird and bizarre. So suddenly WSTBXH has "found G-d" and of course G-d smiles on their adulterous and sick relationships and OWH and I are the devil and responsible for everything from global warming to the war in Iraq.

I have no problem with Christianity. I truly identify with Christian values and try to live by them. It's organized religion that I hate (and hates me I supposed if they'll welcome a couple of lyin' cheatin' theivin' pieces of crap into their fold).

Becoming a Christian doesn't make a person perfect. Christians aren't free from temptations or wrong. Deciding to sin is a choice that a person makes - Christian, Muslim, Budhist, Athiest, or whatever.

People often stray from what they once believed was right because we're flawed. The bottom line for a Christian is that we are forgiven when we're truly repentant, ask God and those we've sinned against for forgiveness, and change our ways.

I have chosen to work with my WH to save our M and I came to this decision through much counseling and prayer. He has asked for forgiveness and is working on R with me. If, however, there is a second A, I will not stay in this M. I also believe that God would not expect me to continue in a M with someone who would continue to violate our vows to Him and each other. Based on my understanding of the Word, adultery is an acceptable reason for me to seek a D.

Your topic actually offends me a little, and maybe it should, as I am guilty of falling into the sin of adultery and I am also a Christian. I’m not sure if you are just attempting to add to my condemnation as an adulterer/sinner or trying to find clarity for yourself as to why we ALL sin. So I have a few quotes that don’t excuse my sin, but highlight the nature of sin in man.


Mark 14:38
38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."


Matthew 5:27-28
27 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart


Romans 7:14-25
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.


Galatians 6:1-4
1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else


These are but a few, as I could go on and on with quotes, they don’t answer everything. But your own study of scriptures may. I can only thank God for the grace and forgiveness that comes through my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Yes, we all sin, but lying to your friend about something that won’t hurt him deeply or damage him profoundly is no where near the same as killing someone for money or having sex with another woman behind your wife’s back, or raping an innocent young girl.



A Christian man, who had sex again and again with another woman behind his wife's back and then lied about it, gets offended when he is being referred to as a Christian who cheats is synonymous to a bank robber who robbed banks and sold drugs gets offended when he is being referred to as a criminal.

Who should really get offended when the above two events happened, meaning those two offenders being offended? In my opinion, with regards to the bank robber, the bank and its shareholders who got robbed and the people and their family whose lives were destroyed by drugs should be offended. With regards to the Christian man who cheated, his wife, children (if they have any), her family and love ones should be offended.

A drug dealer, a child molester, and a murder might be forgiven someday or might have already been forgiven by God and/or their victims, but it doesn’t mean that their crimes and wrongdoings never existed and it certainly doesn’t mean that their victims cease to suffer. Their being “offended” by such references, to me, is a slap in the face to their victims.

My now ex-wife used the trump card of being pre-forgiven for any sin she might incur.

However she doesn't read the instruction manual. I knew it inside and out and attempted to live by it.

This single verse she never understood, that I AM allowed to hold her sin aginst her since she knew exactly what she was doing when she did it and knew better and it was wrong.

A pastor reassured, her or so she says, that no matter what she is forgiven and it is forgotten and she will be exceedingly blessed because she "repented" of having a bad marriage by divorcing me.




So tst, you in debt to another Christian, and you can't be released from your willing sin until OWH and your wife forgives you.

Why would someone who has never told their story bring up a topic such as this?

I also asked you a question.... "I'm not sure if you are trying to add to my condemnation as an adulterer/sinner or trying to find clarity for yourself as to why we all sin?

I have no problem calling what I did sin, my family and I will live with the consequences always. I think Saint Paul is my role model, He called himself the "Chief Sinner". Thats Why I quoted Galatians!

A Christian friend gave me Psalm 51 recently, maybe you could look that up as well. And maybe the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5

After his affair, my very Catholic husband once told me, "The Catholic Church has exceptions for all of the commandments, including adultery." The hurt was too raw for me to respond by asking for clarification. Instead, I said, "Oh, really? Does one of the exceptions cover when both of the people involved in the affair are living with their spouse and young children?"

To my knowledge, there is no exception for adultery. The Catholic Church does say this: "Satan is the Father of Lies."

The best Scripture I have read concerning adultery is this: "Pride goeth before the fall." How many of us have expressed concern about what seemed like an inappropriate relationship and got: "I can handle it."

Cherishing

One or two years from now, what you did, to you, will probably be a mere distant memory. Your "suffering" can't never be compare to what your wife (or family if there are kids) went through. She suffered during the affair and after the affair. In addition, you got some enjoyment out of the affair including those fun dinner dates, sex at hotel or her place, flirtatious calls, etc.

What I get from your responses is that you're very defensive, maybe to a point that you're even trying to justify or making excuses for your actions by mentioning we all sin, along with what I perceived to be a need for ego boost or self assurance. Are these traits what got you into the affair in the first place? If they were, you have to be careful, they are surfacing again.


My topic was for general discussion and requesting posters for their opinions on certain issue and not some schalarly paper where the author's background is critically important. As you can see, many posters agreed with me that higher standard should be applied to Christians who cheat because they should know better, just like a cop who commit crimes, due to their knowledge of what such crime/sin can cause.

Is there a particular reason you are picking on me or my post? I could be wrong, but, it almost seems like you are looking for a fight. If that's the case, please don't post to my threads anymore.

How purpose does this topic serve? Why are you here? It's an honest question. Usually when someone starts a topic like this it's related to MB and originated by a poster who has a history. What's your deal?

I can't speak for the OP, but I think the topic is very valuable.

The points about everyone being a sinner and Paul admitting, rightly so that he was chief among sinners demonstrates the attitude that those who profess Christ as their savior should have.

Even something like the forgiveness offered by Christ can be perverted by those who choose to engage in affairs and remain in them.

I'm not saying this because of any personal sense of moral superiority. I'm saying it for exactly the opposite reasons, that I'm no better than the worst WS.

But as Christians, it's not wrong to expect to the fruit from those who claim the name of Christ.

Anyone can say they follow Christ, but how many really do?

Is sin evidence that someone doesn't follow Christ? Not really, we all sin, even Christians. What separates those who really follow Christ from those who don't is how we respond when faced with the fact of our sinful nature. Do we look for excuses, or do we seek forgiveness and turn from the sin.

GF,

I think that Christians will be held to a higher standard than non believers before the judgment seat of Christ, except for one minor detail...Christians will be covered by the righteousness of Christ rather than having to justify themselves based solely on their own merit.

I also think that Christian leaders will be held to an even higher standard than other believers, for they have been charged with carrying out the work of Christ on Earth while they are here.

That said, I would suggest that before you make sweeping assertions about TST's self justifying tendencies, you might want to actually read his and his wife's threads and try to see what reality is rather than interjecting your own presuppositions into his statements and answers to you.

Of all the former wayward spouses on this site, TST has gone way beyond the norm in attempting to show his repentance, not just remorse, but a true change of thinking (the word repent, after all, means to change one's mind, or more exactly...to think again.) He has not only exhibited repentance but has also made a lot of personal sacrifices concerning his own future well being, financial and otherwise, in an effort to make just compensation for his failure.

Paul himself sought to destroy all Christians and to wipe the name of Jesus (or Jeshua) from the face of the earth. And yet, once he met the risen savior face to face, he was transformed and became a new person, no longer bound by his sin and no longer responsible for it either, since that burden was carried by Christ when He died on the cross. This is the very thing Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans and I think it applies to TST as well as other Christians, who while being forgiven and called to a higher moral ground because of that forgiveness, are still imperfect, temporal creatures who if they could overcome sin totally, would have no need of a savior and a substitutionary sacrifice.

David was called "a man after my own heart" by God and yet he sinned in so many ways as to be almost laughable, and yet he knew that his salvation, forgiveness and justification before God came not from his works but from the grace of God and His righteousness applied to him while David himself had no merit of value before God.

The bottom line is that while Christians should know better, we are all still lining in a fallen world and still keep our old sin nature when we become followers of Christ. It isn't that we no longer sin but that we are forgiven that makes us Christians.

Given the state of most affairs not involving Christians that I have encountered here and elsewhere, I find TST to be a breath of fresh air. He admits he screwed up and sees that his only hope is for Christ to overcome his sin for him. I know of many who have attended church for over 30 years or more that have never had that epiphany and still believe they deserve to be saved because of how good they have been.

I also need to tell you that your greeting is much more benign than it might have been a few months or even weeks ago. Folks around here are quite (rightly) skeptical of those who come here to give advice before they even introduce themselves. This attitude in some cases comes from years of seeing people come and go, usually with their own axe to grind having never read any of Dr Harley's work or even read the material on this site.

And believe me when I tell you that you can't begin to be as hard on TST as the folks around here were at the height of his affair. Some of them are pretty good at recognizing self justification attempts when they see them, having lived with them for years. Just trust me on this, TST ain't it...

Mark

GreenForest - let me begin my comments by answering your questions first. "I always wonder how they justify their actions". There isn't really much "wonder" about it. It's called "sin" and sin "blinds" people to their choices as NOT being honoring to God.

Now let me ask you a question, if I may.

Are you a Christian, is your spouse a Christian, and have either of you engaged in adultery?

I'm trying to understand the motivation for your post and questions.

Also, with respect your "wondering" about "how they justify their actions, especially when they continue to attend church and sometimes, even hold leadership positions at their churches", there are many reasons, not the the least of which is the church they attend and the church's belief in the authority of Scripture. Obviously, the corrolary to this is whether or not the church is aware of the adultery or not.