by Wayne Jackson<\/p>\n
What is “lasciviousness,” as mentioned in Galatians 5:19? The Greek word behind the English term “lascivious” is aselgeia<\/em>.<\/p>\n It occurs nine times in the New Testament. Twice it is rendered as “wantonness” (Romans 13:13; II Peter 2:18), and once it appears as “filthy” (II Peter 2:7). The other six times it is translated as “lascivious” (cf. Mark 7:22; II Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:19; I Peter 4:3; Jude 4).<\/p>\n Lasciviousness is a gross form of wickedness that has sexual overtones in many cases. It starts in a sinful heart (Mark 7:21-22) and manifests itself in fleshly, carnal actions (Galatians 5:19). It can lead to a state of being “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19).<\/p>\n The word refers to several attitudes or actions. With reference to sexual matters, it embraces the concepts of excess, unbridled lust, debauchery, and sensuality. It suggests a disregard for public decency.<\/p>\n William Barclay says the word conveys the idea of a person “who is so far gone in lust and desire” that he or she ceases “to care what people say or think” (52). Josephus, the Jewish historian, once used the word to describe a man who indecently exposed himself to a crowd (Antiquities<\/em> 20.5.3).<\/p>\n J. H. Thayer connected the term with such things as “wanton (acts or) manners, filthy words, indecent bodily movements,” and “unchaste handling of males and females” (79-80). It is a comprehensive term for evil and perversion (Balz, 169).<\/p>\n For example, it describes the moral environment of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah (II Peter 2:7), and we hardly need a reminder of the shameless practices characteristic of those communities.<\/p>\n The term aselgeia, however, can go beyond sexual sins and imply any form of excess. This extended meaning suggests someone who “knows no boundaries” in whatever form of evil he indulges (cf. Trench, 56-58).<\/p>\n In this discussion, however, we will limit ourselves to some applications in issues of sexuality – which seems to be a rather pressing matter in this age of sensuality and apparent insensitivity.<\/p>\n The use of sexually explicit media materials is a form of lasciviousness. This would include pornographic visuals, such as live productions, books or magazines, movies or videos, audio tapes, etc. This is a growing problem in American society – even among some who profess Christianity.<\/p>\n The internet has removed pornography from seedy downtown parlors to being easily accessed from nearly every home in America. Counselors affirm that pornography is highly addictive, and numerous marriages have been ruined by people who have indulged in sexually explicit filth.<\/p>\n Statistical evidence indicates that sexual predators, child molesters, and even some murderers, like the infamous Ted Bundy, begin their nefarious careers by ingesting a diet of salacious materials.<\/p>\n Lasciviousness occurs frequently in workplaces, where men and women are constantly thrown together in close contact.<\/p>\n Flirting, suggestive touching, sexual innuendo, and bawdy humor would fall into this category. Immodest, provocative clothing with skin-tight apparel, the display of cleavage, or thigh-revealing skirts are also forms of lascivious conduct that very often lead to fornication and adultery.<\/p>\n The tempter, as well as the tempted, are guilty.<\/p>\n Lascivious communications are common on many social media websites. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat … the list is endless. Both young women and men are encouraged by the perception of fame and admiration to tease the world and promote the vilest forms of language and salacious photographs.<\/p>\n Amazingly, many who identify themselves as Christians, though they obviously have no understanding of the significance of that term, participate in this form of lasciviousness without hardly a blush. Some teens use these sites innocently, but they are in a minefield of danger and evil influence.<\/p>\n Christian parents should carefully supervise what their youngsters view, as they spend hours of their leisure time on the internet.<\/p>\n It is incomprehensible that many parents allow their sons and daughters to engage in various forms of lascivious conduct, whether in how they dress, the visual entertainment they choose, or the profane language they use. Such actions are sweeping their youngsters down a road to destruction.<\/p>\n Those who take the Scriptures seriously will personally abstain from such practices and train their children in morally pure, respectable behavior.<\/p>\n The lascivious person will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven (Galatians 5:19-21). To ignore the biblical warnings is the epitome of folly.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Wayne Jackson What is “lasciviousness,” as mentioned in Galatians 5:19? The Greek word behind the English term “lascivious” is aselgeia. It occurs nine times in the New Testament. Twice it is rendered as “wantonness” (Romans 13:13; II Peter 2:18), and once it appears as “filthy” (II Peter 2:7). The other six times it is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1930,205,596],"class_list":["post-97634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-lasciviousness","tag-lewdness","tag-sensuality"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8726,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-lasciviousness-mean\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":0},"title":"What does lasciviousness mean?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What does lasciviousness mean? And does it speak clearly in the Bible about homosexuality? Answer: Lasciviousness, licentiousness, lewdness, or sensuality, depending on the translation of your Bible, means being wanton, lewd, or lustful. William Barclay described it as \"a love of sin so reckless and so audacious that a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55391,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/but-it-is-the-biggest-event-of-the-school-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":1},"title":"But It Is the Biggest Event of the School Year!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Greg Litmer in\u00a0That Ye May Grow Thereby It comes every year. You walk through the mall and see that J.C. Penney's, Sears, and Macy's have rack after rack of formals for sale, and the tuxedo rental shops are advertising special deals. Before too long a lot of young Christians\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53933,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-moral-danger-of-the-modern-dance\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":2},"title":"The Moral Danger of the Modern Dance","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Frank Walton Biblical Insights, Vol. 6, No. 6, June 2006. \"Dancing\" can be defined simply as \"the rhythmic movement of the body to music\" (II Samuel 6:16; Luke 15:25; Ecclesiastes 3:4). The\u00a0Ryrie Study Bible\u00a0notes on religious dancing in Psalms 149:3: \"In the Old Testament, whirling motion done by a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/ModernDancing.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":88309,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/dancing-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":3},"title":"Dancing (Pickford)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Michael Pickford There is considerable confusion and even some debate over the idea of dancing. Some believe dancing is a sin simply because it is dancing. However, the Bible does not condemn dancing in itself. It never says, \"Thou shalt not dance.\" To the contrary, the Bible says that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1334,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-does-adultery-start\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":4},"title":"How does adultery start?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How does adultery start? In what way then is it looked upon as adultery Answer: James describes the steps leading to death from sin as thus: \"Let no one say when he is tempted, \"I am tempted by God\"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26534,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/works-of-the-flesh-things-like-these\/","url_meta":{"origin":97634,"position":5},"title":"Works of the Flesh: “Things Like These”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Ethan R. Longhenry Having warned them regarding the danger of apostasy in committing themselves to the Law of Moses (cf. Galatians 1:1-5:16), the Apostle Paul reminded the Galatian Christians regarding the conflict between the desires of the flesh and the ways of God in the Spirit and exhorted the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97637,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97634\/revisions\/97637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sexual Lasciviousness<\/h2>\n
Pornography<\/h2>\n
Flirtation and Sexual Banter<\/h2>\n
Internet Exhibitionism<\/h2>\n