Love vs power

[fisherman_carl]

I was thinking lately about how a lot of what people do is motivated to have power over something. To have power over your environment, your relationships, your finances, your job, etc. However, when thinking about love, it would seem that love is not having a power over some one else, but giving them the freedom to be themselves, to freely choose to love. In other words love isn’t about power. But about giving up power to the beloved. Take God for example. He created us with free will. He could have made us like robots having complete control over us. But instead he gave us the ability to choose so that we could choose love freely, as though God thought that being freely loved was more important than obligated or forced love. But this also means God gives us the power to accept or reject him.

 

[fisherman_carl]

1 Cor 13:4-7

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; ¶ it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. ¶ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.“

 

[fisherman_carl]

Take for example the idea of a woman wearing sexy revealing clothing at a party. According to Jennifer Fulwiler on her radio show the woman who does this is making a power play. She wants to have power over men. And, this creates animosity between her and the other women there. Modesty on the other hand according to Jennifer is not simply dressing less revealing to help men keep from having lustful thoughts, but more importantly to help foster friendship between women.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Take for example the idea of a woman wearing sexy revealing clothing at a party. According to Jennifer Fulwiler on her radio show the woman who does this is making a power play. She wants to have power over men. And, this creates animosity between her and the other women there. Modesty on the other hand according to Jennifer is not simply dressing less revealing to help men keep from having lustful thoughts, but more importantly to help foster friendship between women.

Thank you for this thread… I agree about love and power…

I also agree with you about a woman in ‘sexy clothing’ making a ‘power play’… ***but ***we don’t know the reasons why she is making that power play. Sometimes this is all a woman knows to try and muster safety for herself, to have control over her body. Sounds crazy, but a lot of women who were sexually molested or raped use this ‘power’ as a means of feeling in control of their bodies… so we can’t judge the reasons why they do what they do. You can’t point a finger in that way… if you are (not saying you are) …and to do so, would actually be its own form of power play, honestly.

Just had to say that because its true. Hurt people hurt people. No shortage of hurt people ever. Throw a rock in the air and you’ll hit someone guilty… and least at sometime in their lives to some degree.

One also can’t judge whether or not a woman has wrongly judged what is modest or not when she picked out her outfit. Maybe she thinks what she is wearing is fine and that Jesus would smile upon it? Maybe someone else doesn’t see it that way… The ever lasting long threads on modesty on these boards will prove that its not a straight cut issue. Also, I’ve known some women who cut down woman who were beautiful, deeming them immodest simply because the men like to look at her. They judge her figure and the attention she gets and make assumptions about her morality.

I don’t think people even realize when they are making a grab at power. That’s the scary thing about it all!

 

[AnneElizabeth]

…Modesty on the other hand according to Jennifer is not simply dressing less revealing to help men keep from having lustful thoughts, but more importantly to help foster friendship between women.

I mean no offense… just iron sharpening iron here (no power play), but I don’t believe that.

People (not just men, but women also) will lust over what they want to if they want. Its also very well possible a person can have zero lust over a person scantily clad, naked or even in a sexual position because their hearts are already in the Lord and do not see people as objects to be used. Its possible for anyone to be that way (in the Lord) and see the person behind what few articles of clothing they have on and not lust. So how a person dresses has nothing to do with it.

If modest clothing helped actually helped to stop lust, then it would happen that women wearing modest clothing would be safe from rape and its just not even remotely true. The women in Polygamous groups wear very modest clothing for example… rape exists there.