A Misunderstanding Of Matthew 5:28

The most common and hurtful misrepresentations of Matthew 5:28 are the denial of women's visual nature (and therefore women's potential to lust), the endorsement of stereotypes that treat men as hypersexual beings, and the conflation of sexual attraction for the sinful state of lust.  Another possible misinterpretation appeals to the verse as grounds for guilt over physiological arousal of the genitals.  The verse cannot be legitimately used to demonize bodily reactions to either sexual or nonsexual stimuli, as it is not even addressing a physical action.

Matthew 5:28 does not condemn physiological arousal because its reference to the heart clearly refers to a disposition of the mind, not a potentially involuntary reaction of the genitals of men and women.  This would still be true whether or not the verse condemned extramarital sexual attraction--something that it does not actually condemn at all.  The Greek wording reveals that it condemns coveting someone else's spouse, meaning it has no application outside of that limited context.  Even so, any sort of genital arousal would not be the focus of the verse.

There is nothing shameful about the human body functioning as it is supposed to.  Likewise, there is nothing shameful about allowing oneself to welcome the pleasure that may be experienced during physiological arousal--or acting on it and sexually pleasuring oneself, even while thinking about a particular member of the opposite gender whom one is not and will not be in a romantic relationship with.  To do so is merely to take advantage of the way God fashioned the human body to function.

God made the male and female bodies to, generally speaking, react sexually to the sight or thought of at least some members of the opposite gender.  It would be contradictory of God to create the human body with such a capacity only to morally oppose people when their bodies experience arousal their minds may not even want in the first place.  Of course, since God was satisfied with his creation as he made it (Genesis 1:31), there is nothing morally negative about human physiology within Christian theology.

One of the best ways to live out the Biblically positive nature of nonsinful sexual expression is to simply enjoy the pleasure it brings.  For some people, this might entail regular self-pleasuring and sexual introspection.  For some, this might mean verbalizing their attraction to the opposite gender to share their excitement with others.  No matter its manifestation, in expressing sexuality in any nonsinful way, one can celebrate a fundamental aspect of human nature that God himself engineered.  There is no reason other than personal preference to refrain from savoring whatever Biblically permissible expressions of sexuality are subjectively appealing!