skin deep?...

[nHissvc]

What is fornication?

Is it the yielding (submission, "giving over", subjugation...etc.) of oneself to the "lusts" of the flesh?

Is it the illegitimate honoring, with one's body, unto physical assimilation?

Physically, is it, exclusively, an act of a sexual nature or can it pertain to food or wine or cigarettes...etc?

Are the "lusts" (objects) mere vehicles (means) to fornication?

Is fornication a unilateral act?

Thank you, in advance, for any light you can shed on the subject.

--Blessings.

[Lookin^Up]

Fornication always has a sexual connotation, an illicit union between a man and woman who are not married to each other. Plain and simple. It means the same when it appears in the Bible, and it is always condemned. Adultery, a synonym which in today's language often refers to at least one partner being married to someone else, is also used symbolically of idolatry, such as in Ezekiel 16 and 23, for instance.

Lust literally means desire, and though it's often used in a sexual sense, it can also refer to anything that unduly attracts your out-of-control attention span, at the exclusion of everything else.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Lookin^Up got it pretty much... Porneia, the Greek word most often translated as "fornication", referred in the Jewish context to every sexual sin, from pre and extramarital sex, to beastiality, to insest, to homosexuality... all of it falls under that umbra of "fornication", and it is never condoned by God.

[nHissvc]

Thanks for your input.

My initial perception was pretty much in line with the general concensus until I was presented with an alternative, "prostitution", interpretation which illuminated the scripture's similiar but varied uses of the word, "fornication". Some of which appeared to translate as idolatry (which is supported by the information you so graciously proffered).

Perhaps a more precise/followup question is whether addiction is also considered idolatry.

Thanks again,

--Blessings