Lasciviousness

Lasciviousness is an English word used in older Bible translations for unrestrained, shameless sensuality — conduct that acts on desire without shame or restraint, and so is close in meaning to "debauchery," "licentiousness," or "sensuality." As a linguistic matter, the word in the older English versions most often translates the Greek noun aselgeia, which carries the sense of outrageous, unbridled excess rather than merely strong feeling; this is why modern versions usually render it "debauchery," "sensuality," or "orgies" instead of keeping the older term. The concept, then, is not simply desire but a settled refusal of shame in satisfying it.

The text says that such conduct arises from inside a person: Jesus places "evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts" among the things that come "from within, out of the hearts of men," and concludes that these "evil things come from within and defile the man" (Mark 7:21, 7:23). Paul lists "orgies, and things like these" among the works of the flesh and warns that "those who practice such things will not inherit God's Kingdom" (Galatians 5:21), and he places the unrighteous generally, including the "sexually immoral," outside that inheritance (1 Corinthians 6:9). The same field of meaning appears where Paul speaks of a mind given up to "do things which are not fitting" (Romans 1:28) and where he commands believers to "put to death" their earthly members, naming "sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire" (Colossians 3:5).

Set against this, the text says, is disciplined self-mastery and a redirected life: Paul speaks of beating his body "and bringing it into submission" so as not to be disqualified after preaching to others (1 Corinthians 9:27), and Peter writes that believers should "no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God" (1 Peter 4:2), an appeal anchored in an "incorruptible and undefiled inheritance" kept in heaven (1 Peter 1:4). Two features of these passages are worth noting. First, the vice lists are open-ended — "and things like these" (Galatians 5:21) — so the term names a category of behavior rather than one precise act. Second, the warnings are addressed to churches, which is why interpreters differ over whether they describe who was never truly among the faithful or warn genuine believers against complacency.

Christian traditions read the term with different emphases. In this tradition — particularly Puritan, holiness, and conservative evangelical teaching — lasciviousness is treated chiefly as sexual sin to be named specifically and mortified, and the vice lists are read as tests of genuine conversion. Historically, Lutheran and Reformed readers have often stressed that such lists expose the flesh remaining in every believer and drive hearers to grace rather than to a works-based assurance, while still insisting that persistent practice is incompatible with the kingdom (Galatians 5:21). Many modern translations' shift from "lasciviousness" to "debauchery" or "sensuality" reflects a judgment that the older English word has become misleadingly narrow; some readers who prefer the older versions regard the retention of the term as doctrinally important. One way to read the whole range of passages is that Scripture treats shameless self-indulgence as a heart condition with outward fruits, addressed both by warning and by the call to put it to death (Colossians 3:5).

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.