--"All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek HIS OWN good, but the good of his neighbor." 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 ESV
Yesterday I touched on a topic that has been very controversial in Christian circles. I do not consider myself to be a legalist, but I do believe that I believe that the Word of God does clear instruction on taking care of our temples.
I hear a lot of what I call "sloppy grace teaching" that I believe is causing well-meaning Christians to explore liberties that eventually end up causing destruction in their lives. The verse quoted above, and many others, are often not considered because of our selfish fleshly desires.
I have been blessed by a daily blog written by Tim Challies. On Wednesday Tim wrote about the subject of smoking that I think is worth sharing. I emailed him and received his permission to quote this section of his blog:
I guess the crux of the matter is this: is it sinful to smoke? It seems to me that it is hard to sustain a consistent biblical argument which would conclude that smoking is always and ever sinful. I think it is difficult to bind another person's conscience without resorting into some kind of inconsistency or legalism.
I see the logic behind these arguments, but those same principles seem to fail when they are extended to the rest of the Christian life. There is part of me that feels I should say with certainty that smoking is sinful. But I don't think I can do so in good conscience.
I actually quite like John Piper's take on this one (though he does conclude that smoking is sinful). He says, "Habitually smoking cigarettes seems to say, 'Life doesn't matter as much as my pleasures do.' And the fact that it is highly addictive should also encourage Christians to keep their distance." So maybe there is a difference between the person who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and the person who occasionally enjoys a fine cigar.
Piper writes that in his church they do not focus specifically on smoking; instead, they have a higher standard. "We engage to abstain from all drugs, food, drink, and practices which bring unwarranted harm to the body or jeopardize our own or another's faith." Some might argue that this is a lowering of standard, but I'm inclined to believe that it actually raises the standard. It removes the focus from specific pet sins and widens the focus to a wider range of sins that we may be willing to tolerate. We should give thought to everything we do, everything we eat, everything we breathe in.
I have an intense dislike toward smoking. I dislike the smell of it and I have a special pet peeve toward seeing cigarette butts lying on the ground outside buildings. But I don't presume to think that I can tell much about a person's spiritual condition by the fact that he smokes. Nor do I find that I can (or would want to) generate the kind of argument from Scripture that would tell another person that smoking is absolutely forbidden. But when we look at the evidence of how smoking impacts the smoker's health, how it impacts the health of others around him, how it encourages addiction and so on, it seems that it is something the Christian would be eager to avoid or overcome.
Is it always and for all people sinful? I don't know that I would go that far. Piper gets it right when he says "Don't pick out a few individual named sins, but let your definition of sin be sweeping and pervasive so that it touches everything. And let your definition of holiness be the same. How you drink Coke, eat pizza, or exercise can all be sin issues, or not."
So what do you think? Is smoking sinful? Or can it, like so many other things, be done for God's glory?
If you'd like information about Tim's blog, send me an email. Thanks.
God's WORD for YOU: Proverbs 21
Great Quote: God created us to have needs, not counting them as sinful or selfish. Without them, we'd have no way of knowing our need for God or how much He loves us. Anonymous
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