‘Nothing Is to Be Rejected’ — Including Pot?
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:04.000 | On Wednesday, we looked at our greatest joy.
00:00:07.400 | What could make you happy forever?
00:00:10.400 | The surest and most stable answer to this question is found in the Bible in four representative
00:00:16.400 | texts.
00:00:17.400 | Those were Psalm 40, verse 16; Psalm 70, verse 4; Romans 5, 11; and 1 Peter 3, 18.
00:00:23.240 | We looked at those passages last time, and they get mentioned a lot on this podcast to
00:00:26.660 | make one precious point.
00:00:30.760 | God himself is the prize of the gospel.
00:00:38.400 | But even as God is the prize of the gospel, he daily lavishes on us all sorts of other
00:00:44.660 | created gifts that are good and lawful and should be embraced with thanksgiving.
00:00:51.060 | But handling such gifts is not without challenges for all of us, and particularly for Jameson,
00:00:56.160 | a podcast listener with today's question.
00:00:58.760 | Pastor John, hello.
00:01:01.040 | Here's my question for you today.
00:01:02.560 | I have Christian friends who believe that alcohol and drugs, particularly pot, are morally
00:01:07.120 | good things to be received in the spirit of what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4.4.
00:01:12.440 | For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received
00:01:17.680 | with thanksgiving.
00:01:20.880 | But I know Paul also says that all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
00:01:25.280 | All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
00:01:30.640 | That's 1 Corinthians 10.23.
00:01:33.320 | I'm trying to figure out what we can thank God for and what we cannot thank him for.
00:01:40.040 | Number one, can we thank God for a substance that is illegal for us, say underage drinking
00:01:47.320 | or recreational pot, where it breaks the law?
00:01:51.000 | And two, does Paul imply that we can thank God for anything that is lawful for us, but
00:01:57.320 | not helpful to us?
00:01:59.880 | I guess I'm asking, in what ways would you qualify Paul's "nothing is to be rejected"?
00:02:06.960 | When my friend attempts to thank God for the pot that I don't think benefits his life and
00:02:10.780 | which is illegal for him to use, I am troubled.
00:02:14.760 | Right, you should be troubled.
00:02:18.560 | I'm glad Jameson got to the point where he said, "I guess what I'm asking is, in what
00:02:25.360 | ways would you qualify Paul's 'nothing is to be rejected'?"
00:02:30.280 | Because that is really the issue.
00:02:32.560 | The issue is not, "What can I give thanks for?"
00:02:36.480 | Paul teaches that we should give thanks for everything.
00:02:40.000 | Doesn't help his case at all, right?
00:02:42.280 | Ephesians 5.20, "Give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of
00:02:48.120 | the Lord Jesus."
00:02:49.960 | But that does not mean give moral approval to everything.
00:02:56.000 | It means, rather, that we recognize that in the providence of God, he makes everything
00:03:02.880 | serve his wise and loving purposes, even some very painful and even sinful things.
00:03:10.880 | So I don't think the key question is, "What should we thank God for?"
00:03:18.040 | And Paul said in 1 Timothy 4.4, "Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to
00:03:26.400 | be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving."
00:03:31.800 | He's saying that's why everything exists, namely, to reveal the goodness of God and
00:03:39.280 | to awaken in the human soul thanksgiving.
00:03:41.440 | In other words, we should only use creation, all of it, the way it was designed to be used,
00:03:49.960 | namely with thanksgiving.
00:03:52.400 | So Jameson says the real question is, and he's right, I think, certainly the question
00:03:58.720 | that exercises me, "What does Paul mean when he says nothing in creation is to be
00:04:05.960 | rejected?"
00:04:08.720 | And I think he means nothing is to be rejected because it is ritually unclean.
00:04:16.960 | According to Mark 7.19, Jesus declared all foods clean.
00:04:23.280 | So they're all lawful, not to be rejected.
00:04:27.920 | None of the Old Testament dietary laws applies anymore.
00:04:31.820 | They were a temporary way for Israel to set itself off from the nations.
00:04:36.520 | The church doesn't aim to set itself off from the nations in that way anymore.
00:04:40.880 | With food laws, nothing is ritually unclean for the Christian.
00:04:45.480 | In that sense, it's lawful, it's all lawful.
00:04:49.640 | None is to be rejected as ritually off-limits, which also means that the false teachers in
00:04:59.080 | 1 Timothy 4 who were forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from foods were falling
00:05:05.040 | back into the old legal way rather than walking in the freedom of Christ.
00:05:12.360 | But to say that nothing is to be rejected as ritually unclean does not mean that all
00:05:21.360 | is to be eaten or drunk, even with Thanksgiving, because there are other factors to take into
00:05:31.280 | account, which Paul doesn't mention here because they're not the issue with the false
00:05:36.420 | teachers in 1 Timothy.
00:05:38.600 | But Jameson is right that he should bring in Paul's principles from 1 Corinthians because
00:05:45.240 | they are relevant as to what we shall reject or not reject.
00:05:51.120 | And I think there are at least three principles that Paul mentions as to what do we do with
00:05:58.320 | nature, the goodness of nature.
00:06:02.040 | One principle is love, 1 Corinthians 10, 23.
00:06:06.120 | All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
00:06:10.800 | All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
00:06:16.240 | Let no one seek his own good but the good of his neighbor.
00:06:23.160 | So we do not simply say, "I'm free, and all foods are clean, and that's that.
00:06:30.280 | I eat what I want."
00:06:31.880 | No, that's not the way a Christian talks.
00:06:35.800 | We ask, "Will it be helpful?
00:06:38.840 | Will it be profitable?
00:06:40.960 | Will other people benefit from my enjoyment of this use of this, doing of this?"
00:06:48.720 | That's the principle of love.
00:06:51.400 | And then in 1 Corinthians 6, 12, he brings out two other principles, I think.
00:06:57.640 | He says, "All things are lawful for me," same beginning, but he continues differently.
00:07:05.640 | But not all things are helpful.
00:07:07.320 | All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated, controlled, taken over, enslaved
00:07:17.320 | by anything, even good things.
00:07:21.160 | Here the principle looks the same as 1 Corinthians 10, but it's not quite.
00:07:26.920 | Instead of saying, "Seek the good of your neighbor in what you eat," he says, "I
00:07:33.320 | will not be dominated or enslaved by anything."
00:07:38.680 | You might say this is the principle of self-love, a proper self-love.
00:07:44.840 | Be watchful not to be addicted.
00:07:48.560 | Be watchful not to be damaged.
00:07:51.080 | I think those would be the two principles.
00:07:53.560 | Is it tending toward my slavery, making me a slave?
00:07:58.640 | I'm out of control here.
00:08:00.080 | I'm utterly dependent on this thing.
00:08:02.960 | And is it hurting me?
00:08:04.280 | Is it doing me damage as my master?
00:08:09.520 | So three principles at least put limits on the statement, "Nothing is to be rejected."
00:08:17.360 | One, love.
00:08:20.240 | Will it help or hurt others?
00:08:22.640 | Two, addiction.
00:08:25.000 | Will I be enslaved?
00:08:27.000 | Is it enslaving me?
00:08:29.080 | Three, damage to my body or soul.
00:08:32.560 | Will it dominate me hurtfully?
00:08:36.320 | But maybe the clearest way to show Jameson's friends that they don't really mean it when
00:08:44.760 | they say that since everything that God made is good, absolutely nothing is to be rejected.
00:08:51.320 | They don't mean that because they know good and well that there are mushrooms that will
00:08:56.160 | kill you if you eat them.
00:08:58.880 | There are some people with such severe peanut allergies, they would die.
00:09:04.600 | They would die if they eat a peanut.
00:09:07.000 | They wouldn't even let you have peanuts on the airplane when these people are on board.
00:09:11.400 | They don't serve peanuts.
00:09:13.320 | They know this.
00:09:14.640 | These friends know this.
00:09:15.680 | They make distinctions themselves.
00:09:18.420 | So the question is whether cannabis is helpful to others when we use it.
00:09:24.320 | Is it addicting to my mind?
00:09:26.760 | Is it hurtful to the mind or to the soul?
00:09:29.360 | Those are the key questions.
00:09:30.360 | And it might help to close by me just doing a little memory exercise here.
00:09:37.320 | When I came to Bethlehem Baptist Church 43 years ago as pastor, the church covenant said
00:09:46.440 | this, "We engage to abstain from the use and sale of alcoholic beverages," which meant
00:09:59.120 | that teetotalism was required for church membership.
00:10:04.880 | Now, I told the leaders when I came, "That is seriously unbiblical," even though I myself
00:10:16.120 | see good reasons in our culture and our day with my personality for being a teetotaler.
00:10:24.440 | That's not a biblical requirement for church membership.
00:10:28.260 | So how did we change it?
00:10:29.280 | We did.
00:10:30.280 | It almost cost me my job in the second year I was there, but the vote passed and I survived.
00:10:36.320 | How did we change the covenant?
00:10:39.600 | We made it more radical.
00:10:42.360 | And here's the present wording.
00:10:45.000 | We engage to seek God's help in abstaining from all drugs, food, drink, and practices
00:10:56.000 | which bring unwarranted harm to the body or jeopardize our own or another's faith.
00:11:04.000 | So not just alcohol or cannabis or whatever, but all drugs, all food, all drink, all practices.
00:11:12.400 | And the way we test what we eat or drink or do is does it bring unwarranted harm to the
00:11:20.040 | body or does it jeopardize our own or another's faith?
00:11:24.840 | And I think that's a good application of Paul's principles in the New Testament.
00:11:33.200 | Will it enslave and damage or will it help and love?
00:11:38.040 | Really good categories to keep in mind.
00:11:40.240 | Pastor John, thank you.
00:11:41.240 | And thank you for joining us today.
00:11:43.240 | We talked directly about whether or not drinking alcohol is a sin.
00:11:46.600 | That was in APJ 200.
00:11:47.600 | 200.
00:11:48.600 | Wow.
00:11:49.600 | You can check that out.
00:11:50.600 | That's a long time ago.
00:11:52.000 | You can ask a question of your own.
00:11:53.240 | You can find APJ 200 or subscribe to the podcast all at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:12:01.360 | Well in 1 Timothy 4.1, Paul says, "Some professing Christians will depart from the faith and
00:12:07.360 | give themselves over to the teachings of demons."
00:12:12.600 | Wow.
00:12:14.920 | So how blatant or how subtle is such a move moving from orthodoxy to demon theology?
00:12:22.560 | I'm your host Tony Reinke and we will Ask Pastor John on Monday.
00:12:26.680 | See you then.
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