Real Christianity #68： The Bible's Position on Tattoos, Marijuana, and Alcohol
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the Bible's position on tattoos, marijuana, and alcohol. We also discuss the importance of a biblical approach to pre-marital counseling and why it's important to have a biblical marriage.
Transcript
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welcome to real christianity today we are talking about the bible's position on tattoos marijuana
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and alcohol lots of questions around these topics they're kind of uh you can almost make a show out
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of every one of them but we thought let's just do a brief um exposition on each one of them
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really quick really brief yeah really brief and so um before we get started guys we just broke
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4,000 reviews on iTunes. I mean, I don't even know what to say because there's not many shows that
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have 4,000 plus reviews. And so they're really encouraging. And just thank you. So if you guys
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haven't left a review and you're a regular listener to the show, you just go to iTunes,
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you just tap the stars. If you write something, great. If you just tap the stars, that's great
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too. Um, if you guys haven't heard, uh, we opened enrollment, which is continuously open, uh, at
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ultimate marriage.com. So you can start your six week marriage journey. If you wanted to just
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really try to get a biblical marriage established in your home, if you're like, Hey, you know,
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our marriage, we've just been kind of doing it our own way. Uh, it's time to really go back to
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scripture and see how we could do this, how to strengthen our marriage, have a thriving marriage.
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check out ultimate marriage.com. There's a great video there for you to watch for the next eight
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weeks. Um, well actually first I should say Veronica's back. I'm back. Yeah. You've been
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gone for two weeks. I have. You probably enjoyed that as your introvertness. Just a little break.
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Yeah. Yeah. It was nice. So I'm glad to be back though. Also another point that I want to make
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on ultimate marriage before you move on is for the people that are listening, that are engaged,
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it would make a pretty good, uh, I guess, premarital type course to go through too.
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There are definitely topics in there that are just for people who are married, but we cover a lot of ground, I think, that would really help those who are getting married.
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Yeah. I think it's probably stronger than the average premarital course that people go through.
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Yeah. And you just have to take it in consideration that these are some roles.
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um yeah we've had a couple of people um who we've done their premarital counseling
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and you know we obviously touch on a lot of those topics in the ultimate marriage program
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and they're talking to their other friends who are in the same season of life who are engaged
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and going through premarital and they're like we never talked about any all our all of my friends
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have never talked about any of these things with their premarital counselors and i'm just like
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it's crazy yeah we hit some deep topics and it's really fun and engaging and great questions and
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discussions and it's only six weeks. So ultimate marriage.com, uh, for the next eight weeks,
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actually after this episode, um, we're going to do a bunch of 30 minute episodes, 20 to 30 minute
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episodes. Uh, Veronica is actually going to interview me, uh, from one topic of each of the
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eight chapters of my new book, real Christianity, um, how to be bold for Christ in a culture of
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Darkness. And that book is available at relearnchurch.org forward slash RC. And we're
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going to just break down some of these topics. I think there's gonna be some really great episodes
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in there. And we might also do a break in there to hit another off topic in the middle of it.
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Who knows? But we are going to do several episodes talking about the book. And I think it'll be
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edifying and hopefully encourage you guys to pick up a copy and take a read. It's not going to be
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super promotional it's going to be really topical scriptural based on some really important issues
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that we can bring in that i think make it relevant for the episode so just want to give you guys a
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heads up on that okay so dropping dropping jumping into today i like dropping too jumping hey all
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right anyway um jumping into today's topic um we're gonna hit tattoos first so we have several
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christian friends who have tattoos and we get this question pretty common uh question asked
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frequently if tattoos sorry i'm just getting very tongue-tied if tattoos are sinful or if they are
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unbiblical um and just for the record dale and i personally do not have any tattoos i'm sure
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several years ago we probably considered it um i've considered some really dumb tattoos
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i've thought about it but i never like actually seriously thought about it i was like okay i
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might do this because i was just too afraid to actually go through what it takes i was the guy
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that almost got the stars in the back of my elbows oh my gosh i'm so glad you didn't do that yeah
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um yeah lots of dumb ideas i'm sure that we uh you know the lord graciously allowed us to
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escape to escape that um but since we don't have a ton of time we're just gonna dive straight in
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So, Dale, what does the Bible say about tattoos, and should Christians get them?
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I'm not going to call you a great sinner and that you have permanent sin on your body.
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That's not what we're going to say here, so you can rest assured.
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I am going to give you guys just a biblical perspective on that, and you get to do with it what you will.
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Second, I don't think the discussion is really about sin.
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I think it's really more of a wisdom discussion.
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And, you know, in order for something to be sin,
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prohibiting that activity within the covenant that we're in.
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you shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you.
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But again, you know, this is Israel's call to be a holy nation, to be separate.
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And not that we're still not called to be that, but this is under the old covenant.
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So we're not going to take a Levitical law and make that jurisdiction come over to the new covenant and call it sin.
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So that's why I say it's I don't think it's a sin issue.
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There's nothing in the New Testament that talks about tattoos.
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I do believe the, you know, like the Ten Commandments.
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I think those are still authoritative, even though those are in the old covenant.
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But the Levitical law, which is different, which is the sacrificial system to make us righteous before God has been fulfilled in Christ.
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That is what I'm talking about in that specific situation.
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So now just because it's not wrong doesn't mean that it's right.
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Just because something's not wrong doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.
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But I think the Old Testament does give us some interesting principles that we can think about.
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If you're thinking about getting a tattoo or if you're thinking about getting more tattoos or if you just have this question about tattoos.
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And so lots of Christians say they want to get scripture tattooed on their body.
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They want to get a cross tattooed on their body.
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They want to get some sort of statement or quote around their faith tattooed on their body.
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And they almost want to do it kind of as a form of worship or their identification with Christ.
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Like, hey, you know, yeah, I want everybody to know, like, it's my evangelism, right?
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Or remind myself that, you know, these passages, they're written on my body.
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Um, and I think this is the wrong way to think, you know, God tells us that there's a right
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Um, so it's one of those things where the, you know, I think it's kind of the right idea,
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Um, if you want to go worship God, you don't need to tattoo something on your body to do
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Uh, the Lord is pretty clear on how to worship him.
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He says to do so, you worship God in spirit and in truth.
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It doesn't necessarily mean that you can't put a tattoo in your body,
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but I don't think that's necessarily a great justification for a form of worship.
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Yeah, there's a scripture that's actually referenced this idea in Deuteronomy 12, 4 through 5.
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It says, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way,
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but you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes
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and put his name and make his habitation there.
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This idea and this principle here in Deuteronomy is saying that we don't want to worship God in the way that other religions worship their God.
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And we don't want to worship God in our own way of worshiping God.
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I mean, if we want to worship God in our own way, that's where we create idols.
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That's where we create things that are outside of the way that God wants to be worshipped.
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God gives us specific ways to worship him in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
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And I think they're good principles that, again, I think nullify the idea of using tattoos as a way to worship God.
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And so I'm not saying that it's necessarily a sinful thing to get.
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I'm just saying is that don't do it because you want to worship or glorify God in that way.
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I don't think that God wants to be glorified in that way.
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But I also don't think that it's necessarily biblically sinful that you do so.
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I'm just trying to correct the thinking around there.
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Um, and I think, yeah, Veronica's got a verse to share about.
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Yeah, I was making me think of the verse in, uh, first Corinthians chapter six,
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And it says, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
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You are not your own for you were bought with a price.
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I think this verse actually has the stronger argument.
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So I was trying to give some background on the principles here, but, um,
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I feel like I use that verse all the time with the kids, but not related to tattoos.
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related to how they're controlling their bodies.
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it's the context of this passage in 1 Corinthians
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in regards to your body being the temple of the Holy Spirit,
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And you got to really look at the extreme instructions.
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I was actually talking about this at dinner last night.
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like the extreme instructions on how the temple and tabernacle was put together i mean there are
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chapters and chapters and chapters about the types of thread and the types of linen and the types of
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you know stone and how they should look and how they should be designed and who should design them
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and where they should be placed and how long they should be and how tall they should be and how deep
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they should be it's just amazing at the level of holiness that is placed upon the old testament
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tabernacle, which is the pre-temple, and then there's the actual temple in Jerusalem, and then
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now our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so, you know, people who defaced or entered
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improperly or operated in the temple without respect were actually killed by God. Like, that
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was a thing. So, you got to understand, again, when Paul says that we're the temple of the Holy
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Spirit without an Old Testament context, he could just kind of brush right past that. To a Jew, this
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is a massive deal. And it's important to have that. Every single element in the temple was to
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honor God according to his instruction. If you did it your way, even if it was right thing,
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wrong way, you'd get killed for it. And so this is just thinking about that, that it's his temple
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according to his instructions. And you don't get to use the temple or the elements in any way that
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you want to, right? The showbread had a specific purpose. It was to be used specifically for God's
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purposes to glorify God. The altar had specific purposes. It wasn't to be used in other ways.
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It was used to be used in this way to glorify God. And so the temple, all of its utensils,
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all of its members were to be used in a specific way. And again, this is important just to kind of
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have this perspective about our bodies, because there's absolutely a doctrinal parallel that's
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going on here that the new testament writer paul expects you to understand of the old testament
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when he says these words even though he's writing to a greek audience um he knows the old testament
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scriptures are recorded so with this perspective it should at least give you pause um of putting
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a permanent man-made sign on an eternal god-made temple because our bodies are eternal they are
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eternal i know you know is your tattoo going to be in heaven with you probably not but the the
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truth is is that we should at least be careful about thinking about defacing our bodies in that
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way um and you know it goes on to say in that passage um you're not your own you were bought
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at a price therefore glorify god with your body um that's just listen to that those words you're
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not your own uh you were bought at a price you're owned by somebody by the lord glorify god with
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your body and so honestly i think getting a tattoo is your decision it's it's or i should say it's
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not your decision it's jesus's decision do you really think that jesus is going hey yeah you
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know what i think this is a good idea i think you should get that tattoo and put on your body
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permanently um and you have to ask yourself that question i don't want to be the arbiter of the
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holy spirit in your life you get to do that um is tattooing historically a christian and holy thing
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or is tattooing historically a unholy and worldly thing um if you just look up the history of
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tattoos you will see that it's the latter and so it's just something to consider uh does it make
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you more like christ or does it make you more like the world um you know christ obviously didn't have
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any tattoos that we know of but i don't think he's having any tattoos so um my my just caution
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is to think about that they're important questions to ask so i don't think we can call it sin i don't
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think that's the thing that we're talking about here um i personally just don't think that it's
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wise um you know if you have tattoos don't worry about it i'm not i don't think i'm i'm not trying
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to condemn you um but what you know what's done is done in that matter but i would seek the lord
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on this matter and further tattoos i think that i think that's something worth checking out
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yeah especially if you've already if you've now heard this information yeah um yeah this actually
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makes me think of a friend of ours he had actually i don't know probably a couple of years ago had a
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uh he had an outline of a full sleeve done and half of it was complete but the other half was
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incomplete and in the midst of that uh i don't know few week time period of him going back in
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to finish it he had a personal conviction um about about tattoos and he actually decided
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to not finish his sleeve and to just allow it to be a testimony of change that of the change
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that god had done in his heart and so our perspective is that it's a yeah it's a sit
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before the lord kind of issue um but uh the new testament isn't direct on the issue but we do have
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a variety of principles to use in making that decision yeah um so let's go ahead on to the
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next section and talk about alcohol um we have had lots of friends who grew up in churches that
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are that completely prohibited alcohol um and if you wanted to have a glass of wine at dinner you
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had to actually go over into the next county to the liquor store over there so you're not seen by
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anybody uh to buy a bottle of wine and almost like hide it um and then we know christians who
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were far too tolerant of alcohol and they have several drinks every night don't really think
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about it it's just a way of life for them now um so what does the bible really say about drinking
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alcohol yeah i think showing those two groups right there's like the we don't drink at all
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it's a sin for everybody don't do it and then like it's not a sin like let's go and you know
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have drinks and let's go party and let's you know grace grace grace and so there's there's both sides
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of that that parallel and i kind of want to talk about what i think jesus is talking about which
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is in the middle my mom was an alcoholic for many years she died at the age of 54
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in not in my care for that last moment but in our care for the last couple years of her life
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um and she had liver disease that was just too far by the time we we started caring for her
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so we are fully aware and for just for the record for everyone who doesn't know her story
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she had actually decided to stop drinking she was sober by the time she passed away but by then the
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damage had been done yeah um and so she died of of the damage that she had done yeah the
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consequences yeah so she was forgiven but the consequences in the flesh were still there and
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she did I really get a chance to baptize her and see her come to the Lord in the last couple years
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which is great so but she did pass away and I also just understand all the train wreck carnage
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that comes with alcoholism so I just I get it so just know that I'm speaking from real example
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to build a case that drinking is a universal sin.
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You know, Scripture really teaches this principle
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that our bodies are never to be mastered by anything.
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The only thing to be mastered by is by the Holy Spirit
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by Christ, right? We're no longer slaves to our sin and bondage to our sin, but we're actually
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slaves to Christ, slaves to righteousness. So we're not to be in bondage to anything in that way.
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But the Bible does permit drinking alcoholic beverages. And I'm going to talk about that.
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I'm not saying this so that you, you know, I'm giving everybody permission here. I'm actually
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saying this to give you a sober perspective on what it does say. And then I'm going to give you
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two reasons that scripture says that you shouldn't drink um so i'll give you both both sides here
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you know psalms uh 104 14 through 15 states that god gives us wine that it makes glad the hard
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event uh the proverbs talk about drinking wine from your own vineyard is a blessing uh jesus
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turns water into wine in john chapter 2 it says every man at the beginning sets out the good wine
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and when the guests have all well drunk then the inferior you have kept the good wine until now
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And no, Jesus didn't turn it into non-alcoholic wine.
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It wouldn't make any sense in that verse where it says,
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and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior.
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You can see what's really going on there is that they've already been drinking a bit
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and they won't recognize the crappier wine usually.
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And Jesus actually gives the best wine for last.
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And so, yeah, it's not a non-alcoholic wine there.
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No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities.
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A blog that I found yesterday when I was doing some prep for this, DoctrineAndDevotion.com,
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this guy does an article called The Theology of Wine.
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He says, There are over 247 references to alcohol in Scripture.
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40 are negative, you know, warnings about drunkenness, potential dangers of alcohol, etc.
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145 are positive signs of God's blessing, use in worship, etc.
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These are people, you know, falsely accused of being drunk, vows of abstinence, and so forth.
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But the Bible is anything but silent on the issue of wine, end quote.
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It's actually very clear about the matter.
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But again, there's two reasons why a Christian shouldn't drink wine or drink alcohol.
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And I'm going to break those down for you here.
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You can read Romans 14 to learn more about the role of your conscience in your faith.
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It's actually a really fascinating chapter to check out.
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Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.
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And this means that what might not be sin for you could be sin for another person.
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There's things that are universal sin, and then there's things that are actual specific issues based off the conscience, based off conviction, that some people have freedom in and some people don't have freedom in.
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And if you feel convicted about drinking alcohol, then for you, it is a sin to drink alcohol.
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That's just the easy answer for you there.
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The second reason a Christian should not drink alcohol is if your freedom to drink alcohol
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actually causes another person to struggle or another person who struggles with drinking to sin.
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And this concept is called love limits liberty.
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It means that your love for others will limit your liberties of your own journey.
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journey. And 1 Corinthians 8-10 is a really, it's the principle there. 8-10, you can read those
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chapters. It's a really good study. 1 Corinthians 8, 9-13 reads, but beware, lest somehow this
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liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have
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knowledge eating in an idol's temple, this is the issue that they're talking about, but let's just
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change that with drinking, okay? If anyone sees you with knowledge, meaning that you actually
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if they have permission, you understand that Christ is Lord
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If anyone sees you with knowledge having a drink at a bar,
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will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to have a drink at the bar?
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shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?
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you wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
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But if alcohol makes my brother stumble, I will never drink lest I make my brother stumble.
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And that applies to a whole bunch of issues that you can make somebody stumble.
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If you've got a guy that just got off of, you know, intense porn addiction,
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don't take him to the beach in Southern California in the summer.
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You know, it's thinking about other people.
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What could possibly stumble another brother or sister?
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1 Corinthians 10, 23-24, another popular verse or well-known verse is,
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All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
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All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
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Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
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So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.
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Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this,
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not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way.
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You got to really be careful about this perspective with alcohol.
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Son, it is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.
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Like, this is all over the New Testament, caring for your brother in this way.
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And I feel like it's just kind of absent in the church.
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We just kind of, like, belligerently walk in this freedom that we have and not thinking about anybody.
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So the bottom line is, drinking is not universally sinful.
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drunkenness is sinful um where's the line my thought is if you can't clearly and properly
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present the gospel um you've had too much to drink if you can't defend the gospel and and
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with clear conscience talk about christian living and holiness and pray um and memorize the word of
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scripture and recite scripture you've had too much to drink um you know if you're the person that
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needs a drink every night when you get off work you got a problem um i'm not necessarily saying
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that you're quite an alcoholic yet but you really need to watch what's happening there like oh man
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i need a drink that word need um you know just like food wine is a blessing um but just like
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anything else it could become sinful if you don't exercise it with self-control yeah dale and i
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probably have you could probably count on one hand the amount of drinks that we have per year
00:25:33.720
um but we didn't used to always be that way no but we've we've shift shifted over the years
00:25:40.560
because of just this perspective yeah and um we also have made the decision a couple of years ago
00:25:46.180
to no longer post any pictures of us online drinking any alcoholic beverages um just in
00:25:52.300
case someone who is struggling with drinking is encouraged by our freedom um so if you're starting
00:25:59.120
to drink daily we would encourage you to check your heart on that and evaluate if alcohol if
00:26:04.860
alcohol has become a coping mechanism for you and then see if you're allowing alcohol to take place
00:26:13.080
of the work that only christ can do in you yeah actually we had a friend recently come into town
00:26:19.300
and he said yeah i found myself all of a sudden just having a whiskey every single night
00:26:22.860
and then uh his wife just came up to him said hey you're having whiskeys every single night
00:26:28.940
and he said yeah you know you're right and he stopped having whiskeys every night like it was
00:26:33.300
that simple so if you're seeing your spouse do that or someone in your life do that just like
00:26:38.200
hey looks like you're kind of drinking a lot lately you should maybe just kind of pull that
00:26:41.720
back and you get defensive then that almost is a evidence evidence that maybe you should actually
00:26:48.480
check your heart on on the issue yeah um so next let's talk about marijuana and cbd um some states
00:26:55.220
like our state lovely organ here um have legalized these substances and they're causing discussions
00:27:02.900
all throughout the church um so are these substances that christians should be engaging
00:27:11.180
with um if people can drink why shouldn't they be able to use marijuana um what does the bible say
00:27:16.820
about these things yeah um how many marijuana plants do you think that are around our house
00:27:21.800
right now oh my goodness hundreds of thousands yeah so there there's hemp fields everywhere
00:27:28.220
everywhere so they're not marijuana yeah they're hemp um but it still smells so strong because we
00:27:35.820
live out in the country yeah and so even though we don't have any on our property and even the
00:27:41.880
properties touching our property don't have any drive down the road a quarter mile a half mile
00:27:47.360
and they're everywhere yeah and then you come out in the morning after it's been a dewy morning and
00:27:51.800
there's moisture in the air and it just like punches you in the face how strong the odor is
00:27:55.560
yeah so it's it's something where it's around everywhere up here um there's like probably a
00:28:01.800
thousand dispensaries it seems like all over our town in terms of just that came up within the year
00:28:07.960
that it got legalized yeah they're just all over the place yeah so there's just there's marijuana
00:28:11.920
everywhere here in Oregon. And so it's a constant conversation. Um, I'm going to first talk on
00:28:17.600
marijuana. Then I'm going to talk about CBD. And so I want to make sure that people understand
00:28:21.880
how marijuana is different from alcohol because they are, they're two different substances.
0.90
00:28:27.280
And sometimes Christians again, want to put them in. It's like, Hey, if you can drink alcohol,
0.83
00:28:30.260
then why can't you smoke marijuana? You know, what's the, what's the difference here? Especially
00:28:33.440
there's all these other consumption formats now, you know, I can drink it. I can drop it in my eye,
00:28:37.440
whatever you know um and you know the the main thing is that you can consume alcohol and not
00:28:44.860
be drunk you can't smoke marijuana and not be high and so that's the major distinction there
00:28:53.340
that uh you need to recognize is that they are they are different in terms of their consumption
00:28:59.480
um and sobriety uh formats in terms of you know what it actually does to your body
00:29:05.360
um you know so my personal take is that marijuana is is a substance that removes sobriety
00:29:11.460
and there's so many scriptures first peter chapter one chapter four chapter five first
00:29:17.240
timothy three tells christians to be sober-minded um so i i just i look at it differently than i
00:29:22.780
look at alcohol um so for for that reason i can't really vouch for marijuana as being okay
00:29:30.480
for the christian um i would say that um that in some cases for recreational uses it's i think it
00:29:38.520
would be sinful because you're you're removing your sobriety um and uh you know i i know that
00:29:46.320
some people take it for like legitimate medical reasons that exist out there i think those are
00:29:50.920
the exceptions and i'm not talking about those people i'm talking about recreational use for
00:29:54.500
people um and so i don't even want to get into the details of that conversation necessarily
00:29:59.420
so if you happen to be one of those people that uses it recreationally you know or uses it
00:30:05.720
medicinally i think a lot of people have abused that and you know oh you know i got a pain in my
00:30:12.680
left foot marijuana makes it feel better you know i think it's just kind of become this thing and i
00:30:17.520
do think there are some science i've read that has some like legitimate science for a handful of
00:30:23.380
specific diseases that actually relieve certain parts of really terrible symptoms.
00:30:30.160
But again, I don't think that's the mainstream.
00:30:32.540
I think that's just for those specific groups of people.
0.90
00:30:36.020
The second reason I wouldn't endorse Christians to use marijuana is because it's currently
0.91
00:30:39.120
federally illegal, even though it might be legal in your state.
1.00
00:30:45.820
let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except
00:30:50.780
from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists
00:30:55.840
the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
00:31:01.120
So I just say be careful in terms of, you know, especially if it's not legal in your state.
00:31:07.680
Again, I'm not endorsing anybody to use marijuana. I don't think that you should. I think that it's,
00:31:13.180
Again, I land the side. I think that it's sinful. I think that it steals your sobriety away.
00:31:18.800
I think I haven't seen a lot of fruit come out of people that use marijuana on a regular basis.
00:31:28.000
I don't see historically the church using marijuana. I don't see, you know, the Jesus and any reference referencing it to this.
00:31:38.520
I don't think that it's a, you know, God made it so it's good.
00:31:41.580
I'm like, well, you know, there's all types of stuff on the planet that are that the Lord made and they're not necessarily good for our bodies just because it's created doesn't mean it's good for our bodies.
00:31:49.940
And so I think there's a lot of conversation to happen there in regards to CBD, which, again, is a THC free version of marijuana.
00:31:58.280
It's, you know, hemp and THC is the chemical compound that really makes you feel high.
00:32:04.800
And that's removed for the hemp plants. I don't think there's really any sin there.
00:32:08.560
I think that if you want to use CBD oil, I think that's fine.
00:32:11.980
I do think you need to be careful on sharing it publicly because still in this time where there's a transition era of like people becoming comfortable with the legality of marijuana, people using CBD could imply to some people that if you endorse CBD, that for some reason you can endorse marijuana.
00:32:32.840
um that's definitely not the case with me but i'd again you just want to be careful that
00:32:37.680
your actions aren't necessarily teaching somebody that you're endorsing something else that's
00:32:44.560
similar and so i just think you just need to be careful about that so i think the whole conversation
00:32:50.240
is wrapped up in um you know do they make you more like christ um and thinking of others before
00:33:01.100
yourself i think those two themes are really important around tattoos alcohol and marijuana
00:33:07.680
so hopefully that helps you guys make some good decisions and that this can be a resource for
00:33:11.300
people that are asking that question because we get it pretty often i wanted to close with this
00:33:17.180
episode's real christianity resources and so we've been partnering with a variety of publishers
00:33:23.140
just getting different resources that are i think are higher thinking we're just like veronica and
00:33:30.240
i get sent lots of books and some of these books are just like like they're just the run of the
00:33:36.120
mill like everybody's saying the same thing not really profound not really bringing much fruit
00:33:45.260
middle of the road kind of christian stuff that's just kind of being pumped out of the machine
00:33:49.560
and not that the lord's not using that stuff but we were starting to look for higher thinking
00:33:55.120
deeper theological dense content for our audience so what what kind of publishers publish that stuff
00:34:03.000
and so i have a couple resources i want to show you i'm going to pick them up off the table right
00:34:06.320
here so there um if you're watching the video you can see these um these are the geneva series
00:34:14.660
commentaries of a few books that i got here and this is from banner of truth and so we're
00:34:20.180
partnering with banner of truth for this month and they have some really great resources this
00:34:23.820
banneroftruth.org and you know you've used commentaries when you've prepared messages
00:34:29.560
before uh how like how how have they helped you oh i love looking at commentaries it helps me
00:34:34.500
understand the passages the history way more than i would have known otherwise if i would have just
00:34:41.200
read it yeah it is and you veronica's used blue letter bible and you know online things like that
00:34:45.760
i like some of these print versions so you know i have the ephesians one here uh that again it's
00:34:50.920
just a verse by verse commentary and it's just you know one person's commentary so there's a
00:34:57.380
handful of places that you can find a variety of commentaries i love it when a bunch of commentaries
00:35:03.000
align in the same interpretation on a verse because it really makes me feel like okay that
00:35:07.140
definitely is the right interpretation um i always say when when you know when someone from the 1400s
00:35:14.200
1500s 1600s 1700s 1800s five different guys from five different generations who've never
00:35:20.800
met each other interpret this verse the exact same way it's probably the right interpretation
00:35:26.480
and so i have first timothy and titus here first and second timothy and titus here as well and then
00:35:33.240
i have romans which again is just great when you want to pull out one verse and you want to just
00:35:38.500
look at you know the context man just so rich and deep and dense so they have a whole bible the
00:35:44.920
entire bible done in this geneva series of commentaries and so it's been around for a while
00:35:51.080
If you guys want to pick up any of the commentaries,
00:36:05.880
So if you're listening to this several months or years later,
00:36:09.980
But it does work right now if you want to order them soon.
00:36:13.660
And it's cheaper than you're going to get them on Amazon.
00:36:15.260
So fill your library with good theological resources
00:36:19.440
and stop reading kind of the run-of-the-mill stuff there's so much greater content out there
00:36:24.760
usually it's written a couple hundred years ago too so on that episode or on that note
00:36:31.120
this is the end of this episode and thanks for joining us we'll see you guys next week see ya