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At first blush, this might seems like a strange issue to address. Most philosophers and Christian thinkers look to deal with the problem of pain, not pleasure. But I am convinced that this issue - pleasure - is a huge issue for the church in America today. The vast majority of American Christians are less often led away from following after God because of pain, but instead they are lulled into sleep and apathy by all of the pleasures they find around them. Ravi Zacharias once said that meaninglessness in life doesn't come from being weary of pain - meaninglessness in life comes from being weary of pleasure. And I firmly agree.
The first angle from which I hope to address this topic is that of identifying the issue. The reason that pleasure is so dangerous is that we have grouped pleasure into two main categories (human-made categories). They are biblcally moral and biblically immoral pleasure. The way we categorize these pleasures is by looking into the Bible, finding the 'thou shalt nots' and then we cut-and-paste those items on to the immoral pleasure list. While this is a piece of the puzzle (it's true, the things God says 'don't do' are not legitimate pleasures), it is not all of the puzzle. We read in James 4:17 that if we know the good we should do but we don't do it, it is sin. That proves to us that pleasures not listed on the 'though shalt nots' can be immoral and even lead to sin. If I know I should be giving more to God's work financially but I choose instead to take my family on another vacation, the Bible leads us to see that even though a vacation and family time isn't inherently sinful, this use of money for the current vacation under consideration - it is sin because the resources were supposed to be used for something else.
While it is a relatively simple example, the core issue I want to make here is that our categories of what sin and legitimate pleasure are has to be expanded based on more than just a list of 'thou shalt nots'. The next post will consider some ways to consider what legitimate pleasure are.
- tC
The first angle from which I hope to address this topic is that of identifying the issue. The reason that pleasure is so dangerous is that we have grouped pleasure into two main categories (human-made categories). They are biblcally moral and biblically immoral pleasure. The way we categorize these pleasures is by looking into the Bible, finding the 'thou shalt nots' and then we cut-and-paste those items on to the immoral pleasure list. While this is a piece of the puzzle (it's true, the things God says 'don't do' are not legitimate pleasures), it is not all of the puzzle. We read in James 4:17 that if we know the good we should do but we don't do it, it is sin. That proves to us that pleasures not listed on the 'though shalt nots' can be immoral and even lead to sin. If I know I should be giving more to God's work financially but I choose instead to take my family on another vacation, the Bible leads us to see that even though a vacation and family time isn't inherently sinful, this use of money for the current vacation under consideration - it is sin because the resources were supposed to be used for something else.
While it is a relatively simple example, the core issue I want to make here is that our categories of what sin and legitimate pleasure are has to be expanded based on more than just a list of 'thou shalt nots'. The next post will consider some ways to consider what legitimate pleasure are.
- tC
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