Episode 2 - Weed

Are we doing this? No, no, we're going to now make fun of this shirt to record whenever he wants, because we like to get in the mood.

Yes, yes, absolutely. This is not a indictment. I will say a lot of the times when we do acronyms, it does kind of make me laugh in that a lot of people leave out the

T. For like two and the. Yeah, and like the like United States of America is

USA, right? Right now, the of doesn't have the O. OK, so it's not U .S.

away. Right. It's you know, it's America. Well, here we have the TTSH, which

I love the name, by the way. The T is included for the. There's no apostrophe s for shepherds, which is fine with me.

The shepherd's horn. Like, I don't I don't mind that at all. It's just interesting because a lot of people leave out the T, but I guess because it's the first word you can't.

Yeah. And if you think about it as shepherd's horn, people call us that, but it's like shepherd's horn.

What's that? Is that a thing? It's a great conversation starter. Yeah, but the shepherd's horn is like, oh, Jesus got it.

Yeah, the shepherd. OK, got it. Like the my father in law, the guy who started it, he he had a program in Georgia called his master's voice.

That was it was the same thing as shepherd's horn. But so that's kind of where this kind of stemmed from.

It kind of it's actually a dope name. Isn't it cool? I actually like it. It's still going. Here's what's so cool about it.

You when you I didn't realize I didn't think about this deeply until a few months ago.

The Old Testament has several references to Yahweh, to the father being the shepherd, you know, the

Lord is my shepherd. Right. So that's why when you read John chapter 10,

Jesus is analogy of him being the good shepherd. If you remember in verse 33, that's when the

Pharisees said because Jesus said, I've done many good works. Little sarcasm here.

Which of those good works are you going to stone me for? Because they had picked up rocks and they said, we're not stoning you for any good works.

We're stoning you because you being a man, make yourself out to be God. And aside from the regular references

Jesus had clearly made before Abraham was, I am Abraham or Joyce. If you believe Moses, you would believe me because Moses spoke of me.

Apart from those like glaring ones. The whole sermon he did on him being the good shepherd was, hey, every time

God is referenced as the shepherd. That's me. That's me. That's me, by the way.

So the shepherd's horn. I mean, it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, that is pretty cool. I've never thought of that.

Well, it's pretty dope. And that is a segue into OK, I'm sorry. All right, go ahead. Go ahead. That was really good.

OK. Golly, I don't know if I'm mad because of it was a pun or if it was because it wasn't for me.

Well, it's fair. We got to let him do the intro. You got to make the you got to. Well, there's a question for the day.

Dope. Is it dope or is it not dope? Is it great or is it not great? To dope is not a question.

Mm hmm. Smoke it up. Don't smoke it up. Evans to Betsy. All right. Let's say, is it a sin to smoke weed?

That is the qualm that we'll be answering today at the point taken podcast podcast where we make and take questions biblically and spiritually and chat them up.

Now, I have a question, Hunter, before you continue with your intro for our listeners, if they would like to have a specific question talked about on the show.

Is that something we do here? Oh, that's absolutely something we do here. You would just log on to your email account and send it in to listen point taken at gmail dot com.

That's no spaces. Listen, L -I -S -T -E -N point taken. You're going to be so happy.

There's going to be a graphic at the bottom of the video. They're watching. So like right here. Yeah, I'm going to be right. We're going to put it right there, right there.

So I'm pointing to the little you're pointing at. OK, let's see. Now you guys are higher up. Now I'm going to have to put two of them.

If you notice, I was showing me where I was quiet, right? During that time. Probably not because I actually wanted to spell it for the people.

And then I'm like, all right, how do you spell listen? And Hunter did it. So I didn't embarrass myself. You shouldn't have said you told me to be honest,

Hunter. This is what you're going to get. You said, be yourself, Josiah. So here I am. All right.

Well, what do we think about weed? Your initial marijuana hash. Mary Jane, the devil's lettuce, the devil's lettuce.

That name for it. Well, it exists and you might hate marijuana. What's your take on marijuana? Just let's just put it flat out on the board.

Your initial feeling towards marijuana. Not, should it be legal? Not, is it a sin? Not anything.

What do you, what do you think about marijuana? It, it is not. I know it's, it's, it's been said it's not good, it's not bad for you.

But I don't think mentally it's good for you. I think that with the, the way that it affects your brain and it, it loosens you up to things that you may or may not be conscious of.

I know it, it, the euphoria that it gets, you get from it, but my perspective is a lot of the new age practices within that's, that's working its way into the church.

A lot of cults will use marijuana, sometimes laced with other things.

They'll use mushrooms. They'll use psychedelic drugs in order to connect with spirits, the spirits as they will call them.

So when you, when you do things that literally will allow you not to take every thought captive, that's gonna open you up to things that you may or may not be ready to deal with, like things trying to control you or make you do things, that's kind of where I'm at.

I am, I am completely out of the box with this one. It, okay. Yeah, let's start.

Let's go. But no, no, no, and, and I don't think what you said is, I think because of how I took something you said, and I twisted it in my mind and made it funny, but you said it, it relaxes you to,

I, things that you didn't know were inside of you. Something like that.

Great. I'm gonna need clarification. What, what do you mean? Like, so you think about it, think about this.

If you are completely 100 % cognitive of what you're doing. Okay. Take, take alcohol.

Sure. What does alcohol do? That takes your brain, it, it, all the science behind it.

You literally lose. It heightens your social function and it degrades your critical thinking.

Right, it gets rid of your thinking process. You're not able to hold a thought captive. Weed does the same thing, except it does, it's not a depressant, it's a stimulant.

It makes your, it makes, you know, you're hypersensitive to things. You're hypersensitive to everything. So when you're hypersensitive to things, and from what

I've studied with all this stuff is you're also more, you're more susceptible to things because you're more quote unquote aware of it.

Like what? Acceptable to? Spiritual stuff. Like bad spiritual stuff. Like demonic stuff.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm going from that angle. Okay. I was just trying to figure out exactly what it is it's like.

Oh yeah. I believe that if, if you if you're not able to hold your thoughts captive and you're able to trail off, then demonic influences can, can change your thinking into bad things.

Okay. Pastor Josiah, what are your initial thoughts on marijuana? Well, I guess it's hard to separate in this realm.

It's hard to separate it from what does the Bible say about it? If we were to remove our worldview, like we talked about a couple weeks ago, episode one, by the way, if we were to remove our worldview, then it's just a plant.

It's not the act, not to give away the perspective here, but the act of rolling up a plant, lighting it on fire and inhaling it, that act in and of itself is not what makes something sinful or not.

Right? It is, it's, it's more than that. And if we're ready to get into that, we can, but it's, it's more than that. In and of itself, it's simply a plant, but there are a lot of things that are created by God that in and of themselves are not sinful, but how we use them and the purpose for them absolutely are.

I think sex is a perfect example of this. And Christian parents, please listen to us for a moment.

Please do not teach your children that sex is nasty, evil, or sinful. That is a God -created thing in the bounds that God created for it to be used.

So I don't think it's helpful to say this thing, this thing is sinful.

No, what humans do with it is sinful. That thing is not in and of itself evil.

It is how humans use it. I think that's kind of the basis and that's kind of how I feel about this topic.

Right. I think that can be said for most things because you have the idea that everything is permissible when not everything is profitable.

Sure. Right. And that is biblical, that I was quoting a verse. So you have any substance that you can say, is it profitable versus, yeah, it's permissible.

You'll hear people argue, well, God made the plant. Is it at all possible that he did that to put you on a higher plane of thought, to help you see him better, to help you do this or that or the other?

That's one of my favorite ones is, well, it's natural so it can't be wrong. So is snake venom.

I don't see you tying off and shooting that up. That's not an argument in and of itself. I think that is a thing actually, but it's not smart, but I think it is a thing.

Yeah, I think they huff it. I could be wrong. I think they huff the snake venom. On that same vein.

Oh, wow. That was brilliant. I'm so smart. Okay. That was,

I didn't realize that. Okay. On the same vein as that, you have, oh, it's natural.

It's okay. Okay. So then by extension, something like, which one's the one that looks like glass?

Is that meth? Is that it? Yeah, it's crystal meth. Yeah, meth is a chemically made drug. So that person who would say, oh, well,

I don't do the hard stuff. I do the natural stuff. Okay, cool. All right. But does the exact same thing, right?

It gets you high. I would argue this. You don't be finding crack rocks growing on a bush. You know what?

And I thought you were going to go with David Crowder, not David Crowder, Stephen Crowder. Love that guy.

Yeah, because I know you do. That's why I thought you were going to go with his argument. He says, well, you know what else is natural? Uranium.

Oh, wow. I haven't actually heard him say that. So, okay. Yeah. And so I thought for sure you were going to say that.

So yeah, I mean, just because something exists or even just because, okay, God created the world,

God created plants, all that doesn't make it profitable to ingest. There are poisonous plants.

In fact, in the early 1900s, maybe the 50s, marijuana, when the

DEA went until the 80s, whoever it was said, you need to put labels on.

You need to say what is in everything. If you're going to put something out, you need to list the ingredients. On marijuana, they would say it was poison.

They'd actually call it poison. Whether or not that's legitimate or fair is not what

I'm saying. But I'm saying there are things in this world that it's on the earth.

It grows. It's natural. You don't want to put it in your body. Sure. And I think that will go to Romans 8 when it says the world is under a curse.

Yeah. And the things on it have been cursed. And just as the animals turn on each other and eat each other, our plants are going to go, well, kind of go a little bit sour.

But the question is, is marijuana one of those things? And something to what you said earlier is you said it's more about how you use it.

So what are ways that you can use marijuana that are not sinful? Well, I think it would be helpful to get a baseline here.

And this is going to be the part most people won't like. But unfortunately, that's part of reading the Word of God. I think we have a clear teaching from the

Bible, from the apostles themselves, from Romans chapter 13. When it comes to, first off, civil law.

Okay. Okay. So let's just go ahead and get this one out of the way real quick so we can move on to the deeper meaning.

We don't have a right to disobey government that God has ordained unless, or maybe

I should say until, those laws contradict with other commands of the Word of God. In Acts, we must obey

God over man. Sure. And those cases are in the world and they will continue to be.

But that doesn't mean that I get to decide what the speed limit is on Farm Road. Okay. That's not up for me to decide.

So I say that in passing because the legality, unless it contradicts the Word of God, we are to obey those commands of our magistrates.

Sure. Well, this would be one of them. Now, someone's immediately going to say, yeah, but it will all be legalized in the next six months.

Sure. So let's get to that point. So assuming that it is legal to use medically, let's say, for example.

Here we go here. Still, and I'm consistent across the board. If you have 20 orange pill bottles in your nightstand, 10 of them are not in your name, five of them are expired.

You're a 40 -year -old man. One of them is for menstrual cramps. Okay. That's, you are not a doctor. You were not prescribed that.

Same type thing, right? So moving past that. So let's say, okay, if it's all legal everywhere, all the time, can we get there?

Is it a sin in and of itself? Okay. Here's my answer to that. Are we ready? I'm ready. I want to read what

Brother Andrew quoted a moment ago, and here's my answer. And again, I would say that unlike adultery or stealing, it's not the act in and of itself.

It's what's the purpose behind it. Here is 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2

Corinthians chapter 10. I'm going to read verse 5. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey

Christ. I just want to stop there for a moment. Every thought captive to obey Christ. And I want to ask my

Christian brothers and sisters who are wondering about, what about smoking weed? What does every mean?

What does taking every thought captive mean? I would argue that's hard enough to do sober, by the way.

But every thought captive. If you are purposely putting yourself in a position, this goes way beyond weed.

But if you're purposely putting yourself in a position where you are out of control of your mind and or your body, to where you don't have to think, you can get away, escape, whatever, and you're not in control of every thought, you cannot obey this verse.

You know, to Andrew's point earlier, for even those who use it under the guise of being more spiritual.

Well, repeatedly in the New Testament, the mark of a spiritually mature man is one of a sound mind.

He's not giving us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. Do not be conformed to this world, Romans 12, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So I think if you're putting yourself in a position where you're blazed out and you cannot take control of every thought, you're not in control of your body or mind.

Okay, so maybe we're talking more extreme cases here, but if there is an intent to not be in control of body or mind, then yes,

I think from scripturally, it's going to be inherently sinful. That's the huge thing is what you just said, with the intent of not being in control of body or mind, because one of the more, you go and look up and try and study, like marijuana, pros, cons, 90 % of it's going to be

Joe Rogan podcast and stuff. His favorite argument is, well, I'm from the jujitsu community, and in the jujitsu community, we smoke up and you're way hyper -focused.

You can focus on only this and this and this and this, and that's why they do it. So in that sense, and I was going to bring up Adderall when you brought up taking every thought captive.

Well, the point of Adderall is exactly that. Take to focus 100 % your mind, tunnel vision it, say this is what we're trying to do.

What does that look for? When I said whoop, okay. Okay, so Adderall makes you go whoop, and in the jujitsu community, in Joe Rogan's jujitsu community, they're doing it to focus up and stuff like that.

So with that not being the intent of let's mellow, let's relax, let our minds run, but instead, let's use it to focus.

What do we think about that? I would say we can pick apart each individual case.

I would say this. I would say, because people always bring up, well, what about alcohol?

Well, in my experience, someone doesn't get blazed out from having a glass of wine.

Sure. I mean, of course, yes, by the way, if you're a traditional whatever,

Jesus and the apostles had wine at the Last Supper. I don't know about that specific example,

Brother Hunter. What I would say is in most of the circumstances I've been a part of, the intent was to not take every thought captive.

In fact, it was quite literally to do the opposite. And we say, well, what about pain? Right. I am not saying there is no place for legally prescribed, doctor prescribed in the state that you live in with a valid license showing that you live in that state.

I'm not saying there's no place for it there, right? I would say still legally obtained, prescribed by a doctor, intent is medical.

That is what I see from it. Medical in what sense? Well, I guess that's up to the doctor in the state.

But, you know, when they, you know, sometimes they'll prescribe marijuana or the like for, you know, pain tolerance stuff or like...

And don't typically, don't they sometimes take like, I've heard that they can take the chemical that gets you actually blazed, we're going to use that term, blazed out of it.

And just the euphoric or the pain relieving part. I've heard that that's something they can do.

Don't get me lying. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like if that is possible, I know

I've heard that somewhere, that they can take the high part out and just give you the feeling of the pain relief that you get from the...

Is it? I'm not going to say it's not TLC because that's the... THC. THC. There we go.

I was like, TLC is that wonderful... 10 to 11 care. That's what I thought of. Isn't that a channel too?

That's a channel. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of, 10 to 11 care. But I've heard that they just take the

THC out of the plants itself and they can put that in like vape and they can put that in like other things that you don't get high from it, but you still get the benefits of pain relief.

It's the balancing THC and CBD in the weed. And they've changed the levels of that.

There's a lot of debate on whether or not they've overdone the THC versus the CBD and said, oh, well, weed is getting stronger and stronger these days and it's less and less responsible and all that.

But my argument for this, and first of all, I just wanted to go ahead and say, I hate marijuana with a passion.

I hate any type of smoking. I've never even vaped. I don't like cigars. I don't like cigarettes.

I don't like marijuana. It's a conviction in my heart that I just abhor.

But I think at the same time that marijuana should be legal. It should be decriminalized and legal after 21.

That's my opinion. I will never smoke it ever. I have no desire to. After 21, not 18? Correct.

Because cigarettes are 18. If cigarettes are legal, oh my God, marijuana should be legal.

If I were to make anything illegal, it would be cigarettes. Way more than marijuana.

But I would say this. I hate it all. But let's argue for the point of marijuana that, because I don't have any experience with it.

And I don't know if either of you have ever had an experience with smoking marijuana. But what

I have learned from hearing other people's arguments, and this was, I used to say, I would not even hear it because I hated it so much.

But as I grew older and I said, you know what? Let's give some people their chances and hear them out legitimately. When they speak, they say, people react differently to different things.

So just like with anything, there are a whole bunch of different types of it. There's a whole bunch of different ways you can take it.

Whole different uses for it. And different age levels react differently. So children should not be smoking marijuana.

Teenagers should not be smoking marijuana. And serious marijuana pro -advocates are going to agree with you.

Are going to agree with that statement. Kids should not be smoking marijuana. Teenagers should not be smoking it. Because it messes up your brain.

After a certain age of adulthood, that effect does not happen anymore. Yeah, so would your, and I probably do not disagree with most of what you just said.

I would tend to, if we're going to legalize, I tend to have, I prefer to have an age, whatever we say adult is.

18 or 21, let's pick one and stick with it. Okay. Let's not say you can go to Iraq or you can, at this age, but you can't buy alcohol.

So let's pick an age and let's decide. Not to mention when they go to other countries, it's,

I'm assuming you're referring to like military, you join the military when you're 18, but you go over to Germany and the drinking age is 16.

It's like, okay. In America it's different. The argument for 16 being that age is, well, you can let them drive a 4 ,000 pound car.

You know, but I would say, I would tend to agree with Hunter. I would ask you this just out of curiosity,

DUIs still a thing? For sure. Marijuana too? For sure.

We have a thing where in states where it's been legalized, there's been a higher count of, and it's not skyrocketing, it's not this huge deal, but there's a higher count of high, like marijuana related crashes.

The reason that is, is because they're testing for it. They weren't testing for it before.

So any DUI related crash, okay. That's, you know, they were drunk or, oh, they just messed up.

But now that it's legal, they say, okay, let's take the time to test for marijuana. Oh, they were high when they did this.

That doesn't mean that's happening more often. It just means that we know about it now. I would still say

DUIs are a thing. If you were driving impaired. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, don't smoke and drive.

Don't drink and drive. This right here, and right after this point, we'll stop and take a quick break. This right here is my main point to the

Christian listening to this. The act, and this is I think what all three of us are agreeing with, it's not the act of taking a plant, rolling it up, lighting it on fire and smoking it that makes it sinful.

It's the intent behind it. And if you are intent, and we just talked about being impaired driving. If you are intending to be out of control or mind and body, unprescribed, non -medical purpose.

I don't see how that would not be sinful. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come right back to this.

Exactly, Hunter. Okay. All right.

And we're back. So last point I was making was so for the Christian, I think there's our key point that I think we're all agreeing upon.

Since that acting of itself is not what's sinful, the intent behind it, I would still go back to legality, medical purpose, prescribed, you are not a doctor, in control of body and mind.

And if we have a check mark on all of them, then we can have a conversation. That's I think the Christian word of God perspective. You don't get to decide.

It says every thought, it says sober mind. And that applies way more, by the way, to just marijuana. That is an act of life.

Every thought, control of body and mind. Go ahead. I think that this has to do with my favorite topic that I've ever learned about in the

Bible is discernment. It's using your wisdom to discern what is right and wrong. It's using God's word to discern.

What you say, which I've kept in my head, the Bible doesn't tell you whether or not to buy iPhone or Android.

The Bible doesn't tell you about this, that, or the other. And you'll hear in Proverbs, Solomon will tell you to take the lender's coat.

So if somebody's gonna borrow from you, okay, let me hold onto your coat till you get that back. So in other words, don't be an idiot.

Use some discernment. Be wise. And I think this is gonna come down to you need to know yourself, me personally.

If I wanted to smoke marijuana, I wouldn't do it. The reason why, I have an addictive personality.

I get addicted to everything very quickly, easily. And people, and marijuana is very non -addictive.

I 100 % believe that. People do get addicted to it the same way people get addicted, same way big people get addicted to food.

It's an emotional thing. The way you will get addicted to food is the way you will get addicted to marijuana.

It's not because there's some chemical in it that says, and you need to have it and need to have it.

People do that the same way. It's not exactly the same with Juuls, but with Juuls and vapes with very tiny amounts of nicotine, where it's not really gonna grab you, it's more of an emotional response.

May I? Yeah, for sure. And I think the point there, and again, I'm not about to make some type of argument for chemical dependency on marijuana.

I'm not gonna do that. When the Bible says, I will not be brought under control by anything. Yeah. I literally think it means anything.

Let me give you a personal example of something that is more physically, far more physically and chemically addicting than marijuana caffeine.

Oh, dude. And this is for me speaking. If it gets to the point where I have to start drinking coffee throughout the day, all day, every day.

Oh, no. And I know that I'm starting to go down to being dependent. I won't drink any for three weeks.

Yeah. Because I can't allow myself to be brought under control by a bean.

Okay, I can't do that. The bean. I'm thinking Toy Story. So I think

Hunter's point, Christian's listening, is very key. If you are looking for plausible deniability, and you're gonna say something like this.

Well, there is no Genesis 7, 8 that says thou shalt not. That would be

Exodus, whatever. Smoke weed. It's not there. So let me just go ahead and get rid of the pretend facade.

If someone told you, it does not say that. So we're not here to pretend. We're here to share what the Bible actually says, not what we want in our religious background and upbringing to say.

What the Bible actually says? No, it does not say that. But to Hunter's point, discernment is key.

Discernment is key. There's a lot of things. The Bible does not have an answer to every question in life. And hold your gasp after I said that.

That's a pastor speaking. The Bible doesn't have an answer to every question in life. It has an answer to life itself.

And that's what Brother Hunter was getting at. Here we have discernment, okay? If you checkmark all of those boxes that we mentioned earlier to where it would fall into the category of sin, our question of discernment here is what

Brother Hunter is getting at in that, what's the intent behind it? Go ahead, brother. Yeah, and so I'm gonna bring up one of my favorite, this verse right here.

I teach to all the youth. I teach to anybody who ever asks me for any advice is this verse.

And even though I forget the reference every time, I have to spend five minutes looking for it. It's James chapter four, verse 17.

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. For whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

In other words, with great power comes great responsibility. Same difference. Thank you. Thank you for that right there. That is the same difference.

It's if you discern what is right and yet you do what is wrong for you to sin.

For me, I see that as you have to follow your convictions. So let's say this, vaping, 0 % nicotine.

I wouldn't do it because it would be a sin for me. I would argue that it's not a sin for somebody else. Because I have personally have a strong conviction against smoking.

To do that would be to go against it. Now, quick, we're quick. For sure. I'm going to play the other side here.

Do it. Okay. All right. So are you telling me that you're telling me that it's subjective to yourself, right?

So does that mean that that's your truth? And that your truth needs to follow what you need to do?

Is that what you're saying? I'm telling you that your convictions are subjective to yourself. I'm saying that it's a sin for Pastor Josiah to listen to non -Christian music, but it's not for me.

Because Pastor Josiah says, I need to listen to Christian music. Because other stuff affects me.

I say, I'm not affected by it. Therefore, I don't think it's a sin for me to listen to Johnny Cash.

So is that relative to the person? For sure. So the subjective truth?

Subjective truth, I don't think, relates to this. I think subjective conviction.

So you as a person might have a problem with something that I don't. Absolutely. I agree with you.

Right. And you need to follow that conviction. I think a key biblical text for what you two just described.

So obviously there are objective sins. There are sins for everyone, all of mankind. You don't get to decide, well,

I think for me it's okay if I have three wives.

Right. No, it's not. Because there's a biblical principle behind it. That's what I was getting at. I know that's what Brother Andrew was trying to show, that there's objectivity to it.

No, we know. No, you didn't. But for example, and this is the biblical text,

I think we all need to hear, Christians. The Bible says it is not a sin to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

Oh, I just got that studying this. However, if you are in a group and there's someone there who sees that as appalling.

Or causes them to stumble. Right. That you have no right to eat that in front of them.

In other words, we don't believe in false gods. It's just a steak. Okay? But if it would cause her to stumble, how dare

I eat that in front of her? How dare I? So is there always a hundred percent, this is always okay?

In some cases. But in some cases, you're looking for a hundred percent all the time, every time.

Is this okay? Let's fight about it. The Christian walk takes a little more wisdom than that.

That's why you have to study. Let's use the easiest example in our day. I've got one.

Did I stop you? I'm going to shut up and let you go, brother. Okay. Go ahead.

I'll keep mine. Give us that one. Here's one. So to that point, I go out with one of the guys at church, and I know he's struggling with alcoholism.

Sure. And we go out to dinner. Yeah. And I say, hey, man, either

I ask, or I just go in my head. He has a problem with drinking. I should not have a drink tonight. I definitely should not have a drink tonight, because if it's going to cause him to trip and stumble and go back into that lifestyle, then

I have caused him to sin. Or a hundred percent. It is on both of us. And that was my example.

You just said it better and faster, and you looked better doing it. I was prepared for that one. The point being,

I think what we're all agreeing upon now, there is no such thing as it is an outright sin to drink alcohol.

Otherwise, Jesus would need repentance. However, the Bible is littered with warnings of drunkenness, of carousing.

I mean, it's all over from Genesis to Revelation. It's all over the place. So the point being here, though it is not a sin to have a drink of alcohol and not be drunk and all that stuff, even there, drunk.

Right. Point zero eight is a Tennessee law for driving. That's not the standard. The standard is according to the word of God, not in control of mind and body.

There's your standard. Okay. So ergo, but even though having a drink is not in and of itself sinful, if it would cause someone else to fall, how dare you?

How dare you in front of them? That would be the point there. And I think there's another, and this is a practice in discernment.

There's another reason that we can be bad and or be good.

Think of it like this. The reason I don't cuss, there are two verses off the top of my head that I could say, don't let foul language come out of your mouth.

Don't and stuff like that. That's not the reason I don't cuss, even though, you know, that plays a part in it. Because, you know, the reason

I don't cuss is because it says, therefore, let your light so shine before men. It says to be a difference.

It says to show there's a difference in you. Right. Number one, easiest way to do that is to not cuss.

Oh, yeah. People will notice it. It might take a week, but they'll say, this is every job

I've ever been. You don't cuss. Yeah. Or they'll try and get. And so it's the same thing with weed.

Even if you have non -addictive personality and everything we've talked about, positives, positives for you, it's legal in your state.

It's this, that, and the other. Are around what crowd are you doing it and in front of whom?

Is it around a crowd where you are conforming to them or where you are setting off a bad example or where you are tempting another brother or sister who does have that personality?

Then you need to let it go. The Bible says, take up your cross and follow me daily. The cross is a torture and death device.

All right. It's not just a piece of wood that you put on your back and it's difficult. You are literally carrying a burden of horrible anguish.

Take up your cross and follow me. Sacrifice the things that you want for the betterment of not only yourself, but your brothers and your sisters.

So it's another thing to just mention around the company you're with.

Are you letting your light shine? Are you being a difference? Are you doing everything you can to show

Christ to others? And marijuana might be one of those setbacks that says, like, because I will go out with my friends and I'll have a drink.

I never do more than one. I've never really wanted to. I prefer, you know, soda anyway, but I'll have a drink.

If I were out with non -Christian friends, I would not have a drink. I wouldn't.

Can I read what Brother Andrew and I recorded in there? So this is 1 Corinthians 8.

It says this. Now concerning foods offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up but builds up.

If anyone imagines he knows something, he does not yet know it as he ought to. Therefore, when eating foods offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and there's no

God but one. In other words, it wasn't really offered to an idol because there is no God but God. So it's just food.

However, verse seven, not everyone possesses this knowledge, but some because of their former association with idols eat food regularly offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled.

Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat it and no better if we do.

But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to someone who is weak.

So here's the key point here. We all know there's only one God and that food offered to the idol is literally just a

T -bone. However, someone with former association to idolatry and ignorance sees that and it becomes a stumbling block for them.

God now holds you accountable to that. Yep. God now holds you accountable. What does it take to avoid that?

Don't eat the food offered to the idol. Discernment. Discernment. Discernment. Go to Huey's. Yeah. Yeah. Go to Huey's instead.

Could you make the same argument, this is a little off but kind of the same, could you make the same thing for like when you're church, searching for a church and you come from a very legalistic background.

Like the church you came from. As a body, do you want to watch out for - Brother Andrew, define legalism for our brothers and sisters listening who may not know.

Legalism is, I don't know the textbook definition. But basically it's rules, rules are put above scripture.

Hyper -religious. Hyper -religious. The rule is more important than the actual scripture. You need to wear this.

You need to not wear this. You can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. You have to rub your belly and pat your head every time you pray.

Legalism is making anything the law of God that is not the law of God. Right. That's how I've always thought of it.

So using that same scripture, if you're searching and you're trying to find a church that is less legalistic, or if you're stuck in a church that's legalistic, and you don't,

I'm sorry, I'm saying this wrong. Someone is looking for someone that is not legalistic. There we go.

That's what I'm trying to say. Someone is looking for that. And you, like here at Wynton, we don't have a lot, if at all, a lot of legalism here.

So when someone comes in and says, hey, you guys are different.

You know, you are loving. It's like a big family here. Could that...

Legalism would call someone to stumble, correct? Well, yeah. Okay. That's what I'm trying to get at. Is you want to make a church body wants to make it to where you're welcome to come in.

And there's that legalism is not preached. Right. Yeah. It all comes back to balance and discernment because legalism is ungodly.

You are literally making something the law of God that is not the law of God. That's what the Pharisees did. At the same time, what we will never do is then water down the word of God to make it more palatable to those who came from that background.

We can't do that here. So for example, like the opposite of legalism. Yeah. A young girl once told me, y 'all will laugh when

I say this. I'll just say, I'm so glad that you're against legalism. Like all that stuff that says, you know, drinking, smoking, sex before marriage is sinful.

All that kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay, those are not all in the same category. There's a very clear scriptural reference to that.

I know you're happy you're finally wearing jeans again, but let's call it. So it's like, see, and we can all laugh.

But unfortunately, because what she viewed as legalism was just traditional. She now saw everything that traditional that was actually, some of it was actually based on the word of God.

Anything in the word of God that's a rule is now legal. And it's like, it's like getting us like legalism.

It seems like to me, it's like a, it's like a stiff, stiff. I'm going to use drinks here. It's like a stiff drink.

You know, you're used to that. And then you go to a church that doesn't have legalism. Oh, that's just a Coke.

But, oh man, I don't know if I can handle this. And then you come. So Whitten is a Jack and Coke. I feel like we'd be a little bit legalism wise.

We'd be a little bit later. Versus someone who comes from the watered down side of things.

It comes, we would be the stiff drink. Because like, oh, oh, they're actually reading the Bible every week. They're not.

Oh, there's accountability at this church. Why are they opening the service with scripture reading? Why are they singing songs that talk about the gospel?

That's weird. Gospel, I've heard that word before. Gospel, that's a, that's your personal thing, right? Yeah, that's a, that's a

Southern band, right? Let's close down. Let's summarize what we, what we're, what we're thinking about weed.

My summarization of how I feel about weed. It is a difficult road to traverse to say, is this a sin?

Is this a sin? When it's not, when I can't say, well, in Hebrews 7, 12, it says smoking of, if thou shalt light up a doobie.

Why do we always use the King James? Whenever we make up a fake scripture, we have to use the

King James. If thou shalt light up a doobie, Satan shall smack you. I'm going to 7, 12, by the way, if I really am.

Keep going. Okay. I have to know. It's difficult. And there's a time where we can get into the question itself.

Is it a sin too? Because I had, there, there is issues with that question and of itself.

But when it comes to marijuana, the unfortunate truth, I believe is for the majority of people smoking marijuana is going to end up being a sin because of the way you do it.

And because of who, there are so many things in there. I do think that there are ways that you can do it without sinning.

I truly do. But it's probably not right now. I personally believe weed should be decriminalized and legalized with certain rules applied, especially age limit.

I personally would not do it and I have no interest in doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

And to Hunter's point, Christian's listening. Notice his point there about it being legalized.

Doesn't necessarily make it not sinful for you, Christian. Right. I hope you heard that. I would summarize by saying this, almost echoing what brother

Hunter said. You're not going to find a scripture that says this, but here's what you are going to find.

Sober minded, every thought captive, do not eat meat, sacrifice to idols.

Only if it's legally obtained, obey the laws that God has placed over you.

Legally obtained. You're going to be looking for very few scenarios where you could possibly make it okay.

And if that's the method you're using to choose what you do, I'm going to ask you a question. Quit asking, is there anything wrong with, and start asking, is there anything right with?

Now listen to me, and there are plenty of instances in the Bibles for hobbies and vacations. Don't misinterpret what

I'm saying. But Philippians chapter four says, wherever things are right, honorable, just, pure, lovely, if there's be any mercy, be any praise, dwell on these things.

Quit asking what's wrong with it. You're asking the wrong question. Start asking what's right with things. Right. And that will lead you in the right way more often than not.

If you're just trying to not do bad, start doing good. And by necessity, you won't be doing what's bad.

And I'll also just love to throw in there for those listening who have had issues with marijuana in the past and have been in that and all that.

And you're looking like, okay, was it wrong? Is it wrong? Guys, if you doing marijuana is going to bring you back into a state, oh,

I partook of this in a state of sin. Like I was into this when I was in a state of sin. Not a good idea.

Use discernment and say, hey, you know what? Even if I have a non -addictive personality, I was doing this when

I was doing everything else wrong and God had not changed my life and all that.

It's not wise to dip your foot back into a world of sin and death when you are a new creature.

Old playgrounds and old playmates. Right. And some you don't even want. Yeah, right.

Anything, any closing remarks, Mr. Andrew? Uh, no, there's a, I do believe there is a spiritual aspect to this that we didn't get a really chance that we didn't get to flesh out a little bit, but hey, there's always more episodes we can do.

But anyway, yeah, I, I think we've made a good point that it is, it really is up to the discernment of the person.

If you are, if you have a problem and you know, you're gonna, you're gonna be doing something you shouldn't be doing by being on it or by being influenced by it, then you probably shouldn't do it because it is a sin at that point.

Well, we want to thank you for joining us at the Point Taken podcast, the podcast, the

Point Taken podcast, podcast where we make and take spiritual and biblical questions and chat it up.

We're happy to have had you here. And if you're interested in more on this topic, please remember to email us at listenpointtaken at gmail .com.