Is It Sinful to Do Something Unwise?

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The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of Almighty God is

Hanging over our head. They will hear his words They will not act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment when the fires of wrath come

They will be consumed and they will perish God wrapped himself in flesh

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Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words They will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day

They're all right. Tim. The question for today's episode is is it sinful to do something unwise?

It's important as you read the Bible to notice the fact that the Bible does categorize different moral actions in a variety of ways so it's important to think through how the

Bible comes to us as it relates to these kind of topics and There are as you read through the Bible there. There's going to be

Categories for things that are objectively wrong in all times in all places So there there are commands that God has given to us which are not just you know, flexible commands

There there is a very real category in which you trust the Lord with all your heart You don't lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your path and so there is a

Category in the Bible for a command like for commands that God has given to us which have no wiggle room

But then when you're talking about this category of wisdom Wisdom issues in general and then as it relates to wisdom issues in the

Bible or wisdom literature and the books of the Bible that are devoted to wisdom and When you're when you're in that realm of discussion, the rules are a little bit different So, you know as you read through the book of Psalms and Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon you're in in Job.

I mean you're in the language of wisdom and you know the You know Jews basically had this category of wisdom literature and there there a bit of a different rules for this category than there are for the you know language of legal precepts or the other ways in which

God speaks to us in his Word and so it's It's difficult to answer this question because there's a variety of things

I want to say, but I can't say them all at once So I'm gonna try to say say them, but I can't say everything at once But I'm gonna try to say him and in an order that makes a little bit of sense

But I mean you could start with like the most obvious thing, you know to knowingly do something that the

Bible says is foolish It's very difficult to distinguish that moral action from sin in that way

So if you know the Bible puts something forward to you as something which is wise thing to do if you just knowingly reject it and I would even say even if you and like Unintentionally rejected it if there's revelation on it

God expects you to know what his revelation says and to just embrace folly or to Behave in a foolish way.

There's no virtue in that. I mean there is there there's no virtue in being foolish and to be foolish is to It's it's very difficult at that point to distinguish that from sin

But you do need practically you do need to have some sort of category for wisdom issues And you do need to think through how wisdom issues generally work and you know as a category

I want to say that there is a distinct category that you might describe in the language of wisdom issues that aren't technically wrong in of himself to commit or to violate but you know, if you like There's a lot of moral actions that operate on a scale essentially is what

I'm trying to say operating between you know, very very unwise to a little bit unwise and There are sewing and reaping principles are attached to this kind of category in that Hey, maybe you have freedom to pick to plot a certain course within certain boundaries

But then you're going to reap what you sow and if you you know engage in you know actions which are objectively fluid foolish

You may get a lot of bad consequences to come from that so it may not be technically wrong so to speak, but then you'll experience the fruit of your actions along those lines and so With you know sin issues you have a very clear category of right and wrong

That isn't just situational, you know, it isn't just fuzzy You have rights and things that are right and wrong and I mean obviously like yeah, like committing murder

Yeah, or yeah, or rape is always gonna be yeah It's all yeah objectively wrong and all times in all places and you know

If you you were had a you know, a mass murderer holding a gun to your head and saying hey

I'm gonna shoot you if you don't do this. I mean there are categories for saying no do your worst, right?

And so there are things like that, but then you know as you think through a lot of the Proverbs along these lines You know the

Bible say spare the rod spoil the child well, that's that is a statement of general truth and You know statements of general truth along those lines do admit exceptions and then you might ask yourself

Well, what do you do if you're have a court order? From you know, the government basically saying to you that if you you know spank your child

Then you're gonna have your child taken away from you and you're in a context where you're married to an unbelieving wife and she's calling that abuse and She is going to call the police on you and have your children

Separated from you that way do you do you stick your guns to that point and just say well?

Hey, I'm gonna lose my kids I'm gonna never be able to see him see them again or possibly even go to jail and that Or do you view that moral action and a little bit of a different way?

Is that a wisdom issue which is a statement of general truth and you're in You know, there's a do you have a category for saying?

hey, I'm gonna have to engage in something which I think is objectively foolish because I have a gun to my head, but it's not like The you know, the objectively moral wrong kind of category.

It's just in a different category So, you know that would those would be kind of test case scenarios to see do you have different?

Categories that you're working with along these lines So then like in the language of wisdom

I think there's a lot of issues in the Bible where we would be commended to save money for instance

And so the Proverbs as you're reading through the Proverbs There's a lot of passages that you're gonna find the Proverbs that talked about the importance of saving money

But then how much do you save right? Right? Yeah, it's difficult to know how much you're commanded to save now everyone has to stand before the

Lord and make an action that they think is pleasing to him and you know if you feel like a you know, a good amount to save is you know a

Lot of that's just dependent on your income and a lot of us dependent on your situation and how much disposable income you have

Everything else but then there isn't really any clear answer that you're gonna find in the

Bible about you know God's amount that you're supposed to save and put away

You know, so you have in the Bible We have principles of saving versus hoarding and you have a whole big long discussion along those lines and so there's guardrails like you don't want to just be laying up for yourself treasures on earth and and Not be laying up for yourself treasures in heaven and just amassing money with no purpose and no intention

But then objectively when it comes to it, you know, how much are you supposed to save? Well, it may get a little fuzzy, you know

And it may go up and down and it may be that you set out to have a plan like a savings plan Maybe that life mitigates against it in certain ways it may be that like in trying to be faithful to all the things

God it says maybe like a loved one you comes up with A need and they're asking you for help and maybe you don't save that month did you sin because you didn't save a lot of like wisdom issues involves prioritizing a lot of different commands and principles in the

Bible and and without just a clear black and white guardrails about the

One and only way to do it. Does that make sense? Yeah, and and if I know one I know, you know, obviously there's no like when it comes to saving for example

There's no command It's like hey you need to save X amount of money

But then I think we can all pretty safely say that you don't need to save six hundred and sixty six dollars, right?

We've left the we've left the wisdom realm at that point we're in sin territory for sure

Yeah, so no, okay joking joking aside I want to talk a little bit about that last statement you made where you're basically saying hey a lot a lot of wisdom

Is just trying to juggle a lot of various commands I want to know a little bit more about what you mean by that because I think someone could hear that and then say to Themselves.

Okay. Well, you know, let's say I were put into a position where the guns held to my head, right?

and You know there they will kill me if I don't do exactly what they say and they say, you know

I want you to lie and I won't kill you, right? So when you're saying wisdom is juggling a lot of different Commands that God has given us

Are you saying like hey the wise thing to do is is lie in that scenario and then and Then just live with the fact that you did sin

But you get to live and still lead your family and yeah, you know provide for them all that All right, so what you're talking about is situational ethics and so then whatever moral absolutes that you find yourself in You're talking about a category.

We're based on the situation. You may or may not Follow through with those

Moral absolutes in that way because you're trying to prioritize certain commands and you know as far as that goes

I'm I I'm not a situational ethics kind of person. Okay. Now there's a whole discussion to have about Whether or not lying is always permissible and every case we'll leave that aside for a second just to not make this too convoluted

But then like I'm a more I believe I'm a moral absolutist in the in in that I believe that there are

You know God's given us, you know certain moral absolutes and they're right in all times in all places

And so it's never gonna be right to murder someone, you know, sure the murder murder is always wrong You know stealing is always wrong

They're whatever these moral absolutes are God's given us like certain things that are inflexible

But when I'm talking about juggling commands, I'm not talking about Juggling commands and principles.

I'm not talking about violating like clear commands of the Bible. Okay, I'm talking about is like Nick, let's let's say let's talk about a situation that may be

More user -friendly in this way, but like just picking a church, okay Mm -hmm. All right. So think about that think about that.

So the Bible says that You know, we are not to forsake the assembly of the Saints together as is the habit of some right?

So like we need to We need to join a church. We need to you know, faithfully attend church.

We need to join a church I mean, those are just kind of basic Christian Christianity 101 kind of things

But then the Bible doesn't tell us like what church we need to go to right? Mm -hmm.

Yeah, right So we have a command we need to join in church We need to be and maybe we need to do an episode on that because some people don't agree, but I don't really care but Without having to establish you, you know, you can be offended if you want.

Okay, but The without necessarily establishing that in this episode was just like there's a command, you know join a church the command go to church those are commands, but then we don't necessarily have like in the

Bible a specific That command is attached to a particular local church for us.

Does that make sense? Yeah. All right So I need to go to church right now. I also need to not get into credit card debt.

Okay, sure Like so, you know the borrower slave to the lender and all that right?

So like I Like how far do I drive to get to a good church, right?

Mm -hmm. So like there are Like it probably would be wiser it'd be wiser to go to a church closer to me

And it would be to go to a church further from me, right? Yeah So like if I'm just weighing that one priority is wiser to go somewhere closer than it is to go somewhere farther away but then what if all the churches that are around me are

Heretical churches right and the only faithful church is further out right?

Well, then I'm saying well It would I can't go to a heretical church right now, let's say that like I there's there's

Orthodox churches around me That are closer and there are Orthodox better Orthodox churches that check more of my boxes that are further, right?

Right. Well, then it would appear that it would be wiser to go to Like we've already said it's wiser to go closer than further, right?

Mm -hmm, but then it seems like On the other end of it like the church that I think is more faithful is further and not closer, right?

it's so sure so in that way it would I'm being pushed to say it would be wiser to travel further instead of Travel shorter, right?

Mm -hmm Now if you weren't all of that in the language of legal precept, then I have a very real moral dilemma

You see I'm saying Meaning, you know if you say hey, okay You base the you base the law off of you know, the first The first instance then all of a sudden, you know

You got has commanded me to go to a church within the five mile radius of my home, right? Right, but then for the person in the second situation all of a sudden

They're forced into making you know a worse a worse decision or like a

You know not the wisest decision they could make Because that's a law made that applies to one specific

Situation and has no no, you know There's no scriptural command anywhere

Right, right So if I don't have this category for wise and unwise and I only have a category for right and wrong

Then my first conviction I need to try to go to a church within like a five or ten mile radius becomes a law for Me right sure and and I don't have the wise unwise category and then like that becomes informal conflict with my other

You know Convictions which say I need to be this amount of picky about the kind of church

I go to if that makes sense Yeah, so basically you need so the more complicated decision -making actually gets what ends up happening is you have like guardrails?

I need to go to church, right? Mm -hmm. I need to go to the church that has a gospel, right? So I need to go to a church that has a gospel.

I need to go to church somewhere I need to join a church be a part of a church, you know practice in one another commands

Yeah, you know be faithful to those things And so, you know, essentially I have like I have certain guardrails that are absolute in the decision

But then there's a lot of things that are just wiser and you know Maybe wiser and maybe unwise more unwise and then

I'm trying to weigh Like in terms of the totality of the decision a lot of different factors so part of that, you know picking though You know best church

I can figure out how to pick might involve considering how much money I have to travel every week, right? Yeah, yeah, you know part of it may think about well, how much time do

I have, you know? And how much time do I wanted to vote to driving every week? Not just in a selfish way, but just in a you know practical way like it

You know, is it wise to drive two hours to go to church every week if you don't have to right? You know and then like there's no perfect church, right?

And so it may be that There are certain, you know, this church has you know wiser

You know music, you know, this church has wiser teaching, right? Sure And so then which of those is more important and I have you have to weigh certain things

So at the end of the decision -making process essentially what you're doing is you're basically, you know You're talking through what are the non -negotiable the sin issues?

What are the wisdom issues and then you know? There might be a very small category at the end of like just pure preference kind of issues, right?

But that would shouldn't be taking very much You know space in the calculation But then the point there is just to say that not everything is black and white right right and wrong, right?

So how how much Bible reading do you read every day, right? Like is it like is it like is there an is there a magic number?

Well, no, I mean, it'd be better to read more than less, right? But then I don't think anyone's in sin for not doing our

Monthly Bible challenge that we're correct. Yeah, right Yeah, you know that may be wise for some people it may be unwise for other people in different situations, right?

so it could just Like there's no One right way to do it.

There's just a lot of there's a lot of things like that Like how do you you know, what is the best way to get the

Bible in your head? there's a lot of ways to do it and some are more wise than others and some accomplish certain things and well, and other things not so well and so and so you need it seems to me that you need this category of wisdom here and Just to help you to make decisions

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