Heath Lambert: In the United States, we currently exist in a situation where eight states in our republic have allowed the recreational use of marijuana by their citizens and this has created a context for a new sense of urgency about whether it is appropriate for people to engage in smoking marijuana. For Christians, of course, we are not as concerned about what the culture is doing in order to make something acceptable, we are concerned about what the Scripture says. This week on the podcast, we want to talk about whether or not it is appropriate for Christians to smoke marijuana. I want to argue that there’s actually four reasons why Christians should completely abstain from smoking marijuana.
The first reason is that smoking marijuana is a criminal act. The Bible, of course, urges Christians to submit to the governing authorities and in a place like Romans 13:1 we are told, very clearly, that every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God. We are to submit to the governing authorities whenever we can and right now it is illegal in the United States to smoke marijuana. Now, if you’re a resident of Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, or the District of Columbia, you might be listening to this and saying, “well it’s not illegal for me in my state. They just passed legislation and I can go buy it and smoke it anytime I want”. Well, that’s true at the level of the state, but as of this recording right now today marijuana use is illegal in all 50 states by federal law.
So, there is a disagreement in the United States right now between some state laws and federal law. I would want to encourage that where there is a disagreement, Christians should err on the side of submitting to this federal law. This law of abstaining rather than engaging in something that the state says is allowable. This shows an attitude and a posture of submission and is generally good for Christians to cultivate that kind of attitude. Now, this disagreement quite frankly is unlikely to remain for long, we’re probably looking at a situation where, in the somewhat near future, marijuana use will be recreationally allowable in all 50 states, but we’re not there right now. Until we get there Christians and indeed, all citizens are under the law of the land of the United States that make smoking marijuana illegal. Because it’s a criminal act and because the Bible urges subjection to authorities, Christians should abstain from the use of marijuana.
Another reality that makes smoking marijuana wrong for Christians, is because of the consequences of smoking marijuana on the human body. There has been a lot of research on this to indicate that people who are consistent users of marijuana have lower IQs, have problems with attention and memory, they are at higher risks of depression, they are at higher risks of other addictions to other drugs, and they are at risk of psychosis, which is a sort of separation from reality where you experience delusions and hallucinations. Your risk for all those things and many other problems go dramatically higher when you are a consumer of marijuana. This is of course, the principle of honoring the human body in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. It says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God? And that you are not your own, for you’ve been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. This is a text that teaches us that our bodies are precious to the Lord and we’re commanded to honor them. One very clear way that we can dishonor our bodies and really wreck our bodies is with the smoking of marijuana.
Third reason. Why smoking marijuana should be considered wrong by every Christian is because of the communities that we all live in. All of us live in a network of relationships were not isolated people living life on our own. We have parents, we have children, we have wives and husbands, we have church communities, friends, aunts, and uncles, and the reality is, that there is very much a stigma attached to smoking marijuana in most of the communities that we exist in. I just returned from visiting a state where marijuana use is legal. You can smoke marijuana recreationally, legally in that state. I was talking with some church leaders there and asking them, how has that changed the situation that they’re facing in their Ministries. They said it really hasn’t changed it at all because there’s so much of a stigma attached to it in their church and religious communities.
I think that’s true for most of us. The reality is, for most of you listening to this, if you were to engage in smoking marijuana, it would be an absolute scandal to some of the most important people in your life. To your religious leaders, to your parents, to your kids, to your friends, that you care about, this is important. It’s important, but it’s an odd argument to make in a culture like ours, which is so individualistic, and if I want to do it, it should be okay. But that logic is foreign to the biblical way of thinking. We learn from Jesus Christ in John 15:13, “that greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. The word “friends” they’re literally means, “those you love”, and Jesus is commanding that we should lay down our lives, we should give up our rights, we should give up our life for the sake of those we love this is the words of Jesus Christ here, commanding us to consider the thoughts, feelings, opinions, and concerns of others as we live our lives. Indeed, we should lay down our lives for the concerns of others. The reality is that living in a network of community in a network of relationships, like most of us do, is going to mean avoiding smoking pot for the sake of alleviating a scandal with those we love.
Finally, a fourth reason that Christians should avoid smoking marijuana is there is a very clear set of commandments against it in the Bible. Just to talk about one place in Ephesians 5:18 it says do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. It’s interesting here, it says not to get drunk with wine, it doesn’t say, “don’t get high on marijuana”, but the reality is, marijuana was not a pressing issue when Paul was writing to the Ephesians. The principal is, don’t get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. He’s saying, don’t get drunk, don’t lose control of your faculties, don’t engage in this lifestyle of dissipation. This is where you abandon yourself to immorality, that’s what that word means. There are all kinds of ways that we’ve developed, since the first century where you only really had the option of getting drunk with wine, that you can lose control of these faculties. You can get high on any number of drugs and the reality is one mechanism to do this is smoking marijuana.
It’s really not possible to engage in a moderate use of marijuana. There’s research that indicates that as few as two or three puffs on a joint is enough to make you high and engage in this kind of dissipation, so really, what the Apostle Paul here is saying we could paraphrase it for our day, “don’t get high on marijuana, don’t get drunk with wine. That is dissipation and it’s at odds with the filling of the Holy Spirit; the lifestyle of pursuing God in Christ by being filled with the spirit is at odds with the lifestyle that would try to fill your lungs with smoke”. This is a very clear text that teaches against smoking marijuana, even though the words smoke and marijuana aren’t there, the idea is all around it.
So, the reality is, that this is not an unclear issue for Christians. Christians should have great conviction, they should have strong convictions in their conscience, that it is a sin to smoke marijuana. Because it’s criminal right now today, because the consequences are so severe, because the communities that we live in would be scandalized, and because God has commanded that we avoid activities like this.