Read Discerning God’s Direction, Pt. 1 here
The Context of First Corinthians
First Corinthians, a letter written by the apostle Paul to a young body of believers in the ancient Greek city of Corinth, is a very practical book. It deals with a lot of moral and spiritual questions that often come up in people’s minds. In fact, as you read it, you get the impression—rightly so—that 1 Corinthians is actually a response to a letter sent by the Christians in Corinth asking all kinds of practical questions about their new Christian life and walk, now that they’re believers.
You see various practical issues dealt with here, including:
* Marriage, divorce, and remarriage
* Lawsuits and going to court
* Divisions and gossip in the church
* Sin within the congregation
* The proper receiving of the Lord’s Supper
* The gifts of the Holy Spirit (and quite a bit about the gift of tongues)
* The bodily resurrection of believers
This book has been called a casebook of pastoral theology.
The “Gray Areas” of the Christian Life
Nevertheless, a multitude of practical things come up in everyday life that fall into the category we might call “gray areas.”
Should I or shouldn’t I? Is it okay or is it not okay as a Christian?
These are things the Bible doesn’t say anything specific about: Should I go to that party? Should I have that drink? Should I go to that movie or take in that show? Should I do this or say that?
I trust that most of us here, being believers in Jesus Christ, really want to do the right thing on a daily basis—what God would say is good and right. But when questions like this come up, we might also feel that groups like the Amish, for instance, have gone a little too far in those categories.
So what does the Bible say about those things? Does the Word have anything to say about it? I believe it does, specifically, right here in 1 Corinthians.
The Basic Principle: You Are Not Your Own
The first thing I want to point out is that Paul affirms a basic tenet of the Christian life: the highest purpose behind any and all human activity, as a believer. Speaking to born-again believers in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NASB1995), he says:
“Or 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 have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Jesus put it this way to His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:16):
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Live your life to the glory of God. That’s the basic, overriding principle of all human activity as a believer: that with this body, this life, and these days, I might be an instrument for the glory of God. It’s not so much that I am glorifying God, but that God is glorifying Himself and His name through the likes of somebody like me.
Paul points out four key truths in this passage:
* You are a dwelling place. Despite being an earthen vessel—an old pottery pot—you are a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. You are a living, walking, breathing temple of God. The building is not the temple; you are.
* You were purchased at Calvary. You belong to Him now.
* As such, you don’t own yourself anymore. That’s a good thing!
* Consequently, there is a tremendous, limitless potential for glorifying God with your life. It’s not about the earthen vessel; it’s about Who abides in that earthen vessel: God by the Holy Spirit.
So, the point is, just what He might want to do with you in every single and any little situation of your life. That’s the spirit of it.
The Danger of Legalism & Rules
So, with that in mind, what do we do about those gray areas?
Let me tell you what our natural tendency is. New Testament Jewish culture was really good at this: making all kinds of rules. “A good Christian doesn’t do this, doesn’t do that, and won’t do that anymore.”
Did you know that in Orthodox Judaism, there are two books considered holy? The holiest, of course, is the Torah—the Law of God. But another highly reverenced text is the Talmud, which consists of writings the ancient rabbis who were interpreting the Torah, the Law of God. In other words, they made laws based on God’s law. In the Talmud, there are 613 specific, separate laws that a good Jew was supposed to keep.
This was very in vogue in New Testament Israel, in Judea, where Jesus lived. The rabbis knew that the Talmud wasn’t God’s law, but viewed their rules as a “hedge” around God’s law to keep you from breaking it. For instance:
* The Sabbath: God’s commandment says to keep the Sabbath holy and not do any work. But what qualifies as “work”? They came up with a “Sabbath day’s journey”—the distance you could walk without it being counted as “work”. They had it mapped out as approximately 1,000 yards, calculated precisely in cubits. A good Pharisee would know how many steps he could take that day and be inside the law; he would count his steps so he didn’t accidentally take that final step that crossed into “work.”
* Food Preparation: On the Sabbath, you could eat food, but you couldn’t prepare food—that was work. If someone was injured, you could bandage the wound, but you could not dress the wound—that was work. That’s why Jesus got into trouble for healing on the Sabbath day; that’s why the disciples got into trouble for picking heads of wheat, rubbing them in their hands to remove the chaff, and pop the little grain in their mouths. By rubbing it in their hands, they were “preparing food” and that was against the rabbinical law of God, according to their interpretation.
* Kosher Laws: To this day, if you travel to Israel, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a cheeseburger. You can find hamburgers, but cheeseburgers? You may find some little joint somewhere that’s breaking the law by offering cheeseburgers. You also can’t buy a hamburger and a milkshake together in Israel. Why? Because Exodus 23:19 says, “You will not boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.”That was originally a prohibition against a specific pagan, idolatrous practice. But over time, a hedge was built around it so that meat and dairy could never be combined. At hotels in Israel today, breakfast will feature all kinds of dairy products but no meat, while dinner will feature meat products but no dairy. They keep those separate because of that law.
We might chuckle at things like that and ask, “How legalistic can a person get?” Yet Christians have a tendency to do the exact same thing.
Some churches may create lists: “If you’re a good Christian, you don’t do this and you don’t do that.” My wife, Joyce, grew up in a home and church with very strict rules like that:
* No playing cards, because cards were associated with gambling (they didn’t even play Go Fish!).
* No going to movies—even back in the day when movies were innocent and G-rated! It’s funny, Christians today feel very free about going to movies today, when they are a lot worse!
* No dancing.
* No televisions. I remember reading as a young man about a church in the Midwest that decided TV was of the devil. Everyone brought their sets to the parking lot, piled them up, and lit a bonfire. After that, you couldn’t own a TV and be a member of that church.
Now, I’ll admit—getting rid of TV isn’t necessarily a bad idea! But it’s not a sin to have a television. When you create an endless list of rules to try to live righteously, your Christian life becomes a list of don’ts, and it turns into total bondage. You go around tripping over your lower lip because you’re trying so hard to be “holy.”
What’s wrong with those “hedges”?
* They become treated as God’s law when they aren’t.
* They replace joy with fear.
* They make you judgmental. You end up judging other people’s walk based on your personal list.
* They foster legalism. You start thinking that keeping your list makes you a righteous person. Your self-righteousness becomes based on what you do or don’t allow yourself to do. But those rules have nothing to do with true righteousness!
It reminds me of the Islamic prayer towers in the Middle East. Five times a day, Muslims stop to pray toward Mecca. In ancient times, a person called out from the tower, but nowadays, it’s an automated recording with an amplifier. It goes off on a timer—loud, ear-piercing, and repetitive. But the point is: any practice that becomes a rote, legalistic rule becomes lifeless.
Christians can be so guilty of those attitudes, too: five times a day we stop and pray! How often do YOU do it? Anything that becomes this rote little rule that you keep becomes lifeless.
I remember watching a Disney movie as a kid—I think it was The Absent-Minded Professor starring Fred MacMurray. Every time the husband and wife went to kiss, they would reach toward each other, miss by an inch, and just kiss the air! They were going through the physical motions of acknowledging one another, but the real heart and life of it had gone by the wayside.
If I went up to my wife Joyce five times a day, stood rigidly, and said, “I love you, I am your husband, I am committed to you, amen, goodbye,” she’d look at me and say, “Would you stop it? Just talk with me! Let’s go take a walk and spend time together.”
Rules, regulations, legalism takes the life out of a relationship. Doing what’s right isn’t about maintaining a big list of rules and then fervently keeping the rules; that misses the point completely.
I’ll tell you what else is a danger: pretty soon your rules become so holy, and everybody who’s part of the “in group” know what the rules are, but people on the outside don’t know the rules—so they’re not as holy as you are!
Furthermore, rules encourage hypocrisy and manipulation. Jesus heavily criticized the religious leaders in Matthew 23 because they created rules with loopholes. For example, if a man swore by the temple in Jerusalem, the rabbis said it wasn’t binding. But if he swore by the gold on the temple, it was binding! If he swore by the altar, it wasn’t binding, but if he swore by the gift on the altar, it was binding. Businessmen would exploit these technicalities to deceive Gentiles, and Jesus ripped on that. It was in that context that Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 5:37a, But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’.
Grace and Intent Over Rules
This whole issue reminds me of an incident when my son Tim was about six or seven years old. My older daughters were babysitting in the neighborhood a few blocks away. This was during the day, so some of the younger kids had gone over there to hang out, and Tim had ridden his bike over.
I was standing in the living room looking out toward Martis Valley Road when I saw Tim pedaling home as fast as his legs could carry him. Even from a distance, I could tell he was crying hysterically. He pulled up, threw his bike on the lawn, ran inside, sobbing. I asked, “Tim! What’s wrong?”
He said, “Dad, spank me!”
I said, “Spank you? Why?”
He cried, “Don’t ask—just spank me!”
Of course, I wasn’t going to spank him; he was clearly brokenhearted and repentant. When the older kids came home, I asked what happened. It turned out Tim had unknowingly said a “bad word”—he didn’t even know what it meant, but when he said it, his older siblings gasps in shock: “Oooh, Tiiiim!” He was so horrified that he pedaled straight home to take his punishment.
In many cases, the person breaking the so-called “rules” is probably more innocent than the people judging them.
I remember a young lady who got saved and started coming to our church years ago simply seeking to learn more about Jesus. She looked like she came from another planet—her hair was sticking out in three or four different colors, her makeup and her clothing were both just weird! But she was coming out of her background and genuinely wanted to know Jesus.
When she walked in, I saw some people in the congregation freeze up, not knowing what to do. But knowing where she was coming from, I walked right up, gave her a hug, welcomed her, and introduced her around. As people realized she had just accepted the Lord, those barriers broke down, and she became a wonderful part of our church family. Over time, her appearance softened a little bit, naturally, but she was there for the right reasons all along.
When rules dominate, you lose the life God intended. You can keep every outward rule and still completely miss the intent of God’s law. Jesus said the entire law is summarized in two commandments: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus confronted the Pharisees on this very point in Matthew 23:27–28:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
True Christian Freedom
Making a big list of rules doesn’t cut it. That is never what your walk and your Christianity is ever to be about! So—what do you do? Look at what Paul writes in Galatians 5:1:
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
Christ set you free that you might really be free. That’s the point. Don’t be subject to legalistic rules. Paul says in Galatians 5:13:
“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
The takeaways are simple:
* Do not be bound “dos” and “don’ts”, laws and rules. Realize that you are absolutely free in Christ. Let that settle in.
* Do not use your liberty as an excuse for selfishness or lust. Instead, use that incredible liberty that you have in Christ to love, serve, and build up others. In other words, use that freedom to be a help to others in knowing Jesus and walking with Him. That’s the principle! That glorifies God.
Four Questions for the “Gray Areas”
So how do we handle the gray areas of life? Rather than relying on rigid rules, here are four questions you can ask yourselves—not rules—derived from 1 Corinthians chapters 6, 8, and 10:
Question 1: Is it helpful?
“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable [helpful].” (1 Corinthians 6:12a)
Ask yourself: Is this helpful spiritually, physically, and mentally?
* Spiritually: Does this strengthen my walk with Christ?
* Physically: My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit—is this good for God’s temple? By doing this, am I honoring God with my body?
* Mentally: Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world [don’t just do it because everybody else is doing it], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Philippians 4:8 instructs us to Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Is this helpful in honoring God with my mind?
I remember years ago when my kids were young, I was watching a movie in the basement. I heard the kids coming down the stairs, and realizing the movie wasn’t appropriate for them, I said, “Kids, this isn’t for you—head back upstairs.” They dutifully went back up. But as I sat there, the Lord spoke to my heart: So why are you watching it, Brian? If they shouldn’t watch it, why do you need to watch it?”
I felt convicted, turned off the TV, and went upstairs to hang out with my kids until bedtime. How many times have you watched something on TV into the late night and asked yourself, Why in the world did I watch THAT? And you go to bed almost churning on the inside. How much better just to flip that thing off and get a good book—you know, I can recommend a really good book, I think you should read it daily—it’s called the Bible! It’s the bestselling book in the history of the world.
Reading good literature at night makes me really tired really fast, so I end up going to bed earlier—and that’s a good thing. I used to tell my kids when they were teenagers. “Be home by midnight.” “MIDNIGHT?” they would complain. I would tell them that nothing good happens after midnight.
We live in a movie-saturated society—we stream them, buy them, and watch them on tiny screens everywhere. I wonder how many movies we would turn off, or walk out of, if we simply asked: Is this helpful mentally for my walk with my Lord? Is it helpful spiritually?
Asking that question: Is it helpful? can keep us from doing things we perhaps should not, but can also encourage us do those things that we actually should, but just don’t feel like today. I wonder how many people won’t be in church next Sunday because they just don’t feel like it? I have to go, so I can’t point the finger at anybody.
So the question is not just: Is this OK? It’s also: Will this contribute to making me the person God wants me to be?
Now, does this mean you can never enjoy an ice cream cone, eat cotton candy at the fair, or go to Disneyland? No, not necessarily! Leisure activities provide wonderful opportunities for fellowship, encouragement, and building relationships outside of formal Bible study. When my kids were growing up, I did all kinds of kid activities with them—not necessarily for the activity itself, but to be with them and share that joy. Joyce and I used to love getting a banana split together after the kids went to bed; it wasn’t just the ice cream, but the quality time we shared over it.
Paul addresses this balance in Romans 14:22–23: “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.” He’s talking about those gray areas, in particular; those things that we wonder about. If your conscience pricks you about something, listen to the Spirit … to do or not to do.
Question 2: Can it get me in its power?
“All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12b)
That’s an important question to ask: Can it get me in its power?
Paul’s attitude is that anything that can get me in its grip, that has the potential of becoming a habit that I will have difficulty breaking, I will have nothing to do with that. I’m going to leave that alone. The reason was Galatians 5:1 again:
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Watch out for that one!
I remember a man in our ministry who was absolutely clearly delivered from severe alcoholism. He got set free. He was a free man! For several months, if not a year, he walked in freedom with the joy of the Lord. After months of that, he told me, “Brian, I’m so set free now that I could have a drink now and then and it would be OK.” Red flags went up big time. I warned him: “Don’t do that! Don’t take the chance of being subject again to a yoke of slavery. Stay free!” But he was convinced he was fine. In a matter of weeks, I watched a dear brother of mine go right down the tubes. He spiraled right back into that bondage, into the slavery of full-blown addiction. It just broke my heart. Paul said, if something has the power to get its grip on me, I’m leaving it alone!
Pastor Chuck Smith, in his annotated Bible, wrote on this verse: “I am so free in Jesus Christ I can do whatever I want, but I don’t want to do things that enslave me. It would be foolish if, after being set free, you were to sell yourself into slavery again.”
Does this have power to get me in it’s grip? We’re not talking about just BAD stuff. The most innocent things can have that power in a person’s life! There can be nothing wrong with things, generally speaking, but for that person, the attitude should be, I can’t do that!
I remember speaking at a youth camp years ago. Many kids rededicated their lives to the Lord after the week-long camp, including this one high school football star who told me he felt convicted to step away from football. He said he realized if he was going to walk with Jesus he couldn’t play football anymore. “I know what football does to me and the way it gets control of my life, it dominates me and brings out things in me I don’t like, and I just need to release it.” I like football and I didn’t want him to throw it away unnecessarily. But after talking with him a bit more, I realized he was doing exactly the right thing for him. Stepping back was the right choice to stay free.
Sometime later I read a book called Twelfth Man in the Huddle, featuring testimonies from NFL players who played specifically as a platform to glorify God and be a witness for their faith, and that is why they are there. For one person, an activity is fine; for another, don’t do it! It will suddenly be controlling your life.
In my first youth pastorate, a group of leaders had a regular Friday night golf gathering. Over time, I noticed the entire church calendar started revolving around Friday night golf—it became an untouchable “holy cow.”
When anything controls you, you can no longer, in that context, be controlled by the Holy Spirit. My usefulness to the Holy Spirit is too valuable to ever let anything gain control in an area of my life. So, what do you do? If there’s something in your life exercising that kind of control, repent, surrender it, and release it to the Lord. Let the Lord, in that area of your life, give you what He wants to give you—leave it in His court. There may be an area in your life that you KNOW you have to forsake it and walk away from it. If that’s the case for you, I encourage you: DO IT! Do it now. Be free in Jesus.
Question 3: Will this cause others to stumble?
But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. 1 Corinthians 8:9-13
Paul uses the example of meat sacrificed to idols. Some of the best steaks in Corinth were served at idol temple restaurants. As a mature believer, Paul knew an idol was nothing and that the meat was perfectly fine to eat. But if a newer believer—who had recently left pagan idol worship—saw Paul eating that meat in a temple, it might confuse them, wound their conscience, and cause them to fall back into sin.
Paul’s conclusion: I am so free that I am free to never eat meat again if it keeps my brother from stumbling.
We want to be an encouragement to others in their walk with the Lord, and NOT a hindrance!
I remember a pastor friend’s wife once attended a mandatory company holiday party where alcohol was flowing heavily. People kept offering her drinks, and she politely declined each time. A few days later, a new believer in their church—who was a recovering alcoholic—called her and said, Thank you for saving me at that party. I was tempted to grab a drink, and I decided that if I saw you take one drink, I’d take it as my cue to drink. Every time you said ‘No thank you,’ it gave me the strength to say no.
While drinking in moderation is not explicitly forbidden in Scripture, our pastoral staff has chosen to abstain completely so that we never open a door that causes someone else to stumble. Our goal is always to encourage others in their walk with Jesus.
Question 4: Is it glorifying to God?
“Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
It’s not just what you do or don’t do—it’s why you are doing it.
When Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees criticized Him. Jesus responded that it is the sick who need a physician. He was in that setting for one primary reason: the glory of God.
Conclusion
When you encounter those daily gray areas, seek God’s wisdom, ask for His guidance, and run things through these four questions:
* Is it helpful spiritually?
* Does it have the power to control me?
* Would it cause someone else to stumble?
* Can I do this for the glory of God?
As you do this, the Holy Spirit will establish healthy, personal hedges for your life that bring glory to Him. Remember: those hedges are between you and the Lord—they aren’t meant to be forced on everyone else. Walk in the freedom Christ has given you!
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About Pastor Brian
Pastor Brian Larson ministered in Truckee, California, for more than 40 years, having moved there with his young family from Southern California in the summer of 1975 to pastor a denominational church in the area. He stepped out in faith in 1978 to begin a nondenominational fellowship in North Tahoe. By June of 1981, the small fellowship had moved to the high school auditorium in Truckee, and it was then that they became known as Calvary Chapel of Truckee. For more than 38 years, the emphasis of Pastor Brian’s ministry at Calvary Chapel of Truckee was simply on the building up of the body of Christ through the clear, objective teaching of the Word of God, the praise and worship of His Name, and diligent prayer. He firmly believed that as the body was fed and nourished in His Word, we would grow in His grace and love. In October of 2019, Pastor Brian stepped down as senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Truckee and soon after moved to Connecticut where he has continued ministering to the body of Christ through teaching engagements and through his non-profit ministry True To His Word.
