Misread Passages of Scriptures

by James Baldwin Brown

Free use of all God’s good gifts with bold conscience is to be the law of Christian living, the daily practice and habit of the life. Voluntary abstinence, forbearance in the use of the freedom, is demanded of us by a yet higher law, the law of Christian charity, the charity which has Christ for its model and inspiration; but only when we find that it will be helpful to a weak brother in our personal intercourse with and influence over his soul. That Paul did not adopt this as his rule of living seems quite indisputable. He could not have omitted to refer to it and explain it in such a passage as 1 Tim. iv. 1-5, if his own rule had been abstinence. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” At the same time we cannot question that he frequently acted on it when brought into personal contact with brethren of weak faith and tender conscience, whom he sought, by sympathy with their doubts and difficulties, to educate to a more vigorous and healthy life. In order to understand what we have every reason to believe was the habit of the apostle’s life, the free and temperate use of all the good gifts of God, we must consider—

III. That the adoption of a rule of abstinence, in permanent deference to weak consciences, would simply transfer to the weak the regulation of the order of human life and the progress of the world. The pace of progress would thus be permanently adjusted to the strength of the weakest, instead of being so regulated as to stimulate and help the weaker to press on into the front line. The result would be a grievous impoverishment of moral and mental power; and Christianity, instead of being the power of God unto salvation, would be the instrument of decline and a ministry of death. Surely it is a fundamental principle that the framework of a man’s life, his daily habits, should be set in the measure of his own personal stature and power. What suits his character and life, and ministers to his development, he is to embody in his habits, as the best service which he can render to God and to his fellow-men. To be strong, wise, self-controlled, is the best beginning, the only true beginning of real service to mankind. The best work which a man can work at, for the service of his fellows, is his life. To regulate permanent habits on the wants and the weaknesses of others is to deny this principle, and to exalt the influence of spasmodic effort above the broad, grand ministry of life. Paul was far from such illusions. Freedom was with him the fundamental condition of vital progress; and if his sympathy with the weak and perplexed led him again and again to veil his freedom for the moment, it was that he might help the weak to strength, the perplexed to clearness of vision, the bondsmen to liberty—strength, clearness, and freedom of which he offered conspicuous examples in his own constant habits of life. “Be ye as I am,” was his appeal: free and strong; able to see the Lord’s mark on all things and creatures, and not the idol’s. To live habitually as if he saw the idol’s mark would have seemed to him a base act of treason, a shameful forsaking of that liberty which he had in Christ, and which he was resolved to hold for himself and his brethren even unto death.

To generalize and formalize into laws of action the impulses and purposes which inspire the spirit in its personal contact with the will, the consciences, and the affections of its fellows, is in most cases to rob charity of its life and grace of its power. It is to substitute law for grace in our personal relations and dealings with mankind. Had Paul laid down the rule,—There are weak consciences, which cannot get rid of the savour of the idol; they shall rule our conduct; I will never eat meat offered to idols, and I ordain the same to the Church,—the development of mankind by Christianity would have been killed at the very root. Scruples would have become the consecrated thing instead of liberty, and Christianity would have made manifest the weakness of man, instead of the power of God, to the world. No! his supreme concern was that they might master their weakness, break their bonds, and grow from babes to men. If this abstaining from flesh while the world stood would have helped them to that progress, he loved them well enough to do it without a pang of regret. But he evidently was eager to see them rise out of the lower region which is haunted and tormented by such scruples. He ignored them as far as possible, though he dealt with them in tender charity, when, as in chap. x. 28, they were forced on his sight.

Something very parallel to this difficulty of the meat offered to idols was the question about the theatre which was a sore perplexity to pious but intelligent spirits a few years ago. There was something, which had in it essentially no element of evil. But it was closely connected with a world and a worldly life which those nurtured in the Church or brought under its influence were sedulously taught to shun. Many who felt themselves strong abstained. They saw no harm, and would get no harm, but rather a positive good. But they denied themselves, that others of weaker faith might not be in the way of harm, and that no sin or ruin of a brother might by any chance be laid at their door. Whether the rule of abstinence was wise I am not called here to consider. It was complicated by moral considerations—which too were not absent in the case which the apostle treats of here—which make it less easy to pronounce judgment in a word. But it must always be remembered that a rule or law of abstinence in such cases on the part of the strong consecrates the scruple, associates evil permanently with that which has no essential evil in it, and multiplies thereby the stumbling-blocks of mankind.

The case of actual vice, like drinking to excess, seems to me to fall under quite another category; though it is constantly regarded as settled by the text, as though it had been written, “Wherefore, if drink make my brother to offend I will drink no wine while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” We have no call here to discuss and pass judgment on a movement by which men of most unquestioned goodness, and self-devotion to the best interests of others, think that they see a means of largely helping the morally weak by removing a fatal temptation from their path. We only say that it is a question well worthy of the most careful consideration, how far in the long run and on a large scale a permanent confession of weakness can be helpful to human development; how far a habit of life confessedly built on the weakness of others can offer a noble and inspiring example to those who it is hoped would profit by it; and how far an unnatural condition can have in it the elements of a true and vital reformation. But these considerations are really beside the true scope of the text, though they are naturally suggested by it. And in closing this discussion of a perplexed and difficult subject I would say in brief:—(1) That isolated acts of abstinence, which may have their special reason and justification, when moulded into habits fall in the way of the withering denunciation which the passage I have quoted from 1 Tim. iv. 1-4 expresses; (2) That the moulding of our personal habits on the follies, weaknesses, or vices of others, is a betrayal of trust, for that which we have chiefly in trust is life—to live a life free, strong, and fearless, shining as a light, not of rebuke or of caution, but of guidance to mankind; and (3) That every concession to doubt and weakness to which Divine charity moves us is futile and vicious, unless in the very act we are putting forth a hand to lift a weak brother to a standing ground where he will be above these fogs of fear and infirmity for ever.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

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IDOLATRIES, OLD AND NEW:
THEIR CAUSE AND CURE.