Freedom!
1 Corinthians 10:23 (NIV) - “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. -Among other things July is known as the month when we have Independence Day here in the U.S. Everybody knows that political freedom is what we celebrate on the 4th of July. There is also the freedom the Bible speaks of that those who are in Christ have that is a different type of freedom, but still freedom. It seems like it's hardly ever thought of but freedom in Christ is a blessing we shouldn't take lightly. This freedom allows us to do many things as we see fit as long as we put God first. We often hear things like a Christian shouldn't eat or drink certain things, or celebrate certain days etc. because they will make themselves unclean in the eyes of God if they do. These are popular misconceptions that may have been carried over from the old testament law given to Moses that Christ has freed us from, or they might just sound good to some. In new testament times the apostle Paul had to deal with Jewish religious leaders who were teaching people such things as described were pleasing to God instead of just having faith in Jesus Christ as we are told in the Bible, and unfortunately today some churches are doing the same thing. The Bible says that nothing we eat, drink or do can make us unclean unless we regard it as such (Romans 14:14 - I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.) This should not be taken to mean we can do whatever we feel like. I think that any freedom can quickly descend into anarchy and become detrimental to us when taken to extremes. Something like this might be what Paul meant when he wrote that not everything is beneficial or constructive. As important as political freedom is here in the U.S. it can be removed at any time (I hope it's not) because it is the work of man's hands. As with anything to do with him, freedom in Christ will always be here because it's part of God's promise to us. What About Jesus?
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These are some good comments on christian freedom. Yes I think that Paul was trying to free people up and move them away from the OT law.
Another thought that I had was that when Paul wrote this there was about 200 million people in the world and now we have slightly over 7 billion, that alone, it seems to me changes how much freedom we have as well as the nature of that freedom.Posted 06-28-2013 at 11:59 AM by Fortoggie
