Sunday, March 6, 2011

Gray (Grey?) Areas

Today my pastor was talking about gray areas in Christianity and how we as people of faith should approach them. Looking at my list of favorite movies they aren’t exactly “clean” so the question I should as is this, is that a problem. Well the answer is yes and no, and added to that it depends. (Wow that’s confusing). Some may say the hit movie Harry Potter is evil and should not be watched, and while I may be tempted to say “relax it’s only a movie, for some people it’s not.” In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul writes about food sacrificed to idols. It’s a long passage, but the gist is that people of strong faith who do not care about eating food sacrificed to idols should not do so in front of people with weak faith who care. Paul writes “be careful, however, that this exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” 1 Corinthians 9. So what is Paul saying? Well he’s talking about gray areas, and that when a situation is not described explicitly in the Bible, like movies, then it all depends on what you think. There are things like cursing, excessive drinking, and murder which are clearly defined but back in the old days Paul couldn’t whip out his I-phone 4 with its 5 g’s (whatever that means) and surf the web. Back to my movie question, is it wrong that I have a propensity to watch movies that are not 100% clean? Well for me it is not so much a stumbling block, I can skip over the worse parts or watch with a godly friend. But let’s say that I am with a godly friend who had a problem with movies moving in on his faith (sorry for the pun). Well then it would be inappropriate to do so as it is not courteous to my friend. So what do we do with gray areas? Well we live at a crossroads, but a sound rule to follow is this, does this move me away from God or closer to God and in the end is it worth it?

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