Dear Uncle Tom,
There are some points in your letter that were good advice and I want to thank you for them. But there are some things you said which I feel reveal a typical bias found in so many Christadelphians of your age.
My first objection has to do with your assumption that “the world seems to think a good time has to include excess of drink and off-color conversation.” I was surprised that you would set out such a binary opposition of foul tongued Gentiles against young brothers and sisters singing around a piano as if these were the only two options. Instead of defining ourselves negatively with respect to the world, why not ignore the world completely and find out what is lawful and proper for the servants of God to do in all their spiritual maturity?
What do you think they did with all the wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee? I think they drank it and had a good time. “They” included our Lord. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to the festivities, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
My second objection was the implication that all non-Christadelphian college students are directionless idiots. The vast majority are, no doubt, but I am surprised if those are the sorts of people whom Christadelphian college students interact with by choice. They are certainly not the kind I have picked to live with. In fact, I have several friends who are ethically and emotionally mature agnostics and I would not object to sharing a house with them. They understand my standards well enough. Infact, all of the members of our place have agreed on conservative standards of public behavior. And I have seen this occur in other houses where all the members were quite irreligious!
Sharing living arrangements is not something to be done lightly, of course, and in that respect I quite agree with you. But I am surprised at your perception of my acquaintances. If you really think my judgment is no better than what you present, then perhaps you should write a letter to my folks admonishing them for not adequately preparing me to deal with people in non-Christadelphian social settings. Really, I think I’m mature enough to handle my situation. Not all disciples mature at the same rate, to be sure, and perhaps your advice would fit a lot of cases. But if your advice did fit, I think moving back home would be little more than compensation for spiritual immaturity.
Sincerely, your nephew,
Mark
Dear Mark,
As you must surely have noticed, some of my comments to you were a paraphrase of sections of Ephesians 5. What I didn’t do in that letter was point out the very binary approach that the word of God takes to the believer versus the world. When one looks carefully at the wording of some passages, they should bring any of us up short.
Consider Eph. 5:8: “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” The apostle is saying that all those to whom he is writing were “darkness” before coming to the Truth. Don’t you think some of them must have been ethically and emotionally mature in their culture and values? Some of them would have been the finest people in Greek society before accepting the Truth, yet the spirit terms them all “darkness.” And look at Eph. 2:2-3: “wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind…” That is a very binary statement.
Even more outstanding is the terminology of II Cor. 6:14-16 where the non-believers are termed “unbelievers…unrighteousness …darkness..Belial…infidel…idols.” There are lots of people in the world who are not directionless idiots. Some are brilliant, some are highly motivated to specific goals, but that doesn’t change God’s estimation of us or our values until we believe and wholeheartedly commit ourselves to the Truth.
Look, I’m not picking on you; we all have the same problem. We don’t want to face up to the height of our calling in Christ because we fall so far short of it. But it doesn’t get us anyplace to redefine what we really should be like to something we can feel comfortable with. What we need to do is honestly admit the enormous difference there is between the way of the flesh and that of the spirit and keep striving to develop into the moral likeness of God. Sure you’ll often feel badly about yourself and you’ll have to keep crying out for forgiveness, but that’s the only way we’ll ever “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24).
You mentioned Christ drinking wine as if that’s a rationale for our drinking along with others at some social activity. Before you ever use that incident in such a way, first of all develop the spiritual likeness of the Lord Jesus at that point in his life. “0 how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.. .I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. ..Through thy precepts! get understanding: therefore I hate every false way” (Psa. 119:97-104). This man was the spiritual giant. Because he could handle the situation with perfect sobriety is no guarantee you or I can. Wine is a mocker and strong drink makes fools of us.
Let me mention a couple of things about alcoholic drinks. First of all, they do not always affect the same person the same way. Depending on several factors including the contents of your stomach, your body metabolism, the rate of intake, etc., the same quantity of alcohol can affect you minimally or severely affect your senses. Second, people vary in their ability to handle alcohol. Some are made tipsy by a very small amount. This creates a serious problem when it is introduced into a group setting where people tend to match others drink for drink.
My strong advice to you is to never introduce alcoholic drinks into a party setting and basically never drink with others. I am fully aware that an occasional drink is no sin, but immoderate and frequent use of alcohol is a major social problem and one against which to exercise extreme caution. Don’t forget, alcohol is an addictive drug.
Thanks for your response. As you know, I like a free and frank exchange of thoughts.
Your loving,
Uncle Tom
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One