Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hello Ken – you said to me,
“you call [marijuana] a sorcer[ous] drug. I do not see that it is one by definition because some sorcerers may have used it.”
This would be a very odd chemical whose effect upon the human system depended upon the user’s motive! It is known to be a drug used to bring people into the presence of spirits, even if said spirits are not recognized as such but hidden from awareness. “Hidden” in this usage is the very meaning of “occult”, its root meaning is hidden (from view), concealed, covered over, coming from the Latin occulere; in medicine it is used as in the terms “occult blood in the stool,” or “occult carcinoma.”
The danger of such substances is precisely the nature of their hiddenness, i.e., what they hide when their affect within the system and its awareness is realized.
You also said, “it's never been about the method, but the heart.” You appear to be in over your head when talking about things you don’t know. This is not like the “Guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. There is a property intrinsic in the substance which acts regardless of the intent of the user. When one takes a sorcerous substance it matters not what use is intended, be it merely sensuous pleasure, acuity of mental or artistic ability, spiritual or psychic enhancement, or supposed medicinal effect, all of these uses constitute what sorcery is: just the state of consciousness effected is sorcery per se. This goes against the grain of current cultural thought, I know; I also know that the church has been partially seduced by many things in the culture. They go by “common sense” and “the conventional wisdom”, not the word of God.
There is a danger in publicly opining on things which may lead others to involvement in serious sin. It was not for nothing James wrote in 3:1 that not many of us should be teachers, as our judgment would be the stricter, and that Jesus warned in Mark 9:42 against being a cause of stumbling to others!
Anecdotes do not trump Biblical truth as regards how disciples of Christ should think and conduct themselves. Did you read what I wrote in post #20 about the sitting NYS Supreme Court Justice’s plea – in his own behalf (he had debilitating cancer) – for legalizing marijuana? That’s an anecdote, and the most heart-wrenching and poignant one I’ve seen; but for the Christian it is neither compelling nor valid, for the reasons I made crystal clear.
Ken, please understand, we’re not just sitting around the table shooting-the-breeze over benign issues, but in public over what are really life-and-death matters, and that before the LORD of our Temple of living stones.
“you call [marijuana] a sorcer[ous] drug. I do not see that it is one by definition because some sorcerers may have used it.”
This would be a very odd chemical whose effect upon the human system depended upon the user’s motive! It is known to be a drug used to bring people into the presence of spirits, even if said spirits are not recognized as such but hidden from awareness. “Hidden” in this usage is the very meaning of “occult”, its root meaning is hidden (from view), concealed, covered over, coming from the Latin occulere; in medicine it is used as in the terms “occult blood in the stool,” or “occult carcinoma.”
The danger of such substances is precisely the nature of their hiddenness, i.e., what they hide when their affect within the system and its awareness is realized.
You also said, “it's never been about the method, but the heart.” You appear to be in over your head when talking about things you don’t know. This is not like the “Guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. There is a property intrinsic in the substance which acts regardless of the intent of the user. When one takes a sorcerous substance it matters not what use is intended, be it merely sensuous pleasure, acuity of mental or artistic ability, spiritual or psychic enhancement, or supposed medicinal effect, all of these uses constitute what sorcery is: just the state of consciousness effected is sorcery per se. This goes against the grain of current cultural thought, I know; I also know that the church has been partially seduced by many things in the culture. They go by “common sense” and “the conventional wisdom”, not the word of God.
There is a danger in publicly opining on things which may lead others to involvement in serious sin. It was not for nothing James wrote in 3:1 that not many of us should be teachers, as our judgment would be the stricter, and that Jesus warned in Mark 9:42 against being a cause of stumbling to others!
Anecdotes do not trump Biblical truth as regards how disciples of Christ should think and conduct themselves. Did you read what I wrote in post #20 about the sitting NYS Supreme Court Justice’s plea – in his own behalf (he had debilitating cancer) – for legalizing marijuana? That’s an anecdote, and the most heart-wrenching and poignant one I’ve seen; but for the Christian it is neither compelling nor valid, for the reasons I made crystal clear.
Ken, please understand, we’re not just sitting around the table shooting-the-breeze over benign issues, but in public over what are really life-and-death matters, and that before the LORD of our Temple of living stones.