Sola Scriptura Until It's Drugs

Sola Scriptura Unless It's DrugsMany modern Christians elevate their own manmade words and human traditions into the place of God in order to enforce their prohibitions against drugs, drunkenness, and other general states of inebriation.

They will inherently appeal to some other value outside of Scripture, some other source, some other form of wisdom, but mostly their own preferences, their own likes and dislikes, which they pretend represent the will of God.

You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

Mark 7.9 NRSVUE

Many modern Christians try to present themselves as adhering to Sola Scriptura until it comes to marijuana and other recreational drugs. If an outsider, newcomer, or ignorant person judged the Bible based on the attitudes of many  devout Christians, then they'd be convinced that the Bible outright condemned the use of drugs and alcohol like the way the Quran does with alcohol. However, that's simply not the case.

But that would be my issue with praying through Mary is that we don't see her as a mediator in Scripture, so I would just need to see the Biblical support for that.

Allie Beth Stuckey, YouTube

For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

Matthew 7.2 NRSVUE

I'd say the same thing as Allie Beth Stuckey for Christian doctrines condemning the act of getting drunk or the taking of drugs, "I would just need to see the Biblical support for that". However, what we get is a lot of "manmade" interpretation, which often tries to stretch one misinterpreted principle into another area to condemn behaviors that it was never really addressing in the first place.

It's not generally thought of as making one more attentive to reality but more oblivious of reality, and in that sense if you try to compare it with caffeine, say, and I can imagine someone saying, "What's wrong, they're both mood altering drugs, you dink your coffee in the morning to alter your mood and I do my marijuana to alter my mood, so they're the same". Well, not exactly because one of the effects of coffee is that it makes you more alert to reality, and if it didn't, I think we should run away from it, in fact I think that it is possible to sin with coffee.

John Piper, YouTube

When it comes to their justification for prohibiting getting drunk or using marijuana or any other recreational drug, modern legalistic Christian preachers and apologists will appeal to some other value other than the Bible, other than Scripture, not "Sola Scriptura" as they claim.

 Where does the Bible forbid someone the from consuming something that will make one less alert to reality or that one cannot have their mood altered? It sounds like a claim that there is something that can in fact defile a person by entering the mouth.

Every pot smoker I know only knows two verses, "Every seed-bearing plant that the Lord God gave is good" and "thou shall not judge". In addition, it is part of God's creation, so, there could be medicinal purposes that are verified.

Pastor Mark Driscoll, YouTube

What they lack in Scriptural support they make up for with a judgmental attitude to reinforce "manmade" standards of morality, which mandates that something has to have a "verified" "medicinal purposes" in order to not make one impure or in order to be rewarded with the approval of others.

There's an extreme irony in modern, legalistic Christians, who espouse Sola Scriptura while beating themselves up over something that the Scripture doesn't specifically define as a sin. However, it doesn't stop modern, legalistic Christians from enforcing their own "manmade", extra-Biblical values, which are born of their own intuition and preferences, as being equal with the word of God.

Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.

Mark 7.14-15 NRSVUE

I've always been astonished at how little modern, legalistic Christians consult the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament when it comes to defining their identity as disciples of Jesus or as Christians. The Synoptics depict Jesus specifically asking his would-be followers or disciples to learn his teachings, put them into action, and to be judged for their putting into action Jesus' teachings.

Last time I checked drugs and alcohol were categorically among those things that enter the mouth, and therefore Jesus already covered this topic. When it comes to rebuking the observance of the dietary laws of the Torah and in the practice of Judaism, especially for Christians and disciples of Jesus, Christian apologists love this passage, but not when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

To be honest there's a lotta people, who smoke, and they read their Bible, and they're with God, they just a slave to this. Now, I just keep using this as an example because I've walked through it. What happened if, God forbid, I died, and I was still sinning, even though I knew I was sinning? When I meet my Father, is he going to say, "No, you didn't walk away from it [Marijuana] when you walked away from it"?

George Janko, YouTube

There's a great irony from modern Christian hypocrites, who claim to be obsessed with opposing legalism while imposing their own manmade legalism in the place of the words of God and in the place of the teachings of Jesus when it comes to prohibiting drugs, general states of inebriated impairment, having their minds or moods altered, or getting drunk from the consumption of alcohol.

Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”

Genesis 9.20-25 NRSVUE

Notice how the lesson of the story of Noah's drunkenness wasn't a condemnation of Noah for getting drunk but a condemnation of Ham for judging him, and that Ham was wrong for seeing it as a flaw, "the nakedness of his father", and holding it against him. So, I wonder which of the sons of Noah the prohibition supporting Christians are more like, the sons of Noah, who refused to perceive Noah's moment of vulnerability as a flaw, or the one son, who took notice and made a big deal of it?

When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now. Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

John 2.9-11 NRSVUE

Jesus didn't share the attitude that his modern worshipers and spokespeople do in his name about drugs and alcohol, and it's blatant in the fact that the miracle of turning water into wine only came about after the guests were or should have been too intoxicated to have been bothered by a lower quality wine or too inebriated to know the difference.

Did Jesus put a stumbling block before the blind to lead the wedding guests in Cana astray into the manmade sin of being drunk, the manmade sin of being inebriated, the manmade sin of having altered state, the manmade sin of having one mood altered, and the manmade sin of feeling high by offering drunk, inebriated, and impaired people more of their mind and mood altering substance at the wedding in Cana?

But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Matthew 4.4 NRSVUE citing Deuteronomy 8.3

You shall live by every word, Jesus answers Satan according to the Gospel of Matthew, but modern, legalistic Christians disagree when it comes to marijuana, getting drunk from alcohol, having one's mind impaired, having one's mood altered, or feeling inebriated from other drugs. Modern, legalistic Christians need manmade traditions to be enforced as equal with the word of God, and they need these manmade prohibitions to go as far as to declare such behavior a "sin".

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything comes in parables, in order that ‘they may indeed look but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’

Mark 4.11-12 NRSVUE

If Scripture mandated that you be alert to reality as Pastor John Piper asserts, then doesn't Jesus work against this manmade principle with his explanation for his use of parables? Where does it say that an impaired state of mind, an altered mood, being at least as drunk as Noah, or feeling high from any drug is explicitly forbidden in Scripture?

The attitude that most modern, legalistic Christians have toward marijuana, drinking enough to get at least as drunk as Noah, mind impairing things, and mood-altering substances would have left them in a position of condemning the very man, whom they claim to worship as God.

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

Matthew 11.18 NRSVUE

If you claim to be a follower of Jesus and you truly think that smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol to the point of and within a state of drunkenness, taking any mind impairing substance, feeling "oblivious to reality", or taking in any mood altering drug, then how certain are you that you are not among those that Jesus is rebuking by saying, "You reject the word of God that you may keep your tradition"?

You shall live by every word that comes from the mouth of God", unless you're justified by grace through faith according to modern, legalistic Christians where certain socially unacceptable behaviors can defile you, make you impure, and cause you to sin by entering the mouth.

Indeed, drugs are the Achilles's Heel of Sola Scriptura.

https://youtu.be/I-JUPJjtMko