What should we we read?

January 15, 2022
Everything Else

There are many reasons we read, from learning to pure relaxation and enjoyment. God has given us words and writing so that we can express ourselves, but not all expression is created equally. On the one hand, you have the writings of witches and heretics, on the other the writings of godly men and women. We should definitely read the latter, but what about the former? What if the author of the engineering text you have been using for your university degree comes out as a transgendered witch? Should the Christian reader stop reading the work? I would say that we would not stop and I believe that the Apostle Paul would agree "I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world." 1 Cor 5:9-10 This does not mean that we partake of evil things by their hands, but that we can see God's hand even in the writings of the wicked and can give Him glory.

But some are deeply offended by these writings and there Paul guides us again. "Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble." 1 Cor 8:13 Some translations use offend instead of stumble here and given our modern use of the word offend this is an error. What this passage and others like it are teaching is, if my doing an action will cause my brother to stumble into sin then I will never do it. Everyone seems to be offended by everything these days, if that were our guide we likely could not even read the Bible.

Beyond this, we need to consider one more verse. Romans 14:23 "But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because not he does eat from faith; for whatever not from faith is sin." Paul teaches us here that whatever we can not do in fatih, believing that God would want us to do that thing, we should not do. This is something we can not judge one another on but God will judge each of us according to our consciences on these things.

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