Walking With Christ

An interesting side discussion brought this verse to mind and I went down another rabbit hole.

1 Corinthians 6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.(ESV)

This verse is a corner stone of many Christian help and support groups. The last part, “I will not be dominated (controlled, owned, mastered, enslaved, brought under power) by anything” is the anchor point for many of these groups.

This verse can be used to define a lot of Christian doctrine, but people have to understand both clauses and how they relate to each other.

The MSG translation does a great job of paraphrasing this verse: “Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.” The King James version says, “but all things are not expedient”.

We are allowed to eat poison, but it isn’t a good idea. We are allowed to jump off the bridge, but that isn’t smart. We are allowed to {insert action here}, but we can’t escape the consequences.

As Christians, we know that we are forgiven every sin that we ever have and ever will commit. A sin is anything that goes against the perfect will of God. What God wants for us is the best possible life we could have. That part is a massive bunny trail that we are going to bypass for now because we don’t have time or space to discuss it with any depth. We know that God’s will is the best for us, and we know that anything outside of that will is sin, but we also know that all sins are forgiven. Where does this leave us?

We will sin. We will do things that are not in line with His perfect will. The reasons why don’t matter. Sin is sin. Anything outside of His plan falls short of the perfection He desires. Since His plan for us involves our perfection and the best possible path, then that should be our goal. The decisions we make need to be balanced against that end goal or perfection. The King James version, in my opinion, says it best because this translation keeps this goal in mind. The shortest path from point A to point B is a straight line. Any step that is not on that line is less expedient than one that is on that straight line.

The straight line to the goal may not be the easier path. It may take much longer than the easier path. The results of each path will be drastically different. Choose your path wisely. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should. Keeping the end goal in mind and resolving to take the absolute shortest path to get there will produce results that we can’t even begin to imagine.