Midnight Musings

In the film that just came out on DVD, Yes Man stars Jim Carey as Carl Allen, a man that’s stuck in a rut and always says “no.”  He avoids responsibilities, he refuses to try anything new, so when a friend of his brings him to a conference and he’s challenged to say “yes” to any and every query, his life turns upside down.

Now, there are clearly objectionable things in this movie—at least one scene where his acquiescence yields immorality (that takes place off screen but with his reaction), and the climax of the movie doesn’t have our couple wondering about getting married, but moving in together.  But I’m not musing as much about the video—which I wouldn’t advise watching without something like Clear Play running—but I am thinking about how often we say “yes” and “no.”

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One of the vices that Christians have recently joined the culture in protesting is that of smoking.  The scriptural passage that is invariably used to preach against smoking is the one that speaks about your body being the temple of the Holy Spirit—and that a Christian would not want to have that temple polluted with smoke.

The only problem is that the Christian is not consistent in the application of this verse, if this is the way that it should be taken, because all kinds of things that the Christian permits or does not preach as strongly against that he should.

For example, when was the last time that you heard a preacher tell you that if you’re overweight, you’re in sin. 

Yes brother, that extra 50 to 100 pounds is sin.  Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Lord?  Do you think that He wants a flabby body full of excess fat?  Do you think He likes living in their, squished with all those Twinkies?

Actually, if this ever did happen, I’d expect that the pastor would have some plan for $19.99 to help get the weight off.

Or what about the inconsistency when it comes to drugs.  We use the same passage to tell kids to stay away from drugs, but have you ever heard this?

Stay away from that Tylenol, sister, and put back that morphine.  Yes, those drugs that they prescribed to you to pick up the pharmacy are from the devil!  They pollute that temple that is your body, effecting your thinking, or they contain alcohol!

Surely some of these are helpful in some circumstances, but under a doctor’s supervision.

The point that I’m trying to make is that sometimes we try to make things into sins using passages that are convenient, but don’t really fit.  We don’t want our kids smoking or doing drugs, so we find a passage that “works” but then don’t think through it to how it could be applied to other things.

Are there better passages or principles?  Undoubtedly.  They’re just not as quick and easy to find.

Why is it that man continues to want to create Artificial Intelligence?  Why create a machine that only does what man already does?

I think it’s partly because we are made in the image of God.  God, being a Creator made man in that way– he wants to create things and what greater creation is there than man, who can think, reason, and do independent of biology?

And yet, is there another reason?  Perhaps man wants to create something that would be totally owned by man.  Perhaps man wants something that could make life easier.

In Japan, people are developing robots that look like people– that take the place of people– as counterparts, as servants, and in a relationship.  These robots strike me to be the 21st century’s equivalent of slavery.  They’re creating a whole set of things to do and be exactly what they want them to do and be.

In America, we use AI to be on battle fields, to go into dangerous situations, and to help us with capitalism (through the use of voice recognition, etc).  We don’t have to pay the computer, we don’t have to worry that they’ve already read the menu 30 times to different customers, etc.

It’s not that I’m making an automated answering machine equivalent to man– they’re not.  I’m just saying that it seems that human nature repeats itself.  We don’t want to make the effort, we don’t want to have to do something, so we want someone or something to do it for us.

And the interesting thing is that I’m sure we’ll never be satisfied.

Here’s something for you to chew on.  I believe that the church is so infected by the culture that it chooses its big sins based on what the culture thinks.

Let me illustrate:  A couple of generations ago, the big preaching name was Charles Spurgeon.  He was a great preacher, a man of God, and there are everything from devotion books to sermons based on the man’s work.

The man also smoked.

Smoking is one of those “big sins” that preachers always rail on as “defiling the temple” of the body, and yet this would have been absurd a couple generations back.  Society looks down on smoking, making them go outside to smoke, so preachers can rail on it.

Preachers also rail on drugs– but they don’t preach against caffeine or prescription medicines.

So, given this tendency for the church to preach strongly only against things that are culturally wrong, snd stick others in the “maybe wrong” or “wrong, but I’m not going to talk about it much” categories, what will be the future generation’s view of some of the things we do today?

• Will television or the Internet be a great sin to be apart of?
• Will caffeine be seen as evil?
• How about being apart of government?

All this gives me new appreciation for those that follow out-of-the-mainstream habits because they are choosing to do what they’re doing because of their convictions.  I mean, a generation ago ladies wore hats in church– why did they stop?  Was it really because we “finally figured out what that passage in Corinthians meant?”

The New Testament instructs us that we should live every day like Christ is returning.  And yet, at the same time, we are told that we do not know when Christ will return, and we also know that the people of the time believed that He would return in their lifetime, and He didn’t.

In fact, it’s been 2000+ years and He has still not returned.

So, how do you reconcile “living like He would come today” with “living with He could come next year?”

Paul recommended not getting married– and a whole sect of people called Shakers did just that.  They aren’t around anymore, but that command is realistic if you expect Jesus to return in your lifetime.  I know people that are debating about doing costly things because “Jesus will come before then.”

Is this just an excuse because we don’t want to do something, or because we didn’t plan?  Should we be planners if Jesus could come and our plans be brought to nought?

Should we be spending more time witnessing and trust our provision to God– what if everyone did this?  Does it say we are weak Christians when we don’t do this?