http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16062506/how-long-are-we-patient-with-the-idle
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Am I Abusing Caffeine?
Audio Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. We hope you’re reading the Bible with us this year and benefiting from the discipline. We’re using the Navigators Bible Reading Plan. And if you are reading along with us, you may already know that today’s scheduled reading includes 1 Corinthians 6:12–20, a key text on how we glorify God with our bodies.
How do we steward this body for God’s glory? Specifically, we have a lot of questions about caffeine and energy drinks, like this email today from a listener named José. He writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast. Caffeine, and specifically energy drinks, are controversial in our youth group. As someone who likes them, I was wondering if there are any negative effects or reason to not drink them. They help me focus and have energy during my work shift. I only drink one every two or three days, but I would like to have some spiritual insight in order that I may run this race without being slowed down.”
And he ends his email with a smile emoticon. Pastor John, how should we think about energy drinks, and how would we know if we are abusing our bodies with caffeine?
Well, it might be helpful to take our starting point from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians about how he navigates the whole area of appetites — whether food or energy drinks or sex — and what foods mean to Paul, what he takes into his body.
God Cares About the Body
So, here’s the pivotal text for me. It’s 1 Corinthians 6:12–13:
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated [and I would say, or mastered, or ruled, or enslaved] by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” — and God will destroy both one and the other.
Now, let me pause there and say that there’s a lot of controversy around what in Paul’s chapter here are slogans from his adversaries in Corinth and what are his own words. So, it might be a slogan: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” And so, they’re justifying all kinds of things. But whatever the case is on that point, Paul’s point becomes clear in what follows. Here’s what follows:
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Corinthians 6:13–15)
So, clearly, the upshot of those last couple of lines is this: “The Lord is for the body, the body is for the Lord, the Lord will raise the body, and we are members of Christ even in our bodies.” In other words, the body really matters. So, the body matters to God morally. And, in particular, foods matter and sex matters. And so, the guidelines he gives matter. And what he says is this: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I [wouldn’t want to] be dominated by anything.” And then he adds, “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (1 Corinthians 10:23).
Three Guiding Questions
So, here’s my paraphrase for José:
“Energy drinks are lawful for me, but are they helpful to my real advantage?” And I’ll come back to that.
“Energy drinks are lawful for me, but do they dominate (or master or enslave) me?” I’ll come back to that one.
“Energy drinks are lawful for me, but does my drinking of them build up? Does it build up my faith? And particularly, does it build up the faith of others?”So, let me just give a thought about each of those questions that might help him navigate whether he uses them and how frequently he uses them.
1. Do energy drinks really help me?
“All things are lawful, but are they helpful — that is, to my real, deep advantage?” That’s the meaning of the Greek word: “to my advantage.” This is really part of a much bigger issue, isn’t it, of the proper use of not just caffeine but other stimulants, medications — Ritalin, Adderall, antidepressants, and so on.
So, let me just give one crucial guideline that I think is implied in Paul’s wording, “Are they truly helpful? Do they help me go after my deepest advantage?” And that would be this; this is my guideline: “Are energy drinks, or whatever I’m taking, masking deeper problems that I’m not dealing with, because I’m masking them, or are they helping me really address and be freed from the deeper problems that I may have?”
“Are energy drinks, or whatever I’m taking, masking deeper problems that I’m not dealing with?”
I think that’s the crucial question when it comes to the kinds of medications or stimulants that we take. Are we hiding from our hearts? Are we hiding from sins? Are we hiding things that ought to be dealt with, and this is just a superficial overlay? If José or any of us is masking deeper problems with stimulants, then they’re not being used as a gift from God for our good; they’re being used as a flight from truth and from the good that God wants to do deeper down. So, that’s my note on the first paraphrase.
2. Do energy drinks enslave me?
“Do they master me? Do they enslave me?” Why would that matter to Paul? Why does he say that? Why should it matter to us? Well, it should matter because we have one Master, who bought us at the price of his blood. We do not belong to ourselves, but to him. He calls us to live as free people, not enslaved people.
It says in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” So, anyone who uses coffee, or soda, or energy drinks, or other kinds of stimulants or medication should ask, “Am I dominated by this? Am I mastered by this? Am I controlled by this? Am I living consciously as Christ’s freedman? Am I magnifying the price that he paid to set me free for him?”
It says in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Are we magnifying his mastery over us or living under another master? That’s the second issue that I think he should take into consideration.
3. Do energy drinks build up?
Do energy drinks build up? “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things build up.” Why does Paul shift our focus? This is a really profound ethical question in the New Testament. Why does Paul shift our focus from what is lawful — he says, “All things are lawful” — to what builds up?
Now, this is huge. In Christ, we have died to the law. Romans 7:4: “You . . . have died to the law through the body of Christ.” And “we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6). The problem, then, with deciding what’s right and wrong about energy drinks is that you could obey a law without love, without giving a hoot about whether you’re building anybody’s faith. And so, it is not adequate to have an external rule solve this problem. Paul wants to go deeper.
“The reason Christians are set free from the law is not that we might become lawless, but that love would hold sway.”
The reason Christians are set free from the law is not that we might become lawless, but that love would hold sway. “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ)” (1 Corinthians 9:21). So, his freedom with regard to the law was being governed by another law, which he called “the law of Christ.” And what’s that? Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Or Galatians 5:14: “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
So, when Paul says to José, or me, or you, or anybody else, “Energy drinks are lawful, but do they build up?” he means, “Be sure that your heart is set on the good of others and that your example to them and your choices are aiming to build people up in faith — that is, helping them trust Jesus and treasure Jesus and honor Jesus above all things.”
Guidelines for Consumption
So, here are my three summary guidelines for José and me.
Are they truly helpful? Are energy drinks truly helpful? That is, are they masking problems that I need to deal with or helping me deal with them?
Are they dominating me, mastering me, and obscuring that Jesus is my real master?
Am I using them in love? Am I building others up? Am I seeking to build my own faith and the faith of others?Super helpful paradigms here, Pastor John. Thank you for another application of 1 Corinthians 6:12–13. Before we go, I think we all want to know: Do you yourself use energy drinks?
I have a box of energy drinks in my office. I probably don’t use them quite as often as José. He said every two or three days. And what I do is that, if I’ve got a pressing task and I cannot stay awake, yes, I’ll go there. But that box that I buy at ALDI — you can get them at ALDI real cheap — lasts a long time.
But I mean, a question like this helps me keep my finger on the pulse of whether I’m defaulting to an artificial stimulant because I’m so proud I won’t get enough sleep. That’s what I mean by masking. If my real problem is that John Piper doesn’t have the discipline to go to bed at night and therefore gets six hours instead of eight hours of sleep, and therefore he’s always falling asleep at his tasks, and thus he resorts to an artificial stimulant, that’s masking, that’s hiding, that’s running away from God, and it’s pride.
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Don’t Let Evil Days Make You Stupid: Ephesians 5:15–21, Part 3
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.
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Fit for Office: How Some Exercise Extends Ministry
As with any topic related to Christian living, discussing physical exercise in the life of a pastor runs the risk of twin dangers: legalism and antinomianism. Those two terms are tricky to understand and apply, but my point is hopefully simple: the antinomian pastor doesn’t think he is under much obligation to look after his body, whereas the pastor given to legalistic tendencies in this area has many commands on how to stay fit and healthy. Both pastors think of different things when they hear “six-pack.”
With these two dangers in mind, however, we do well to consider several reasons for why Christians, and pastors in particular, exercise.
‘Universal Obedience’
An obvious and sustained lack of discipline in one or two areas of our obedience to God — such as prayer, church attendance, hospitality — very often reflects a lack of discipline in other areas of the Christian life. In chapter 8 of John Owen’s famous work on mortification, he makes the point that we must aim for sincerity and diligence in all our obedience (“a universality of obedience”) if we are going to have success mortifying our sin.
Referencing 2 Corinthians 7:1, Owen writes,
God’s work consists in universal obedience. . . . If we will do anything, we must do all things. So, then, it is not only an intense opposition to this or that peculiar lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart, with watchfulness over every evil and for the performance of every duty, that is accepted. (Works of John Owen, 6:41–42)
If a pastor, or any Christian for that matter, is wildly negligent in some area of life — physical health included — we rightly ask questions about whether a pattern of general negligence is present. While indwelling sin is present in even the most sanctified Christians, we should exhibit a universal (that is, total) commitment to God in all the commandments that remain upon us (John 14:15, 21, 23) — not least because keeping a particular commandment is harder if one is actively breaking other commandments.
Breaking the Sixth Commandment
What parts of Scripture might command us to steward our bodies?
The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), requires us to wisely preserve our own lives and the lives of others. And if something is forbidden in the law, the positive is also commanded (see, for example, the way Paul treats the commandments both negatively and positively in Ephesians 4:25–32). In preserving our own life, we should aim to eat well, refrain from gluttony and drunkenness (Deuteronomy 21:20), and engage in appropriate bodily exercise, such as walking, sports, or physical labor.
Obvious benefits result from aerobic and anaerobic exercise. And especially for a pastor who spends a lot of time sitting, doing both aerobic and anaerobic training may prove crucial to his long-term physical and mental health. Whether with New Testament Greek or your muscles, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.”
Paul likewise affirms the goodness of bodily training, commenting that it “is of some value” (1 Timothy 4:8). Various types of exercise can alleviate anxiety, stress, and depression. Most pastors, especially the faithful, need all the stress-relief they can get. In addition, just as exercise can release helpful hormones and neurotransmitters, obesity in men is linked with low testosterone. Low testosterone seems to be a new epidemic, even among younger men. Some of this trend can be accounted for by our poor eating and exercising habits. Obesity also leads to cardiovascular problems that can kill someone earlier than if he had remained fit.
“Regular exercise will likely lead to greater productivity, not less, in both the short term and long term.”
Did Jesus care about physical health? Anyone who has read the Gospel accounts carefully will understand that our Lord did a lot of walking, and sometimes over distances and terrains that would have required a great deal of fitness. He likely walked several thousand miles during his ministry, with frequent trips to Jerusalem for various feasts. And his own preaching shows his remarkable familiarity with God’s creation.
Overlooked Sin
We can decry the lack of physical activity among children these days, many of whom are overweight even in elementary school (in part because of technological innovations that allow nonstop stimulation). But adults are not exempt from overusing gadgets and failing to exercise their bodies. Can the minister, in good conscience, speak to young people from the pulpit about their excessive use of phones and their failure to exercise if he is just as guilty?
Ministerial laziness in physical exercise, replaced with overeating, seems to be an acceptable sin in North America. Pastors are meant to be examples in our conduct — that is, in our overall lifestyle (1 Timothy 4:12; 1 Peter 5:1–3). A pastor can rail against the evils of alcohol, sometimes showing a legalistic approach to the topic, all while being practically silent on the immoderate use of food. Such ministers may be the type of person Solomon warns us to avoid: “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” (Proverbs 23:20–21).
Now granted, weight issues are a complex matter. While many are overweight because of self-indulgence, I do not doubt that maintaining a weight is much harder for some than for others. But then again, many sinful proclivities are greater struggles for some than for others. A person naturally skinny may have other hidden proclivities toward sins that are not as obvious. We all need to work harder than others in areas of weakness. We all have specific crosses to bear in our sanctification that, for others, are less of a burden.
Fruitful, Lively Ministry
Claiming one is too busy to exercise is a rather poor excuse. God is not a hard taskmaster. We can rightly order our lives and accomplish a great deal with some discipline. Regular exercise will likely lead to greater productivity, not less, in both the short term and long term. One can also listen to a book or podcast while going for a walk.
For pastors, we have many reasons to eat well and exercise frequently. Besides extending the duration of fruitful ministry, we will find ourselves more energized for the vocational labor God has called us to, and we will set a good example to our flock. But a life of self-indulgence will catch up with us in many ways, including possibly losing the ability to minister with energy.
As we exercise and aim to stay healthy, we also can find unique ways to enjoy God. Appreciate the beauty of his creation by finding nice places to walk, run, or bike. Meditate upon the glory of God and enjoy his goodness to us, which comes in more ways than we imagine. We are not too busy to keep ourselves healthy; in fact, to keep up with the inevitable demands of ministry, we can’t afford to overlook our physical health.
Exercise and ministry can be friends. For example, if a pastor can exercise by playing basketball, soccer, or some other team sport — as opposed to going for solo walks or runs — he may find unique ways to be part of his local community and develop relationships whereby he can share the gospel. Redeeming the time is hard to do, but getting exercise in a social context can have many benefits for a pastor.
God gives us his commands to help us, not hinder us. The sixth commandment offers us the good life — the life where we care both for others and for ourselves. And pastors who care for their bodies are caring for and loving their flock. Do not kill: that is, preserve your life, within reason, as you are able. You’ll be happier in God, and he will be magnified in your life and church by your enriched joy in him.