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A lot of pastors and Christians believe in the doctrine of biblical sufficiency, but often times they get asked questions that the bible just does not directly address and the best they can do is to go on a general principle.
One that comes up a lot is should a Christian use Medical Marijuana, or even should a Christian use Marijuana recreationally. While when the law in the US was that it was strictly illegal, that was an easy question to answer because Romans 13 teaches us to abide by the laws of the land, even the secular ones, because God put that authority in place. But now states and even some countries like Canada are legalizing it even for recreational use. Then it becomes more of a stretch and many cite scripture about sorcery and justify that the word for sorcery is the same as pharmacy, but isn't directly related, or scripture referring to alcohol and making a stretch to make it cover all intoxicants, or just the commands to be sober minded in general.
Now as far as recreational goes, they're probably right along the lines of needing to be sober minded. But when it comes to medical use it becomes murky, because a person might be using opioid pain relievers truly just to alleviate severe pain, not to get intoxicated but intoxication is a side effect. They may have use of marijuana when other pharmaceutical agents have failed for various conditions, chronic pain and inflammation, seizure disorders, as an adjunct to chemotherapy in cancer, etc.
so as a Christian you're in a bind. Do you use the medication that helps with medical symptoms that your doctor has prescribed for you, or do you obey the command to be sober minded even if you're in so much pain that it distracts you from all other things (which is in a way, also not being sober minded, you can't focus on God when your focus is pretty much railroaded on pleasure that does not come from God, OR on pain). The bible doesn't really address it, and faith leaders and pastors you may ask, can only give their opinions based on leaps of logic from scripture about other topics.
That is just one example but there are others that in modern life, the bible just doesn't seem to address.
It's hard to me to adhere to biblical sufficiency when I come to a situation and think "what does the bible say about (x)?" and the answer is nothing, it says nothing, so it doesn't help as a guide there and all I can go with are human opinions and leaps of logic which are never consistent.
One that comes up a lot is should a Christian use Medical Marijuana, or even should a Christian use Marijuana recreationally. While when the law in the US was that it was strictly illegal, that was an easy question to answer because Romans 13 teaches us to abide by the laws of the land, even the secular ones, because God put that authority in place. But now states and even some countries like Canada are legalizing it even for recreational use. Then it becomes more of a stretch and many cite scripture about sorcery and justify that the word for sorcery is the same as pharmacy, but isn't directly related, or scripture referring to alcohol and making a stretch to make it cover all intoxicants, or just the commands to be sober minded in general.
Now as far as recreational goes, they're probably right along the lines of needing to be sober minded. But when it comes to medical use it becomes murky, because a person might be using opioid pain relievers truly just to alleviate severe pain, not to get intoxicated but intoxication is a side effect. They may have use of marijuana when other pharmaceutical agents have failed for various conditions, chronic pain and inflammation, seizure disorders, as an adjunct to chemotherapy in cancer, etc.
so as a Christian you're in a bind. Do you use the medication that helps with medical symptoms that your doctor has prescribed for you, or do you obey the command to be sober minded even if you're in so much pain that it distracts you from all other things (which is in a way, also not being sober minded, you can't focus on God when your focus is pretty much railroaded on pleasure that does not come from God, OR on pain). The bible doesn't really address it, and faith leaders and pastors you may ask, can only give their opinions based on leaps of logic from scripture about other topics.
That is just one example but there are others that in modern life, the bible just doesn't seem to address.
It's hard to me to adhere to biblical sufficiency when I come to a situation and think "what does the bible say about (x)?" and the answer is nothing, it says nothing, so it doesn't help as a guide there and all I can go with are human opinions and leaps of logic which are never consistent.