Dr Paul Allen

English: The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (www.wamm.org) presents Victoria, the nation's first legal medical marijuana plant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) How should we think theologically about the movement to decriminalize marijuana ?   Author: think Christian. To do so, it’s helpful to ponder the phrase “ substance abuse .” This phrase, commonly used to describe drug abuse, can also be read as a theological explanation of both the goodness of creation and the nature of sin. A proper doctrine of creation reminds us that material substances are not evil in and of themselves. In philosophical circles, “substance” simply describes any particular thing, including material things. In contrast, sin is not a physical substance , like a germ or bacteria that infects us. This may seem counterintuitive because we often associate evil with material things. As G. K. Chesterton points out , however, “The work of heaven alone was material; the making of a material world

Image via Wikipedia All of us, I presume, change our minds from time to time. We know that we err, and we know that we grow in grace. At least part of that growth happens when we no longer believe the errors we once believed. Sometimes we add new information to what we believe. Sometimes we jettison old information. And sometimes we do both.  Paul commands that elders be sober-minded. I suspect that many of us give precious little thought to this command. Too many of us dismiss all of Paul’s qualifications. However, even if we try to apply them we often slide right over this one. We may assume “sober-minded” means the same thing as “not given to much wine.”  To be sober-minded, however, is to treat truth seriously and to have a healthy doubt as to our own understanding of truth.  A sober-minded person should think through the challenges of the incarnation. A sober-minded person ought to contemplate the law of God. But there are two things a sober-minded person doesn’t do.