“Ashes To Ashes”

Thursday, September 13, 2012

I want to know, is it wrong to smoke cigarettes?

Sincerely,
Burn Baby Burn

Dear Burn Baby Burn,

Yes, cigarette smoking is wrong.  There is no direct verse that condemns smoking, but there are many verses that indirectly condemn it.

1. Cigarettes are known poisons.  There was a time when people were unaware of the effects of cigarettes upon the human body, but we now know that there is no redeeming health value to cigarettes.  Cigarettes directly poison the human body.  God tells us to treat the human body as a temple (1 Cor 6:19).  Purposefully poisoning your body is not exactly honoring that command.
2. Cigarettes are known to be highly addictive.  Cigarettes are designed to get people addicted to them, so that one will do just about anything to continue to get their “fix”.  Cigarettes become your master.  Christians cannot afford to have any master other than God (Matt 6:24).  Christians should never be brought under the power of anything other than God (1 Cor 6:12)
3. This life is a gift from God; He created us (Gen 1:27).  Christians are supposed to live lives that are preparing us for whatever work God has in store for us (2 Tim 2:21).  We are to purge ourselves of anything that would keep us from being the best servants to Jesus we can be.  If you die ten years early from cigarettes, who knows what work you will have failed to do?
4. Smoking not only harms you, it harms others.  Second-hand smoke is a known carcinogen and poison.  If you know that what you are doing is harming others, you must stop (Jas 4:17)

Whatever we do, it should be done to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31).  Cigarettes wouldn’t fit into the category of “glorifying God”.

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