21.03 | Beyond Dog Training
1 Corinthians 10:1-11:1
‘“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.’
1 Corinthians 10:23
Our dog is called Blue. She is a whippet.
Whippets, if you know your dog breeds, love to be warm. Right now, writing early in the morning, she’s sitting beside me wearing a fleece, beside a radiator, with an electric heated blanket. But the problem comes for Blue when the radiator/electric blanket isn’t on. Where can she go to be as warm as possible? She’s tried different things (yesterday she tried sleeping with her head inside a Wellington boot), but her favourite option by a country mile is to sleep on one of our beds.
It’s a point of contention in our house. Because, generally speaking, we’re not keen on sharing our beds with a dog. But then, occasionally, she’ll stand there looking at you while you’re sitting in bed. Her ears back, her legs a little shivery, her eyes large and moist. Sometimes she’ll start gently pining or pitifully pawing at the side of the bed. And one of us cracks, and up she gets. Whippet bliss.1
But the problem is this. It’s kind. But it’s also terrible dog training.
Why? Because Blue ultimately doesn’t really know whether she is or isn’t allowed on the bed. Sometimes she is, but usually she isn’t. You can almost see her looking at us and thinking:
What do you want from me?
I wonder if the Corinthians were feeling like this with Paul by now.
We asked you a simple question, Paul: Can we, or can we not, eat meat that was sacrificed to an idol?
A simple yes or no answer would have been great.
What do you want from me?
Today he hits his summary point on this whole conversation, and he uses a line that is unique among the religions of the world.
All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.
All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
Lawful. Helpful.
Lawful. Build up.
Very different things. And in this one sentence is captured the essence of Christian freedom and the central governing rule of the Christian view of holiness.
Not; Is it allowed? But rather; Is it helpful? Does it build up?
Or, to put it another way:
Does it release life?
Suddenly all of our day-to-day questions about morality become held under a different framework of thinking. Our questions about alcohol and swearing and sex and truth-telling and justice and prayer and what we look at online and what we eat, drink, or wear. They all get taken off that table, with its easy, black-and-white answers and judgemental attitudes, and get put onto this table—where the only governing principle is whether it leads towards life.
The question is not one of permission; it is one of beauty.
The question is not about being allowed; it is about doing all things for His glory.
This isn’t dog training. It’s vastly higher than this. It’s entering into a new way of being that is drawn directly from the heart of God and that looks like and imitates Jesus. It reforms our every way of thinking and feeling and relating. It does so by changing the question.
Am I allowed? Works well for dogs.
But for the follower of Jesus and the citizen of the Kingdom, our question is always different:
Does it lead to wholeness?
Does it lead to life?
Does it point towards His glory?
Children of freedom, we have left the land of slavery and we walk as the free towards the Land of Promise. Our invitation is into the daily pursuit of all things of most scintillating life and human flourishing that the Bible calls glory.
Reflect:
Pick an issue that you’re struggling with, where you’ve been grappling with that question of ‘Am I allowed to do it?’
Change the question.
Ask instead: What course of action would lead to the most life? What would it do in this instance to point my life towards the glory of God?
Pray:
Father in heaven,
I’ve got some things to let go of:
I let go of the obsession with the rules;
I let go of the failure and shame;
I let go of the religious anxieties that has made my life smaller.
And today, I grasp hold of this:
That you, Father, have set me utterly free,
And established me in your perfect love;
That you, Father, do not give me arbitrary commands,
But that you invite me to be an empowered participant in releasing the things of life.
And so, Father,
Renew my heart;
Enable my will;
Heal my hurts;
And help me, today, to point my every small and great decision,
Towards your glory.
In the Name and Way of Jesus my King,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Deuteronomy 10-11 | Psalm 37:12-26
Incidentally I’m told the Victorians used to use whippets for keeping their beds warm. It’s in their blood!