• What does the Bible say about smoking cigarettes?

  • The Bible doesn't directly say any thing about cigarettes. The Bible does
    talk about our responsibility to take care of our body. (1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?) In this passage Paul has been talking about people who are living sexually immoral lives. He tells them that they are defiling the body that God gave them. Many principles can be drawn from this verse.

    The Holy Spirit dwells in us and when we do things that hurt our body we are destroying the abode for God's Spirit. We know that cigarettes destroy our body. My grandfather had terrible bouts in his older years with emphazemia and cancer due to smoking.  With all the studies and knowledge we have today we know that cigarettes will destroy our bodies which is the temple of the Holy Spirit.


    What does the Bible say about clinical depression?

    Depression is a mental illness with biological, psychological, social causes. In its milder forms depression may be just a temporary reaction to a stressful event and limited to a subjective sense of sadness or dissatisfaction that may not be noticed by others. More severe cases could leave a person unable to work or follow through with usual daily activities. The impact of serious depression can be quite pervasive, affecting not only mood but also thinking, motivation, energy level, and physical functions such as sleep and appetite patterns. A person may have only one significant period of depression in his or her life or there may be recurrent bouts, or episodes, that continue throughout life.

    Clinical depression can be treated with medication, through psychotherapy, or a combination of both. Psychiatric medications work through increasing the availability of certain neurotransmitters, chemicals in the brain that carry messages from one nerve cell to another. Psychotherapy often focuses on helping the client recognize and learn to correct thinking patterns that influence his or her attitudes, perceptions and judgments about his or her world. How we think about or look at the events of our lives strongly influences our subjective experience of those events. Since the onset of depression is often associated with some stressful event, such as a significant loss, helping the client come to a different understanding of that event can often produce reasonably prompt improvement.

    A psychotherapist taking a Christian approach may use conventional methods of therapy combined with attention to spiritual issues such as guilt or anger at God. A spiritual perspective may also need to address the difficulty of reconciling our beliefs about God and His ways with the experience of some problem in our lives. Christians are subject to mental illness just like anyone else but the believer who seeks to live his whole life under the lordship of Christ has a unique perspective through which to view and respond not only to psychological difficulties but to all the frailties and sufferings common to our earthly life.


    Most ministers teach complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. My
    personal conclusion based on bible study is that the bible teaching is
    really that of moderation and not complete abstinence. Just a few items I
    base this conclusion on are as follows:
    Jesus turned water to wine, Paul said to use a little for you stomach’s
    sake, and fermented wine beverage was a common drink of the times.

    My question: Based on bible teachings, is it sinful to drink a glass of
    wine during a romantic evening with your wife or have a beer at a social
    gathering with co-workers or friends provided that you do so in moderation?

    The New Testament does indicate at least by inference that Jesus drank wine
    and it was a common beverage of the time. However, the word oinos which is
    the general term for wine was used for freshly squeezed grape juice which
    would be unfermented and it was also used to indicate fermented grape juice
    which would be what we would call wine. The wine of Jesus' day was not as
    intoxicating as it is today because we are told its strength was about a
    part of today's wine with eight parts of water. That would certainly make
    it much less intoxicating than the wine bought on today's market. The only
    way we can tell if it was alcoholic or non-alcoholic would be the context
    in which the word was used. When we find it being consumed by Jesus and his
    followers it was always with a meal. Wine so used had little intoxicating
    ability. Since they had no water purification facilities then and had
    little knowledge of germs or bacteria wine was probably the safest thing
    they had to drink at the time. Today there is no need to drink wine or any
    other intoxicating beverage as we eat because we have so many beverages
    available to drink without their having an intoxicating effect on us that we
    do not recommend any type of alcoholic beverage.

    Their use of the wine was at mealtime and not a recreational thing as it is
    with much of contemporary society. We should shun anything that would have
    a deleterious affect on our influence. If others see me drinking beer and
    wine what is it going to do for my influence in a given community? We need
    to be thinking about the example and message it conveys when others see us
    drinking at any time. Is it going to aid my influence or hinder it in my
    home community? is a question I must ask my self. What would Jesus do if he
    were here?


    What scriptures could you refer me to in speaking out against using  drugs.(Marijuana)

    I appreciate this question because it means that there actually ARE people speaking AGAINST these harmful substances. There are many scriptures which address this matter either directly or indirectly. At the outset, we must realize that there are many of today's issues that the Bible does not SPECIFICALLY mention. The word "marijuana" is not found in the Bible, however there are broader categories and issues in the Bible that DO deal with this subject and we will concentrate on those scriptures.

    First of all, despite vehement efforts, marijuana and most other mind-altering drugs are still illegal. As Christians, we are to be subject and submissive to the governing authorities, (Rom. 13:1-5) thus, if something is illegal under our government it is not only unlawful for a Christian, it is also sinful. Even if a person is not a Christian, he or she is still subject to these same laws.

    Marijuana, along with most other drugs of its kind, has also been proven to have harmful physical and psychological effects on the user. If we believe I Cor. 3:16, we will not do ANYTHING to intentionally harm our bodies, which are the temples of God.

    We are also, as Christians, in a constant spiritual battle against Satan (Eph. 6:12). No person goes into battle unprepared, especially Christians.   Marijuana's psychological effects include but are not limited to:  paranoia, anxiety, fatigue, loss of ambition, lowered inhibitions, loss of concentration, and delusions and hallucinations; not exactly the traits of a godly warrior.

    When we realize that Satan is roaming around, seeking to "devour" us (I Pet. 5:8) and that we must be "self-controlled and alert", we must also realize that anything which weakens our resolve or chips away at the armor that God has given us is evil.

    I Thess. 5:22 tells us to abstain from the very APPEARANCE of evil. Phil. 4:8 tells us what to think on as Christians and since we usually end up DOING what we think about, this is an excellent scripture for this topic.  Finally, Col. 3:5 tells us to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature. If we have died to self and live in Christ, we will not allow anything other than God to gain control of our lives. Marijuana WILL take over your life if you let it. I hope I've helped you and I hope you will continue to stand up for what is right.


    Is it against the word of God to drink wine or alcoholic beverages, could
    you please tell me. And also about women Pastors and Bishops, and Apostles as leaders, not speakers.

    As to the drinking of wine and other alcoholic beverages the inference in
    scripture is that wine was consumed with meals. However, we are told that
    the wine of that day was much less potent with alcohol that the commercial
    products of today. There are numerous scriptures that condemn drunkenness
    as a sin, and one must be very careful in the consumption of alcoholic
    beverages of any kind lest one fall into drunkenness and the trap of
    alcoholism. In that time they had few beverages safe to drink, and today
    that is not the situation. We need to keep in mind the dangers of alcohol
    consumption and our influence on others as well.

    Women are forbidden to have a leadership role in the church when she would
    be teaching or exercising authority over man (1Timothy 2:11-15). In giving
    the qualifications of elders or bishops the scripture is plain that these
    officers should be men as it is specified that a bishop should be the
    husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:1-7). There are no modern day apostles as
    apostles had to have been eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus (Acts 1:22).
    The apostle Paul indicates that was the purpose of Christ appearing unto him
    on the Damascus road (1 Corinthians 15:8 see also Acts 9).


    I would like Bible references to all scriptures related to Drinking or
    "social drinking" when answering my question.
    Is social drinking scripturally wrong in and of itself or because of the
    example you might set for non-Christians?


    To my knowledge there are no scriptures that deal with social drinking, but
    there are numerous scriptures condemning drunkenness. Some of the New
    Testament scriptures on that subject are; Matthew 24:49; Luke 21:34;Rom.
    13:13; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:7. There are
    numerous passages concerning influence but you did not ask for those, as you
    contemplate drinking on a social level you might consider Colossians 3:17
    and 2 Corinthians 10:23-33.