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chiro,

I am sorry but I have very little time for the next few days. I have only had time to read through your post here, sorry if I am repeating something others have stated already. Here are my suggestions.

You stated, "First there needs to be an understanding of Romans 14, I Cor 6:12, 10:23."

Yes, yes. But we need to understand the literal meaning of Paul's statements before we can generalize this term figuratively. We should never, ever assume our figurative understanding is correct without first thoroughly discussing what the writer was specifically telling the people he was writing to. Part of that is noting that Paul did not use the term "liberties" (a term I use often myself). He used the term "liberty" to refer to God's people's freedom from the Law of Moses . . .

At any rate, my suggested definition of

liberty: the absence of written commandments

as in, "Use not [the absence of written commandments] for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another" (Gal. 5:13).

I tend to disagree with this description, "A liberty is not sin. However, it is possible for liberties we take to lead to sin". I think of liberties as actions that could be inherently sinful themselves, depending on the circumstances around them. Liberty is the situational ethics portion of Christianity.

If I had married a "Canadian", for example, it is likely that God would have commanded me personally to never sit down and watch soccer, because part of my walk involves helping my husband not become entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Do you see how under my personal circumstances, it becomes inherently sinful for me? -- because the Spirit -- which accomodates personal (as well as church-specific & denomination-specific) circumstances, is commanding me to abstain.

The Spirit fills in the gap -- where God has not left a specific, black-and-white command for us in His Word. I could use my liberty (i.e., the absence of a specific command forbidding soccer-watching) as a "cloke of maliciousness", saying, "where does it say soccer is a sin?" and ignore the Spirit telling me not to watch it, or concerned brethren telling me not to watch it, but God would judge me for this.

GS,

I think your summary here is very good and agree with everything you have written, but we need to discuss it in greater depth because, all too often, liberty is exclusively associated with Romans Ch. 14. Unfortunately in these discussions, weaker brethren are focused on as the singular "limitation" on liberty. While they are certainly one consideration, they are not the only one. There is an infinite number of other possible reasons that God might want me to limit my personal behavior in areas that are not expressly (or universally) sinful.

"If I have no problem with mixed seating but I choose to worship with a congregation that does, then it would be sin for me to go into that congregation and demand my right to sit with the women."

I think this attitude is a significant difference between being Jewish and being Christian. The Jew asks, "Where is it written that it is a sin to sit mixed?" But the Christian asks, "Will it edify? Is it necessary? Will it help us run the race? What does the Spirit say? What does the spirit of what is in the written Word indicate?"

Hi, chiro.

You asked, "If a liberty has the potential of being sinful in and of itself, and there is no written commandment against it, how do we determine if it is sin?"

The Spirit tells us that it is. The "law if the Spirit" (Rom. 8:1-2) replaced the Law ("of sin" Rom. 7:25) as the commanding voice of God by communicating to the believer what God wants him to Do/Not Do. One thing that makes this form of communion so superior to the Law is that, in addition to being able to give situation/era-specific commands (that will never contradict the Word of God), it --unlike the Law -- supplies the power to fulfill those commands. That's why the Law is so exhausting (it "worketh wrath," Rom. 4:15) while the Spirit is energizing "life".

"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh . . . the works of the flesh are . . . hatred, variance, emulations, wrath" and a whole bunch of other things that verse 21 says will keep a person out of Heaven (Gal. 5:16-21).

Not that you would claim this, but just to make clear: Walking in the Spirit is not some abstract thing. It means yielding our instruments to it (per Rom. 6:13). "For as many are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Rom. 8:14)

The reverenced Strong's defines "walk" as (By the way, how do we know that Strong was not a liar and a crook?): to tread all around, i.e., walk at large; fig. to live, deport oneself, follow . . ."

One of the things Galatians 5 implies the Spirit does is help us avoid "variance", or strife. This is a pretty general sin, that requires the discernment of the indwelling Spirit of God, wouldn't you say?

I'm not married to my definition of "liberty" and we can drop it if you want. Let's use "freedom". This freedom had a very specific purpose:
;">"But now we are delivered from the law, that we should serve in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:6

I'm still having trouble with your question, "can a liberty be classified as a sin?" because "a liberty" is not in the Bible. Our use of the term "liberty" to mean one particular thing you or I think we are free to do is confusing this whole issue.

Galatians' "use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another" and I Peter's "using your liberty . . . as the servants of God" implies that the freedom's purpose is not so that believers can enjoy life more; it is so that they can serve God and one another in a way that Israel could not.

The following point is not a personal comment on yourself, chiro: In my opinion, II Pet. 2:19 describes people who separate liberty from obligation to serve as "[promising] liberty" and "[serving] corruption".

You stated, "we would never be instructed to be tolerant of sin, whereas we do need to tolerate one another's liberties."

I am all for tolerating others' liberties, but not when they are being used as a cloke of maliciousness. Fighting for your right to mortify your flesh less, and feed it more by wearing makeup does not serve God. In a church that has managed to establish a makeup-stigmatized culture, it breeds carnal variance.

My personal tolerance for this "liberty" extends only to Truth-Believing denominations (extremely hard to find) who allow this area of vanity (as we have allowed a level of stylish dress) in their cultures. It does not mean I decide it's okay for us to eat that meat ourselves. It just means I do not take points off for them for eating it.

Thanks, chiro, for focusing so much on where we agree.

(I do not presume, though, that you agree with what I am about to say.) I am glad to see that the "anti-establishment" culture that was born in the 70s and has overtaken most of the ACC has not totally biased you against these things. Most of the culture we grew up in -- the literature, the arts, media, and academics glorify counter-cultural attitudes as "courageous," and "principled" regardless of whether or not they make sense, and even after these attitudes become the majority viewpoint.

The problem is that six days of the week, ACCs are primed to think that
counterculture=righteousness.
They may reject that idea on a secular level (lamenting the gay agenda, or body-piercings), but when they are exposed to counter-cultural ideas <i>applied to the church,</i> they are much more receptive to them, because they have been primed to believe that if it involves "stickin' it to the man", it must mean progress.

This certainly does not exonerate the negative areas of traditional ACC culture, but I think if people realized the degree to which they have been indoctrinated into valuing/romanticizing counterculture for its own sake, they would not be so quick to demonize some of the positive cultural aspects of the traditional ACC.

My issue with Mr. Strong is that people tend to trust his definitions more than they should; too often, people believe that his definitions "settle" disagreements. (Are you aware that there are credentialed scholars who do not approve of Mr. Strong's reference book?) I appreciate that he assembled 100 scholars to try to achieve accuracy, but do you know 100 people that are all wrong about something? I do. Please, my friend, don't expect me to accept claims that their doctrinal biases did not affect their what they produced. Dan Rather has insisted the same thing for decades.

I believe that the Word of God is self-defining. I cannot tell you the number of times I have not understood a passage and have found another passage that repeats the exact same idea, clarifying the passage I originally did not understand. I use Strong's, but take his definitions with a grain of salt.