Men

"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23

The other day I vented a bit on Facebook about the show “Two and a Half Men.”  I linked to an article about Angus T. Jones, who apparently is one of the actors on the show.  He was quoted recently as saying the show was ‘filth’ and he urged people to stop watching the show.  Apparently these comments are made as the result of a recent conversion experience to Christianity. Apparently he backpedaled  a little yesterday, feeling he had disrespected his fellow actors and workers on the show.  Still, his words were strong.

And he was right.  The show is filth.  I don’t generally watch it, but have rarely when someone else I was visiting happened to be watching it.  And it made me blush.  The show seems one long repeated X-rated joke.  Admittedly, the older I get the more of a puritanical streak emerges from me at times.  Don’t know if that is good or not, but it just is. There is just stuff out there anymore that spins my head.  Ouch, that makes my neck hurt.

The reality is though, as Christians, saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, we should be free to do just about anything we want to.  We are not saved by following a set of laws and rules.  If anyone understood this it was the apostle Paul, as a Jew and student of Old Testament law.  Yet he writes, "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive.

Yes everything, I suppose, is permissible.  But as a follower and truster in Jesus, there is just so much that is not beneficial or constructive to my walk with Him.  Frankly, the deeper I get into my faith, the less I want to walk in those ways; after all “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (visit 2 Cor. 5:17)

It is here.  Looking in my mirror I see that new creation.  Admittedly, I don’t always like what I see, or what I do.  Because sometimes what I do is filth also.  I’m thankful for the grace, and the start of each new day.  I love the freedom that there is in Christ!  So much is permissible, and I continue to learn what is not beneficial and constructive. 

I pray that Angus T. Jones is experiencing the grace we have in Christ, and responds accordingly.  And…I pray that for myself also.  For this day.  A day that will not include Two and a Half Men.  But it will include a lot of grace….