Smoking

For some, smoking tobacco is a vice, but Scripture teaches no such thing. There is not a single verse that dictates that smoking is wrong. Being addicted to smoking is certainly sin, because it is a lack of self-control (Galatians 5:23). But, simply having an occasional smoke or smoking in moderation is never condemned in the word of God.

Some attempt to use 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 to prove smoking is evil, but it proves no such thing. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says,

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

The typical argument is that smoking is harmful to the body and therefore wrong. Tony Warren argues this way in his article entitled, "Is Smoking a Sin?"

Smoking is a Sin. And it is a sin on multiple levels.

Then his first point to prove smoking is a sin immediately follows:

It is a Detriment to the Body

Considering the universal Medical opinion, I don't know anyone who could legitimately argue today that smoking is not injurious to one's health. The fact is, nine out of ten lung cancer victims are smokers. The scientific evidence is that smokers have a three to one chance of heart attack, over non-smokers. Even smoking in (so-called) moderation, on the average, will shorten one's life span by many years.

And then a little later after quoting 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 he writes,

To smoke (which we know hurts this body which is the Lord's), is desecration of the Lord's Temple. [www.mountainretreatorg.net/faq/smoking.html]

This is nothing but the doctrine of men (Matthew 15:8-9). 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 is in the context of sexual immorality. It does not even address the issue of one's health. Yet, that is typically how it is argued.

Cooper Abrams, a fundamental independent Baptist missionary pastor in Utah, argues this way saying,

Smoking is clearly harmful to our health and that in itself makes it a sin, . . . (www.bible-truth.org/Smoking.html)

This may sound good, but Scripture doesn't teach this (Proverbs 30:5-6). Too much of anything is usually harmful (e.g. Ecclesiastes 7:16), but to smoke in moderation is not necessarily harmful, at least, harmful in any Biblical way.

The Bible does not teach this "health" concern in regards to the proper care of the body. We are surely stewards of the body God has given us (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), but how we care for it largely comes down to personal conscience (Romans 14:22-23), not a man-made standard of health (Matthew 7:1-2).

Paul wrote,

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Being brought under the power of an addiction to smoking is indeed wrong, but smoking, in and of itself, is not unlawful. To the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15), and God has indeed given us all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17). There is nothing in Scripture that dictates smoking is somehow excluded from "all things."

Now, if you are around people who see it as a vice, it would not be to the glory of God to offend them by smoking (1 Corinthians 9:19-23; 10:31-33). Under these circumstances, smoking should not be done, not because it is evil, but because those there are offended by it, as Paul wrote,

So, there are some principles and circumstances that may dictate a good reason not to smoke at times, but these do not demand total abstinence, because smoking, in and of itself, is not a sin.

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