Marijuana and the Bible, Neither Supported nor Condemned

What does the Bible say about marijuana?  Absolutely nothing.  One of the greatest problems of today is that whenever a controversial political dilemma arrives, many people turn to the Bible and interpret the Scriptures to support their specific argument.  Both sides sound compelling because they both do what is called proof texting, which is to find a verse in the Bible that supposedly supports your belief and you make it support your belief.  This is done by not reading the context around the verse to see if your belief is accurate with what the Word of God actually says.  For example, one group says that the Bible supports legal marijuana whereas another says that it does not and that it's a sin to smoke it in the first place.  However, from my findings by approaching Scripture objectively and examining the context, Scripture neither supports nor condemns marijuana.

Not once does Scripture mention the inhalation of drugs or vegetation and whether it is right or wrong.  It's much different when it speaks about alcohol where we read that it's against excessive drinking, not drinking alcohol altogether.  Besides, in biblical times the people of the Ancient Near East drank wine as if it were water because the water in those times was extremely dirty and despicable.  However, there is not a single mention of inhaling any type of substance.  First off, Jesus said to keep the Church and state separate.  Luke 20:25, "Well then," He told them, "give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."  At this time and place Jesus gave a proper recognition of the legitimate role of the human government in God's plan (which Paul expands on in Romans 13:1-7).  When Jesus says "to God the things that are God's," He is not segregating life into secular and spiritual, which implies that God is indifferent about certain aspects of human existence.  According to Romans 13:1-7, we need to respect and obey our government's laws, and above all we need to honour and respect and obey God's commands.  Thus, because God commands that we must obey our government's laws, when the government says that smoking marijuana (or anything else for that matter) is illegal, we must obey the law, not disobey it and debate over it nonsensically.  We need to stop utilising Scripture for our silly, political squabbles, especially when most people who debate about such controversial topics aren't even spiritual, let alone having any theological knowledge or studious experience in it.  You have to know how to study the Scriptures with the proper principles of interpretation and if you don't know how, you'll interpret it erroneously.  The groups and individuals who proof text are not intellectually honest with themselves because they don't allow the text to speak for itself, which is the first principle of interpretation, so they have no right in interpreting Scripture to use in political debates, or in any discussion, for that matter.  And secondly, to reiterate, the only drug that Scripture mentions is alcohol, and even then Scripture explicitly says not to misuse this drug.  Isaiah 5:11, Woe to those who rise early in the morning in the pursuit of beer, who linger into the evening, inflamed by wine.  This is a basic description of alcoholism, but it doesn't only speak against alcoholics; it also speaks against drunkards (people who practise inebriation frequently) and that they will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Corinthians 6:9-10).  There is also Ephesians 5:18, And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit...  We're so focused on marijuana in the Bible when it doesn't even mention it when we should be more concerned about the excessive use of alcohol because Scripture does discuss it and from my personal observations, I believe that we abuse alcohol much more than marijuana.  So, since the Bible does not specifically slander all drugs, I believe it is safe to assume that God does not support the mistreatment of drugs (or anything else non-drug related, like food, which would be gluttony).

As we know, marijuana originates from a hemp plant called cannabis.  Now, God did indeed create all vegetation on earth and saw that it was good (Genesis 1:12).  God's intention of vegetation was to be used for food (Genesis 1:29-31).  Of course, with man's active and creative imagination to invent new purposes in everything while living in sin, we discovered other ways to use cannabis.  Just as the aforementioned passage dictates, God created vegetation for us to use, so I don't think He minds what we use it for so long as it's not misused (like smoking large amounts of it that eventually damages your body that He created, for example).  In biblical times, cannabis was used for other things besides food like clothing, paper, cord, sails, fishnet, oil (ointment), sealant, incense, and even medicine.  Today, people use it for their own selfish pleasure, which causes some major problems to the brain.

Honestly, if marijuana has the potential to improve somebody's life through medicinal purposes, I really don't see the harm in it.  God blessed us with the intelligence of medicine so that we may save lives within our own powers, so it only makes sense to make the best of something that we have made into something harmful.  Marijuana is not the only drug that can be both detrimental and have the potential to be beneficial.  All legal drugs function in the same way.  Think about it:  if a person's body needs a drug, it will help them; but if the person's body does not need the drug, it will harm them.  For example, I had to take acetaminophen/codeine for intense shin and groin pain at one point in the army after an injury, which was a narcotic.  We always think of narcotics as bad, evil things, but this legal narcotic helped ease my pain when it was necessary for me to use it.  However, at the same time, I could have easily abused the drug if I had no self-control and as a result damage my body even more or even kill myself; but the wise, intelligent, self-controlled individual will not do that when given the opportunity.  It is the very same thing with a drug called Norco, a pain reliever that I needed after my spinal condition (spinal stenosis) caused a herniated disc to pinch my sciatic nerve, causing sciatica.  If I were taking that drug when I never needed it, then it would adversely affect my body.  Smaller things such as aspirin can be detrimental and beneficial to a person's body as well.  Aspirin helps to ease headaches and muscle soreness, but if you overdose, it can kill you.  Something as simple as aspirin can do that!  And it's on the shelves of your local pharmacy!  So, if marijuana can help with medicine, I say go for it, so long as it's used properly by the patient, which is solely dependent on individual responsibility, not the doctor's.

Let's take a look at a passage that pro-marijuana believers use:  They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.  For everything created by God is good, and nothing should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, since it is sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer (I Timothy 4:3-5).  A lot of people mistake this as a support for legalising marijuana.  However, that is not what the Apostle Paul is talking about in this first letter to Timothy at all!  Nowhere in this passage does Paul mention the good use of any unhealthy substance, let alone illegal because marijuana was not an issue then.  That's another problem with people today:  they think the Bible was written to us.  Scripture was not written to us.  Everything we read was written or spoken to a very specific audience in a specific culture at a specific time.  Once we understand this and how the audience was supposed to apply the Scriptures and why, then we can understand how to apply it to our lives today.  In this letter to Timothy, in these particular first five verses of the fourth chapter, Paul is writing to him about combating false teaching.  When Paul writes, "they forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created" in verse three, he is literally referring to Genesis 1:29 where God granted man permission to eat plants and Genesis 9:3 where God granted man permission to eat meat.  Because cannabis falls under vegetation and cannabis is the origin of marijuana, people believe that using it in any sense makes it right.  But Paul is literally talking about FOOD because that's literally what God was talking about in Genesis!  To illustrate the stupidity of this line of thinking further, God created the materials that eventually led to the formulation of different types of metal and alloy.  Since we have created objects from such materials such as knives, through this line of thinking one could say that murder someone you don't like is also right.  But of course, that is both absurd and stupid, and it would also be pathological.  So is thinking that Scripture supports smoking marijuana and legalising it on this basis, especially since Scripture does not mention it directly.  Saying to abstain from either of these two food categories is not in line with God's Word, because "everything created by God is good" (v. 4)!  Some vegans and vegetarians, for example, use the Bible as an excuse for their diet, but in Genesis 9:3 we see just the contrary — God granted us permission to eat meat.  Saying otherwise is clearly false doctrine.  Contrary to pro-marijuana beliefs, this passage in First Timothy does not support the legalisation of it.  I cannot say that enough!  The very thing that Paul is warning Timothy against in this letter (false teaching) is exactly what pro-marijuana believers are doing, interestingly enough.  But just as this passage does not support marijuana, neither does it condemn it.  Scripture only supports and condemns something if it exists in the texts and is specifically mentioned.  I also want to point out that God created cannabis; we created marijuana.  In our sin we took something good that God created and made it into something entirely different.  We took a manmade, deadly chemical called THC and combined it with God's good vegetation, cannabis; ergo, marijuana is not good.

It is not the Church's responsibility to involve herself with political dramas.  This is exactly why God wants the Church and state separate.  With a unified church and state, it creates a spirit of persecution and animosity, and persecuting others is exactly what we're doing right now from both sides with these futile, political debates that bring in religion.  (Just look at the history of the Catholic Church when they were practically the government in Europe, honing a spirit of animosity, self-righteousness, and judgement.)  The con side are viewed as superficial idiots whereas the pro side are viewed as naïve idiots, but both sides are being idiotic.  Let me pose a question:  When was the last time a law was passed based on moral grounds?  Think really hard about this.  Was there ever a single law that you can think of that was passed based on moral grounds?  I truly believe that the laws passed in this country have nothing to do with morality, even if it appears that way.  Every law that has been passed was because the American society was ready for it — they wanted it, and since they pushed hard enough they got what they wanted.  Most of the people who debate about this issue have no theological credibility whatsoever — they don't know how to study Scripture while utilising the principles of interpretation.  If we knew how, we wouldn't try to involve the Church with state time and time again, which God clearly does not want.  The six principles of interpretation are as follows:

1.            Stick with the plain and obvious meaning of the text.  (Read Mark 5:21-43.  This text is very obvious.  It's obviously not metaphorical, so take it literally.)

2.            Scripture interprets Scripture.  (Read Matthew 25:31-46.  If you read the rest of Scripture — the context — later on in Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15, this is interpreted by Scripture itself.)

3.            Pay attention to context.  (Read Isaiah 5:1-6.  When you first read this, it sounds like God is literally talking about an actual vineyard, but if you continue on in verse 7 you will see that it is not so.  So pay attention to context.)

4.            Interpret Scripture in light of the rule of faith.  (Read Hosea 6:6.  To many readers this may seem that Scripture contradicts itself because in the Old Testament, God does require sacrifices to be made under the Law.  But read Psalm 51:17.  This verse describes a people who make sacrifices with "a broken spirit" — a people who do the sacrifice but their heart and spirit are not into it.  In Hosea, God is saying that He delights in loyalty to Him and knowledge of Him over offerings done in apathy.  When Scripture appears to be contradicting, it is simply a misunderstanding of context, so it is required to go back and read the context.  If you can't figure it out on your own, get help.  Have faith that God's Word is not contradicting itself and that it's actually describing something very important.)

5.            Interpret Scripture Christologically.  (Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12.  For the reader who does not know that the Old Testament points towards Christ, these passages will not make any sense to him or her whatsoever, so it is very important to think about how a passage relates to Christ when you are reading it.  These people are like the Ethiopian eunuch who didn't know how to interpret a prophecy about Christ, whom the Apostle Philip ministered to and taught him what it meant [Acts 8:26-40].)

6.            Law & Gospel.  (Read Ephesians 2:8-10.  The Law was through works, and Jesus has fulfilled the Law and we are no longer under the Law but under grace [Matthew 5:17; Romans 6:14].  The Law points out your sins and when you recognise them, you are then able to immediately ask for forgiveness because of grace, which is a gift not a result of our works, "so that no one may boast.")

These principles of interpretation are exactly what people fail to follow when they use the Bible to make it meet their agenda.

Jesus said, "It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, that defiles a man" (Matthew 15:11).  Again, this has nothing to do with consuming certain drugs, food, or drink that defiles a person.  Believe it or not, if somebody smokes marijuana, he is not spiritually defiled, unless it blocks his relationship with Christ.  Whatever in your life that you put above God, whether it's drugs or money or anything else, that becomes your idol — your master; and you can only have one God (Matthew 6:24; Jonah 2:8).  Doing so jeopardises your relationship with God, which makes it a sin.  But the mere act of indulging it does not make someone spiritually defiled or a sinner.  It may be hard to believe, but that is exactly what Jesus is saying here.  In the time and place of Jesus' saying here, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees.  The Jewish laws regarding the cleansing of the hands were concerned with ritual purity, not sanitation.  After all, the Jewish law permitted the water to be drawn from vessels made of cow manure.  The Jewish law went so far as to permit the water to be so filthy that even cattle refused to drink it.  It's no wonder the people drank wine instead of water back then.  Jesus argued that food consumed with unclean hands does not spiritually defile a person.  His argument was also that the words that come out of the mouth defile a person because they show the sinful condition of the heart, which He tells us in verse eighteen.  So, in effect, there is no doubt that marijuana harms the body (if it didn't, it wouldn't be illegal in the first place), but the spirit of the individual remains intact and it is not a sin unless it hinders your relationship with God.  If marijuana (and this goes with anything else in the world like money, video games, pornography, sex, etc.) blocks one's growing relationship with Christ, that of course makes them spiritually defiled.  I cannot stress this enough.  Leaving aside addiction, marijuana is incapable of separating the individual from his or her salvation.  Nothing is capable of doing that (Romans 8:38-39).  In this Romans passage, all those things that are greater than marijuana cannot separate us from our salvation and the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, so thinking that marijuana is capable of doing so is not what God's Word says at all.

If people want to smoke marijuana chronically and become unhealthy and kill their brain cells (which do not regenerate like other cells in the human body once they die, by the way), then that's their decision.  Again, unless it blocks one's growing relationship with Christ, I honestly believe that God could care less.  Smoking marijuana only a few times in your life does not bring your spirit into danger.  It is addiction that we must be cautious of, just like addiction with other things such as food, sexual temptations, materialistic desires, and you can build this list almost infinitely.  When Jesus raises His followers from the dead at His rapturing of the Church, the ones who died and the ones who still live will have eternal health in Heaven.  This may be why God did not touch on this subject because ultimately, it doesn't matter, unless you put it above Him.  Also, I must reiterate that it was never a problem during biblical times so why would the apostles write about it?  God is not going to let the Christian who died of lung cancer, for example, live with that for the rest of their eternal lives in His kingdom because death, grief, tears, and pain will no longer exist (Revelation 21:4)!  And that is likewise never going to be a reason for God to condemn somebody to Hell.  This is no excuse to drink and smoke whatever substance excessively, though, because as I stated several times already, putting anything above God idolises that thing instead of God, which is a sin (idolatry).  If you want to be healthy and live longer, then abstaining from these substances would be a great start.

If you think legalising marijuana is right or wrong, then it comes down to this:  that's just your simple opinion — that's how it is in your world.  Romans 14:14, I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.  Just because you may think legal marijuana is wrong, or eating meat is wrong, or anything menial like that does not make it an ultimate fact and in line with God's Word (unless it's in His Word, which they are not).  To you, and to you alone, it is wrong and unclean.  This truth was not Paul's own thinking, but of divine revelation, hence "in the Lord Jesus."  The word "unclean" in the Greek eventually evolved into meaning "immoral" or "evil."  This verse simply means that if someone is convinced that a certain behaviour is a sin — even if his assessment is wrong — he should never do it because if he does, he will violate his conscience and experience guilt, driving him back into the condemnation of the Law as opposed to freedom in grace.  So, if they're convinced that something like marijuana is a sin, even though they're wrong, it's better for them not to commit that "sin" simply because they truly believe it is and doing so would cause them guilt when the goal is our freedom in the grace of Christ.

So, by taking the verses that political debate teams always use in their silly arguments and actually observing the context of the verses, we can see that those verses have absolutely nothing to do with smoking marijuana, let alone the legalisation of it, but rather discuss something entirely different.  Whether you want to believe this or not, you have to accept it, but I can't force you to.  So whether you have the same belief as I do or not, I don't care, because I know the truth.  When I came into this study, I had a firm belief that legalising marijuana is wrong and that the Bible really does speak against it.  But once I actually studied the Scriptures objectively, let the text speak for itself, and paid attention to the context, I found that I was wrong.  Scripture neither supports nor condemns the use of marijuana in medicinal or inhalation forms unless it becomes something that you put above God.  I firmly believe that the chronic inhalation of it is both foolish and unhealthy; however, if it has the potential to save peoples' lives, go for it.