Recently I have been in discussions about gray areas in Christianity. A gray area is defined as any matter that is not clearly commanded, prohibited, or permitted in Scripture by the Gospel Coalition. When I think of gray, I remember when I was a child in art class, and we mixed black and white to make gray. Usually, white represents light and black is often used to relate to darkness. Therefore, if God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (see 1 Peter 2:9), then we must be careful of any matter that is considered a gray area. I am concerned that many Christians have taken the liberty of moving what was once considered a few years ago by them as deeds of darkness into the gray area. We must be careful how we use our liberties in Christ and to remember that He never changes even when the world does.
For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. 1 Peter 2:17-19
One of the ways to help us make choices in the gray area is to consider if whatever we are thinking of doing will glorify God and bring Him honor. As Christians our lives should never me just about us or satisfying the flesh, but rather we should do what pleases God by walking in His Holy Spirit.
Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5
Are the sacrifices that we are making acceptable to God? Or are we even making sacrifices? We may be too busy trying to live comfortable lives to make sacrifices to God. Sacrifice is often not easy and requires giving up something. Jesus sacrificed His life for us and just as He gave up His life to free us from sin, then we should give up our lives to Him, living holy lives pleasing to Him and obeying all He says. But the point about the gray area is that it is said that some circumstances were not specifically spoken about. Yet if we study the Word, we will see that there are many Bible verses or stories that may show God’s heart on the matter. For instance, carnival has been put in the gray area by some Christians. But let us see what the Bible may have to say about this event.
Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. Romans 13:13
The New Living Translation is even more explicit.
Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Romans 13:13
All we need do is look at what goes on at the carnival activities and then go to the Bible and do a search about these activities to see what it says. We can do something like this for anything that we think that may be in the gray area. Then we can better understand if it would be pleasing to God.
Discipleship Defined describes the gray area as a spiritual preference, which is a believer’s decision to do or not do something that is based on personal Biblical convictions in tandem with their freedom found in Christ and the fact that Scripture has left them with the responsibility to decipher what is most God-glorifying. There are two things I want to focus on here and those are freedom found in Christ and the fact that Scripture has left us with the responsibility to decipher what is most God-glorifying.
I have already shared the 1 Peter 2 Bible verse that states that we are free but should not use our liberty to cover up evil. The fact is that we are at different maturity levels, and we must be careful that we have not been drinking spoilt milk while maturing as one of the participants in a recent Bible study pointed out. We need to be careful as what we freely feed on as our spiritual diet could corrupt our convictions. While doing my graduate studies I did a publications project on the importance of television. I had to read a book a week to complete this project, but I could find no book that focused on the advantages of the medium. There was one book that pointed out the effect of the television show, I Love Lucy, on changing the culture and thought patterns of how we viewed intimacy of couples. When the show started in black and white, Lucy and Ricky slept in two different beds, but a few years later by the time they went to color they were in the same bed. This shift brought about a change in the act of intimacy of couples on television and even in real life. This brought me back to a question posed by a professor in film school – Does reality influence non-reality or does non-reality influence reality? With the I Love Lucy effect you may be able to answer this question. As Christians we are not immune to the influence of non-reality affecting our perception of reality, which may even skew our idea of God’s truth as we have a constant diet of programs that cause a culture shift away from God. Who the Son sets free is free indeed, but we make the choice if we stay free or be once again entangled in Satan’s trap as he uses the media to make wrong look right and acceptable.
How we perceive God’s truth will affect how we interpret Scripture. If we have a distorted view of Scripture then our interpretation of the Word could be intertwined with worldly beliefs and our convictions will be contorted. Plus, our perception of God could be perverted, which may result in us not being able to decipher what is most God-glorifying. This may make us see what we once saw as darkness as a gray matter.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20
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