Biased

      Are you prejudiced?  If you're like the average person nowadays, that question really annoys you, and your immediate inclination is to say, "Of course not!"  One of the values many today espouse (particularly in the first world) is tolerance, and to be accused of prejudice is a big insult to most of us!  But really think about it.  Prejudice isn't limited to racism.  It doesn't always involve hatred.  If handled correctly, it doesn't even have to give birth to bad treatment of others.   I am going to break it down.  We're going to look at what prejudice is, some examples of prejudice today, some historical and biblical examples, and finally, what God would have us as believers to with our biases.  

     Oxford Languages defines prejudice as: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.  There is nothing in that definition about race, although one can be prejudiced toward someone of a certain race.  Prejudice, in its simplest terms, is pre-judging.  

     Prejudices can be nurtured by our faulty perception when we haven't had a true experience with the person or group of people we are prejudging.  Sometimes, prejudices are fostered by family members or popular opinion, when we really don't have any reason to draw those conclusions ourselves.  This is, of course, wrong.  However, one of the trickier ways prejudice can sneak up on a person is that they might have had a legitimately bad experience with someone, so they then become prejudiced toward anyone from the same group.  These instances are more difficult to pinpoint, because they are based on some level of experience, but then, the person uses that one (or two or three, etc.) experience(s) to paint with too broad a brush.   For example, if I had a bad experience with someone from New Jersey (I haven't, but I'm just using this as an example), and I then decided that all people from New Jersey were like that, that would be a form or prejudice.  It would be very unfair to the other residents of the Garden State for me to judge them all based on an experience (and even if I had a bad experience with that one person, their bad treatment of me would have nothing to do with them being from New Jersey).  Painting with too broad a brush is harmful, both to whole groups of people, and to ourselves, because it cheats all of us out of good relationships in the Lord.  

I just used New Jersey as an example.  I actually love New Jersey!

     Racism is the biggest form of prejudice we hear about, and it is wrong.  All humanity came from Adam and Eve, and later, Noah, so, in reality, there is only one race, and that's the human race.  In the book Prince Caspain, by C.S. Lewis, young Caspian is about to become King of Narnia, and he feels inadequate.  Aslan the Lion (representing Christ) tells Caspian, You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, and that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.  Be content. 

     We have different amounts of pigment in our skin, and different hair colors and textures.  We have difference facial features.  But we are all human.  A blood sample can be analyzed, and science can determine if it is human or animal blood, but it cannot determine race.  The reason?  Biological race does not exist.  Ancestry can examined, and that has become quite popular, but actual race (what we call race) cannot be determined by DNA.  We are humans, and our common ancestor (most recently) is Noah.  

     McGill University published a study in which two penguins (who looked identical to each other) were tested and compared.  Then, two humans were tested and compared.  These two humans were a white female and a black male.  The result was that the two humans' DNA was closer to each other's than the two identical penguins were to each other.  This study also claimed that any two unrelated humans on earth would be 99.9% identical in their DNA sequence.  In the 0.1 percent where there was more variation, the two different people were almost always actually the same race, not different races.  The point?  Race isn't as important as we have made it!  I will give a link to the article from McGill University at the end of this post. 

     Even if one is prejudiced against a particular race, that doesn't necessarily mean they are a racist.  Prejudice is pre-judging.  Racism goes much further, to the point of discriminatory treatment.  I would venture to say most people don't go this far.  It is taking those prejudices and using them to destroy or hold back a race of people.  And it doesn't have to be against one particular group in order for it to be racism.  Hitler was racist in trying to destroy the Jewish people.  George Wallace (former Alabama governor and two-time presidential candidate) was racist in trying to maintain segregation and hold back African Americans.  These and other examples of racism are concentrated efforts to harm an entire group of people.  Simply having a bias and stopping it there is not out-and-out racism.  I'll get to this, but as Christians, we have the Holy Spirit to help us stop our prejudices before they become harmful.  God changes our hearts in the process as well.

     Stepping away from race-related prejudices, one can pre-judge just about anyone for anything.  You can pre-judge someone with a certain ability or disability.  Some people don't like the rich, or the poor.  Some have biases against those who live on the wrong side of town, or who attend the rival school.  I knew someone who hated the New England Patriots, and disliked anyone who was a Patriots fan.  As with my made-up example of being prejudiced against New Jersey, people can become prejudiced toward those from other states, or nations.  Sometimes, Christians can be prejudiced against those who attend certain churches, or are part of certain denominations.  Prejudice can also exist among generations.  Until recently, I didn't really hear people talk much about their generation, but all of a sudden, everything is all about, "Are you a Baby Boomer, and GenXer or a Millennial (or something else)?"  This can lead to actual prejudice against people of a certain generation.  I had to leave a Facebook group over generation-bashing that was just getting to me.

People are suddenly into what generation they are, and they latch onto it as a part of their identity, and let it bring division and start conflict.  Really ridiculous!  So I listened to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey as a teen, and you listened to Justin Bieber.  So what?  No one can control when they were born!

     Here's a hot topic that has a good example of prejudice.  Regardless of your opinion, bear with me.  With Elon Musk taking over Twitter, former President Trump was allowed back onto it (I am not on Twitter myself, and I am not attempting to make any statement for or against Elon Musk, Donald Trump, or any of it--that isn't my purpose here--but if you want to know my opinion about anything related to this, reach out to me personally and we can talk).  One person (among many) who claimed he would leave the social media platform gave as his reasoning that he refused to be on the same platform as a billionaire.  Is that a good reason?  If someone disagrees with what Trump has said or done, that might be a good reason not to be around his influence.  Even then, though, I could make the argument that being around various views is broadening, and leaving a social platform simply because someone you dislike is on it (when you can choose not to follow them anyway!) would be the same as not having Verizon service for your cell phone because some celebrity you dislike also has Verizon.  But to simply dislike him for being a billionaire is a blatantly wrong reason.  Donald Trump, like all of humanity, has faults, but being rich isn't one of them.  That isn't a sin.  Somehow, in our world, some forms of bias are deemed acceptable, and others are not.  Biases against rich people is fine, but bias against the poor is considered immoral.  What is wrong with this picture?  

     I have been to 47 out of 50 states in the US (I still need to visit Alaska, Wisconsin and South Carolina).  I have lived in 5 states.  In my travels, I have met people with very strong biases against certain states or regions of the country.  I knew someone who despised the South and anyone from the South.  Having lived in the South for a few years now, I love it here, and I'm saddened this person's biases cheat her out of all the beauty and fun this part of the country holds.  When my husband and I lived in Texas, we had some people treat us pretty badly for originally being from California.  Some of it was very hurtful.  I have to share this anecdote, because it's so funny.  A pastor we knew there was talking about how believers are eternally secure in Christ.  As an illustration, he said, "Even if my son went to California, I would never disown him, so that means God can't disown us!"  I thought, Huh? Why would you disown someone for going to California?  To my mind, he may as well have said, "Even if my son drinks milk, I won't disown him!"  What's wrong with milk?  And what's wrong with California?  It was as if that was the worst thing he could think of that his son could do, and yet even then, he still wouldn't disown him!  Crazy. Yet in that culture, it is acceptable to pre-judge all Californians.  I must ask: Is it honestly acceptable to lump us all together?   It is so inconsistent, because, using the Texas/California example, remove Californian from their unkind statements and insert Mexican, or Brazilian, or Filipino.  You know they would never do that.  Why?  Because prejudice against other nations isn't an "acceptable" form of prejudice, whereas prejudice against other states is.  But is it really?  Is any prejudice acceptable?  

     Lest I only pick on Texas, I need to point out that residents of my home state of California are usually the first to vehemently deny being prejudiced, and might brag about how unprejudiced they are.  And if you have to boast about how your'e not prejudiced, guess what you probably are?  In my life experiences in California, I have seen more people segregating themselves from those who are not like them than in any other state I've lived in or been to.  I haven't seen a lot of hate-filled prejudice between people, but I have observed that people just snootily stay to themselves and interact with people in their own social circle.  Yes, the state of California is technically diverse, but in my experience, a lot of the churches, neighborhoods, grocery stores, etc. are filled with pretty similar people.  Go to another area in the same town, and you'll see another type of similar people all going to the same churches, stores, etc.  People virtue signal about accepting everyone, but that just doesn't always happen.  These are just my observations, from having lived in California the first 34 years of my life, and then leaving and coming back to occasionally visit.  Someone else may have experienced it very differently than me, but that is my observation.  Texans aren't the only ones with biases.  

     I can't criticize others for their prejudices without coming clean about some of mine.  Yes, I have them, and I would argue we all do.  Not hateful prejudices.  Not a desire to destroy others.  But biases.  When a few Texans revealed prejudice against me for my home state, I developed the reverse prejudice as a defense mechanism, to shield myself from the pain.  I decided people from Texas were this or that.  Was that right of me?  No!  Just because some Texans had hurt me didn't mean everyone in their entire state was hurtful or judgmental against me!  I was being as unfair as those who made the remarks, particularly to some very good friends I made there.  

     An entirely different story, I grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of one-story houses, friendly neighbors, and a pretty contented life. Around that time, a lot of HOA neighborhoods were being built, and two-story was in.  A lot of the newer track house neighborhoods were these two-story houses.  They seemed like little mansions to me.  For a while, we attended a church in a neighborhood of these houses.  Even though these people were not wealthy, they probably would have been considered upper-middle class.  I had a very snooty youth leader who would say negative things against my neighborhood.  She was absolutely devastated when she found out my one-story house was actually higher square footage than her two-story house.  Talk about shallow!  I experienced several different hurts in that youth group, and I felt hurt and offended by her, so I started referring to these newer track homes as "snob houses."  I called them that for years.  Was that fair to label everyone who lived in these newer neighborhoods as snobs?  No!  I was the one being a snob by saying that.  To be honest, I still struggle with that when I see a community of newer two-story track homes (or even not as new now, but might have been new while I was growing up).  The association with being humiliated as a teenager is so strong, and I need God's help to remind myself that these people (whom I usually don't know) are not to blame for what happened back then.  It's something I have to keep giving back to God and letting Him help me. 

     These two prejudices I've shared are an example of what a lot of people struggle with.  We aren't born prejudiced.  We can be taught to see people that way through prejudiced parents or others who influence us.  Or, as in my stories, we can have deeply-rooted hurts, and those prejudices are a form of self-protection against the pain.  Instead, we need to deal with the hurt, rather than bringing a lot of innocent people into our judgments.

     Ecclesiastes 1:9 reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun.  Our biases are nothing new. People throughout history, including in biblical times, had biases.  The ancient Egyptians made the Hebrews their slaves and tried to destroy them by killing their baby boys (Exodus 1).  A little further along in the narrative, we see Moses' siblings Aaron and Miriam being prejudiced against his wife Zipporah (Numbers 12:1).  In the book of Esther, Haman tried to annihilate the Jews.  By the New Testament, Israel was under Roman rule, and there was a lot of prejudice between them.  Not only that, but there were different types of Jews.  There were Hellenists (Greek-speaking and Greek-cultured), as well as Samaritans (considered mixed raced).  In the book of Acts, the Apostles had to go on a journey with God to discover that God was calling Gentiles, as well as Jews, to salvation.  Peter led the first Gentile to the Lord (Acts 10), but he later struggled with this and distanced himself from Gentile believers (Galatians 2:11-13).  Even a great saint of God can struggle with biases, and need reminders, as Paul gave to Peter in the Galatians passage mentioned.  

     It should also be noted that Jesus went out of His way to mingle with those others avoided, such as the woman at the well (John 4).  

     Aside from national or racial prejudice, there was also prejudice against tax collectors (they were seen as traitors, in league with the Romans), and the opposite extreme, Zealots (who wanted to overthrow Rome).  I find it interesting that Jesus had a tax collector and a zealot among His disciples.   Jesus also had lowly fishermen (who were viewed as low class) as well as apparently upper-class people (Joseph of Arimathea, as well as Mary, Martha and Lazarus are believed to have had money) among His followers.

     While we all may have some sort of bias, it isn't right.  There is grace to help us work it out and do better, but no excuse to hold onto it.  Acts 10:34 says that God is no respecter of persons.  The English Standard Version renders it God shows no partiality.  Galatians 3:28 reminds us, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Obviously, people are different.  We're not meant to be carbon copies of each other.  We still have our ancestries, our jobs, our sex.  But those things do not make us inferior or superior.  We're one in the Lord.  In James 2:1-9, we are strongly instructed not to be partial to anyone.  In this passage, an example is used of a wealthy man coming into the church, and being treated better than a poor man who also comes in.  Verse 9 concludes: But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.  

     The best way to overcome prejudice is to meet someone and really get to know them for who they are.  Broaden your world by getting to know people you normally wouldn't.  Listen to people who respectfully share views that differ from yours, and consider what they have to say.  Get curious and ask questions.  A quote I read years ago said that some people don't want to hear the truth; they just want to have their prejudices confirmed.  It was a great quote, and I've never been able to find it again, but it's the truth.  We shouldn't be that way.  Jesus is the truth (John 14:6).  His Spirit inside you as a Christian will lead you into all truth (John 16:13).  Ask God to reveal the truth to you, and He will.  Let Him speak to your heart about the ways you have been biased.  We live in a world where we all want to cry "Not it!" when we hear the word prejudice, because that's considered one of the worst things.  Yet all sin is sin.  Your biases need God's help to be overcome, but they do not make you worse than anyone else.  Acknowledge your sin, and ask for God's help.  That's a lot better than trying to explain why you're not really prejudiced.  

You can read McGill University's article about race here.

     

Friend or Foe?

     I recently had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine.  She shared with me how her daughter (who attends a very small Christian school) is one of only two girls in the school's upper-elementary class.  

     "And the other little girl is so mean to her," my friend told me.  "It's been like this since kindergarten.  This girl gets the younger girls on the playground to snub her.  The teachers never know how to deal with it.  In fact, this year, their teacher is best friends with this girl's mom.  My daughter knows this girl is mean, but they've kind of been in a position of being forced to act like friends all this time.  And there are times the girl is nice to her, and my daughter lets her guard down, only to be hurt later when the girl decides to be mean again."

     As she explained this, my heart went on to this sweet ten-year-old (who is in the Wednesday night class I teach at church).  I related to her experience--both from my own childhood experiences with mean "friends" and also in my adult life.  How many times have I had an uncomfortable relationship with someone, only to let my guard down when they'd act nice.  Inevitably, I would then be hurt by them when they'd start being mean again.  As people who want to get along with others, we often take what we can get from them, sometimes to our own detriment.  

     What makes this more complicated is that, as Christians, we feel we need to show mean people mercy and grace, and we feel guilty for holding our boundaries and taking care of ourselves.  In fact, some of us have been programmed with idyllic thinking on the subject.  

     Growing up, I would watch family-friendly TV shows, which would attempt to teach a lesson to viewers.  A common plot used in several shows was the story about the school bully picking on the protagonist.  The protagonist inevitably decides to kill the bully with kindness, and the bully ends up becoming nice and good, and everyone becomes friends by the end.  

     These feel-good plots are so encouraging, but they are also unrealistic most of the time.  They set us up to be disappointed when real-life doesn't work that way.  They also set us up to show kindness out of a desire to change the bully, instead of unconditional Christian love.  Those who have the greatest impact for good on others are those who can love someone without having that person ever love them back.  Romans 5:6 says, For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  Jesus loved us, knowing we were powerless to do anything for Him, and that kind of love brought our salvation!  Jesus loved us while we were still His enemies, and once we receive His salvation, we become His children and friends.  If you're loving someone just to make them change, you're loving them for the wrong reason.  I talk more in-depth about this in my June 22, 2021 post Toxic? if you'd like to read that.  

     Unfortunately, these kill-the-bully-with-kindness plots were not just relegated to TV shows.  A lot of Christian media from my childhood also had this message.  One particular song from an album (that had an accompanying story) contained the lines: 

...It's when you see your enemy in trouble

And you help him put his troubles to an end,

It's coming to his rescue on the double,

By picking him up, dusting him off,

and being his friend...

     I hasten to add that this is not a bad message.  It's a beautiful message, encouraging us to show love.  That is very right and Christian.  My only objection to this and other stories for kids (both secular and Christian) is that it simplifies complex relationships with difficult people.  In the story on this album, the enemy becomes good and kind after the central characters demonstrate this kind of love, which is not something we should bank on.  Being kind to your enemy is biblical.  Jesus said to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-28).  But He didn't tell us to be their doormat.  In fact, to follow Jesus' words here, we have to first admit that these people are our enemies.  It isn't always possible to make that person our friend.  We certainly can't solve all of our enemy's problems, as the sweet song above implies.  As I became an adult, I had to grieve the lost innocence that came to me when I realized life isn't this simple.  I wish it was.  It takes two people to make a friendship happen.  You don't have power over the other person to make them be your friend.  You can choose to do right, but you also need to take care of yourself.  Wasting time and energy on trying to befriend your enemy can take you away from relationships you should be investing in!  It can take you away from becoming the person God made you to be.  

     I have shared this example before, but think of Jesus on the cross.  He forgave the men who killed and mocked him.  Luke 23:34 says, Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.  Often, this truth is put forth as a challenge to us, to love and forgive people who hurt us.  And yet, then, I think of something else.  After Jesus' resurrection, He didn't try to pursue these people who killed Him.  He didn't go try to become their friends or persuade them to believe in Him.  He didn't expend any further energy on them.  He instead showed Himself to His followers--those who would make up the early church.  He focused on the relationships that mattered.  His eye was on the goal the Father set for Him.

     The Apostle Paul had people he really invested in as well, and you can see that in the book of Acts, and in his epistles.  But we also read of other encounters he had.  He had the chance to bear witness of Christ before Felix, Agrippa and Festus.  Felix's response was "Not now." (Acts 24:23, That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.).  Agrippa's response to Paul's message was "Not quite," (Acts 26:28, ...You almost persuade me to become a Christian.).  And Festus' response (we gather through his lack of response) is "Not at all."  Though they worded it differently, none of them responded affirmatively to Paul, and after these encounters, we don't see Paul writing to them or investing his energy into them.  He did what he was called to do in their lives, and then he moved to his next assignment from the Lord.  I don't know about you, but I have wasted time on people I really should have just let go of.  It doesn't mean you don't value them as God-loved humans.  It just means they aren't your assignment from the Lord, and you can move on.  Jesus knew what to do, and Paul follows that example.  We can do the same.  Invest in those God has put in your corner. 

     Some years ago, I was involved in a particular ministry.  The woman I worked most closely with in this situation was difficult for me.  For the sake of this post, I'll say she was my enemy.  She was very snobbish to me, and passive-aggressively put me down in front of other people.  She treated me very badly, but did so in a very sweet voice.  It was very grating to me.  Of course, she was physically beautiful.  The hardest part for me was that almost everyone else thought this woman was wonderful, and it made me question if I was perceiving her correctly.  Really, wondering about that was a waste of my own time and energy.  Maybe everyone else was right and she was wonderful, but it was enough that I wasn't experiencing her that way.  I needed to just know how to deal with what I was experiencing, rather than analyzing her.  

     Our first year serving together, she made me so mad, and we had some very difficult conflicts.  There was a lot of embarrassment.  But for some reason, our second year, she started being very sweet.  It was like we had clicked all of a sudden.  I was just happy we were getting along, and accepted it for what it was.  Our ministry went so much better.  But the truth was, we had never resolved past conflicts.  She just suddenly got nice, and I let my guard down.  She was still the same person.  After our wonderful second year, her true colors came back out, and, because I had started to trust and like her, I was deeply hurt by her.  

     I could have avoided that pain if I hadn't let my guard down, just like the ten-year-old girl I started this post talking about.  A lot of us have been in this situation, I would imagine.  We are just so relieved when the person isn't giving us a bad time that we forget who they are and what they are capable of.  Sometimes, in the name of Christian grace, we just forget all their bad behavior.  For salvation, that works (Jesus washes our sins away!), but in personal relationships, we can't just erase what someone did.  We can choose not to hold it against them, and to forgive them.  That much is biblical.  But, unless that person has apologized, and demonstrated a recognition of their wrong and a desire to get along with us, we should still keep in mind what they are capable of.  Trust should be earned, not freely given.  Recognizing who and what they really are is not a lack of forgiveness and grace.  It is taking care of ourselves.  It is part of being wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16).

     My ten-year-old friend eventually concluded that this mean classmate of her wasn't her friend.  She would be kind to her, but she wouldn't try to be friends with her.  Putting that boundary down, even just in her own mind, has helped her tremendously this school year.  And it is something we need to be doing for ourselves too.  

          Relationships with people are complicated.  There are a lot of oversimplified and incorrect messages that sound like good Christian teachings.  We need to follow Jesus' example--love our enemies, desiring their very best (which is their salvation in Jesus), but invest in the people God has put into our lives for good.  

All or Nothing...

      Have you ever fallen prey to the mentality of "all or nothing?"  A lot of us have.  We throw ourselves into something completely...or we don't try at all.  This goes along with black and white thinking.  Something is either 100% right or 100% wrong, and if we ever err on the wrong side, we just throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

     1) You're on a strict diet.  You cheat a little bit by eating a fun sized candy bar, then feel so guilty you just give up and decide you'll start on your diet tomorrow and spend the rest of your day gorging on junk food.

     2) You are determined to be a good Christian witness at work, but then you get sucked into a gossipy conversation with coworkers, and then, feel so badly about it that you decide you shouldn't try to be a witness, since you already ruined your testimony by gossiping, and you never end up telling your coworkers you're even a Christian.

     3) You miss a couple of weeks of church, due to sickness and vacationing.  Feeling you are now out of the loop, you allow yourself to just get out of the habit of going, and never get back into regular attendance.  

     4) Here is a more subtle example:  You work a job you love, and want to do your very best.  There is always so much to do that you never know when you're really done for the day.  You throw yourself into doing this job you really love.  Your boss and coworkers praise your efforts, which further reinforces your hard work, but you never really know how to put down boundaries with this job, and the lines are fuzzy between your work life and personal life.  This is especially easy to fall into with a salaried job, as opposed to hourly wage, but can happen in any job.

     As humans, we can easily fall into all or nothing thinking.  We can also push good things (like enjoying a tasty snack, taking care of your health, working hard, etc.) to an unhealthy extreme.  That's more of the all or nothing thinking.  

     Some things really are totally black or white.  The Bible is very clear about what is right and what is wrong.  First Peter 1:15 tells us be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.  What is holiness?  It's the perfection of God!  Are we capable of that?  No!  Romans 3:10 tells us, There is none righteous, no, not one.  Our sinfulness is ingrained into who we are, and that is why we need a Savior.  Once we have received Christ, God sees us in the righteousness of His Son!  But in a practical way, we don't always act righteously.  We want to!  Oh, we want to!  As Christians, we have that new nature, that desire to please God and do right.  If we try this in our own strength, we fall into that very all or nothing thinking I've been talking about.  Some Christians (myself included at times!) fall into perfectionism, trying to do everything just right.  There is nothing wrong with aiming for excellence.  Second Timothy 2:15 says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.  This refers to correctly living by God's word, and that is what we should do.  The problem happens when we try to do it in our own strength, and beat ourselves up when we fail (which we all do).  It is also a problem when we try to help ourselves obey the Bible by adding unbiblical rules to ourselves. That's what the Pharisees did, and it only puts a burden on us!  It is also part of all or nothing thinking.  For example:

     1) The Bible makes it clear sex is for marriage between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24, First Corinthians 6:18, Hebrews 13:4), and anything apart from this is sinful.  But some have added a lot of rules to this, making male and female relationships needlessly complicated.  When I was a teen and young adult, a lot of Christians nixed dating, or physical contact of any kind, or kissing before your wedding day.  If that was someone's personal choice, there is nothing wrong with that, but to put that on everyone when that is not what the Bible says is legalism!  

     2) The Bible says to abstain from all appearance of evil.  (First Thessalonians 5:22).  I will be the first to confess I have inadvertently misused this verse in the past, and have seen many others do so as well.  Other translations have this verse as saying to avoid all forms of evil (do a study on this!).  The verse is saying to avoid evil, and we know what evil is, because God has spelled it out in His word.  But many of us have taken the translation that is most to our liking and have told ourselves and others that they need to avoid things that even appear evil.  I have known people who refused to go to movies, just because someone they know might see them coming out of a perfectly wholesome movie, but think they might have seen a bad one.  Again, this is fine if someone feels convicted by God to do this.  We are told scripturally not to make the weaker believer stumble (Romans 14), so if seeing you come out of a theater will make them stumble, then avoiding it would be the right choice.  But making this into a seemingly godly rule that everyone should be expected to follow is no longer obeying the Bible, but adding to it.  

     3) The Bible says all foods are permissible to eat (Acts 10:15), but also that not everything is the best for us (First Corinthians 10:23).  That gives us some guidelines, but not strict rules about what to eat and what not to eat.  Some Christians I have known virtue signal about being a vegetarian, a vegan, only eating organic, gluten-free, etc.  Again, there is nothing wrong with someone eating the diet they believe is right for them (especially if it is necessary for heath reasons), but to spiritualize it and put it on other people is beyond anything the Bible teaches, yet I have met many who do this.  One friend and I were talking about some women in a Bible study we attended, and my friend said, "It's like they've made a whole religion out of food!" These women had criticized us for trusting the FDA to approve safe food, and for shopping at regular grocery stores instead of their favorite specialty health stores.  It was okay for them to follow their diet, but it was okay for us to follow ours too.  Before God, no one was in the wrong in terms of eating, and it was legalistic of them to try to put that on us.  

     I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.  We have all had times where we or someone we knew went into all or nothing thinking.  Usually, people are well-intentioned when they do this, but it isn't the path to righteousness.  

     What we need, instead is grace.  But what is grace?  I have never seen any biblical attribute abused and misused as much as grace.  Some people think legalism is having standards, but grace is doing whatever you want.  That isn't true at all.  God's standard of holiness still stands, and in oder to have a right relationship with Him, we need to be holy too!  We can't, so Jesus did it for us!  That's why it is possible.  God didn't break His own rule and say, "Well, I'm just going to accept sin."  No, He made the way by sending Jesus!  Now, because the Holy Spirit is inside of believers, we are empowered to live a godly way!  Grace is actually a higher standard, not lower.  In Matthew 5 (starting in verse 21), Jesus does a series of explanations that start with "You have heard it said..." The first example he does is murder, and He explains that murder isn't just the act of killing, but just to be angry is the same in God's eyes as if you really killed someone!  Jesus blew them out of the water with these statements, showing them how incapable they were of living up to God's righteous standard (thus showing them why they needed a Savior!).  That's why Jesus came!  But now that we have that grace of salvation, we also have the grace to do right.  We don't have to harbor sinful anger in our hearts (there is non-sinful, non-murderous anger as well).  We do not have to lust.  We don't have to get revenge.  God's grace empowers us to do better and live the righteous life!  

     Are we always going to live that standard of grace?  No.  We still sin, and that's another thing grace does.  It helps you just get up and do the next right thing.  You are not condemned when you fail.  Jesus took that penalty.  You can get up and move forward in victory!  You don't have to feel defeated.  Just make it right and move on!  

     The best example of grace I have ever heard was years ago at an AWANA conference in California.  One of my fellow workshop presenters said:

     "Legalism is your mother giving you $1 and telling you you'd better buy a week's worth of groceries with it, then punishing you because you were unable.  Grace is your mother giving you $100 to go buy yourself some ice cream and letting you keep the change!"  Legalism only brings failure.  Grace empowers us!  It isn't an excuse to sin.  It is a higher standard, and the power to do it, and even the power to move on from failure!

     Next time you're tempted to give into all or nothing thinking, remember, you have $100 to buy an ice cream cone, and you can keep the change!  God is empowering you!