Lux Lucet

“I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself,” wrote the Apostle Paul to the Romans. The context of these words from Romans 14:14 was a treatment about the proper Christian attitude toward, and use of, food. In particular, it centered around the controversial topic of food sacrificed to idols. Some Christians had no problem with eating it. For others, it was a major stumbling block.

Paul’s point was that meat, even if it had been sacrificed to idols, was simply meat. A Christian could eat of it and be blameless. But not all Christians saw it that way. Some believers saw eating such meat as sinful. Concerning these individuals, Paul wrote, “but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. That is to say, if a Christian was convinced that the act of eating meat sacrificed to idols was a sin, then it would be a sin for him to do so.

This passage is one of the clearest proof texts in Scripture showing that things in themselves are neither good nor evil – “there is nothing unclean of itself,” but rather that good and evil reside in the heart of the man.

Jesus made this same point when answering his disciples about a question they had about one of his parables. He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?…What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:18-23).

Because some people misuse food does not make food bad in itself. Sex is not inherently evil because some men are fornicators and adulterers, nor is language itself wicked because some men are deceivers and blasphemers. Scripture does not seek to ban any of these things. What it does do is to define what constitutes the lawful and the unlawful use of them.

What is true of food, sex and language is also true of guns: They are neither good nor evil in themselves; rather, it is the thoughts and intents of the heart that make their use right or wrong.

One man uses a gun to defend his family and property from a home invader; another uses it to rob a bank or to shoot up a school. Those who seek to ban private citizens from owing and using guns argue, contra Jesus and Paul, that the problem lies with the thing itself, not with the evil thoughts of evil men.

It’s an old saying, but one that holds true, guns don’t kill people, people do.