I am a Christian and while, like all Christians, I struggle at times, I feel that I am quite strong in my faith and my life. Jesus is still the center of my life and I always try to keep him the center of my thoughts. He is my life. However, what I want to point out are the two rules that makes smoking tobacco (and drinking alcohol) different from taking and/or abusing any narcotics.

1. If it is used for a “high”, or if it alters one’s perception to increase pleasures as such, it is sinful as we are more prone to do ungodly deeds when we are not in our right minds. Tobacco and harmless amounts of alcohol do not do this but studies show that anything from marijuana to cocaine to heroin do alter the senses.

2. If it becomes an addiction and we become reliant on it more than God. However, if we become too reliant on anything, even food or drink, it is sinful as we can see from fasting that the human body can go weeks without food and days without drink, we can go forever without tobacco or alcohol, though like me, I enjoy it every so often. As long as it does not become something I need or something I think I need to survive or even get through a day or two, then it is fine. “Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word from the mouth of the LORD.” Narcotics are EXTREMELY addictive and do hurt perception, therefore they are certainly wrong.

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I said originally that some people are convicted by the Holy Spirit that they’d be sinning against God if they did smoke, and some people are not convicted. What would be a sin is if you have been given this _personal_ revelation that smoking is bad, and then not acting on it.

No matter what the pro-smoking arguments The Dane mentioned are, I wouldn’t smoke. Aside from the aforementioned _personal_ conviction that it is a sin, my father is a thoracic surgeon–meaning he knows what smoking does to one’s body. Now, I admire The Dane for having the fortitude to be able to stop smoking at any time, but the matter is that people who are chronic smokers do sustain damage to their lungs. Never mind that I may suffer the same sort of damage by inhaling Manila’s soupy smog; I just don’t want to do that damage to myself willingly.

Last comment: we really can’t be sure what Jesus would do if someone had offered Him tobacco, like we can’t speculate on the tiny details of His life. All we know is what the Bible says, and the Bible doesn’t go into many particulars because it offers spiritual (and not so much physical) guidelines.

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Smoking Spiritualized.

THIS Indian weed now wither’d quite,

Tho’ green at noon, cut down at night,

Shows thy decay;

All flesh is hay.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

The pipe, so lily-like and weak,

Does thus thy mortal state bespeak

Thou art ev’n such,

Gone with a touch.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the smoke ascends on high,

Then thou behold’st the vanity

Of worldy stuff,

Gone with a puff.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And when the pipe grows foul within,

Think on thy soul defil’d with sin;

For then the fire,

It does require.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And seest the ashes cast away;

Then to thyself thou mayest say,

That to the dust

Return thou must.

Thus think, and smoke tobacco.

And I’m sure that if Jesus and I were kicking back on some hillside in Palestine and I handed him one, he’d take it, give thanks, and light up. That’s what Jesus would do.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

There is only one exception -

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.(Gen 2:17)” – and it’s not tobacco