“Everything is permissible…” helping young people understand the balance between grace and holiness

When working with young people we need to teach them about grace. We need to help them know, love, and swim around in the depths of God’s riches given to them at Christ’s expense. We also, however, need to help them wrestle with holiness and obedience – what does it mean to live righteous and follow Jesus in how they act every day.

This can be a knife-edge balancing act and can swing from side to side depending on which topic we’re looking at from week to week. For me, I tend to swing to ‘grace’ whenever I’m teaching on God’s character, but swing to ‘law’ when I focus on our responses. We’ve got to cut through this disconnect and show young people the real harmony between the sides.

Living in obedience is the joyful overflow of inhabiting God’s grace. We’re saved by grace alone, but there is something about obedience that keeps us continually receiving that salvation. In the same way, I buy flowers for my wife out of love and not out of duty. My marriage is not contingent on buying her flowers – but it’s a great way of kindling our relationship. On the flip side, if I spent my entire marriage ignoring my wife and never doing anything for her – or even speaking to her – then I can’t guarantee that our relationship is going to last.

“We need to help young people take real, solid responsibility over their own faith – this isn’t about making it easy, it’s about making it real.”

How a young person chooses to live every day is important. Their media diet is important. Their ability to say no is important. Their resilience is important. Their friendship choices are important. We need to help young people grow as obedient followers of Jesus, without all the silly cumbersome legalism that we too readily dump on them. We need to help young people take real, solid responsibility over their own faith – this isn’t about making it easy, it’s about making it real.

This is going to take a couple of posts, but I thought we should begin by talking about one of the most misquoted and misunderstood verses in the New Testament.

‘Everything is Permissible’

Twice in 1 Corinthians Paul says that all things are permissible (saved by grace right?), but not all things are helpful.

‘“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.’ (1 Cor. 6:12, ESV)

‘“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.’ (1 Cor. 10:23, ESV)

I recently read an article on Game of Thrones where 1 Cor. 6 was misquoted as saying ‘everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful.’ We can’t get at the author too much, however, because almost everyone misquotes Paul here! What’s missing is the quote marks, but oh boy do they make a difference.

Paul is playing devil’s advocate by slightly sarcastically pseudo-quoting his Corinthian reader saying ‘hey, but I’m saved by grace, so I can do whatev, right? Who are you to tell me no?’

The examples Paul gives for this are cheating someone (v.7, 10), wrongdoing (9), sexual immorality and promiscuity (9, 18-20), stealing, getting drunk, and mocking (10). Because of these things church members were taking legal action against each other (1-6) and the terrible result was increasing division (vv.1-6, 7, 14-16).

Paul was speaking into a ludicrously messy situation where church members were dragging each other off to court, completely bypassing how they were supposed to treat each other as newly formed brothers and sisters in Christ.

On one side of the division there was a misapplication of grace and on the other side a misapplication of law. Paul was directly addressing the issues on the first side in the beginning of his pseudo-quote saying, ‘everything is permissible’. It might just as well read, ‘Hey, I can steal, get drunk, and mock people, right? Who are you to tell me no?’

The author of the post I mentioned above said ‘is watching Game of Thrones permissible? Yes! Is it helpful? That is for you to figure out’. Is that a legitimate way of using this passage? Well only as much as saying something like ‘is murder permissible? Yes! Is it helpful? That is for you to figure out’ A murderer isn’t barred from the Kingdom of God, but that doesn’t mean crack on.

What does ‘helpful’ really mean?

Using a devil’s advocate quote of Paul as a propositional way for us to measure our consumption choices is altogether the opposite of what Paul was trying to do.

Yes, it’s about grace, but it’s about holiness too. The word ‘helpful’ here (συμφέρει) is the same word used by Jesus in Matt. 5:29 when he tells us that it’s better (more helpful) to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands if they could possibly cause us to sin. It’s also the same word used in Matt. 18:6, when Jesus said it would be better (more helpful) for us to be drowned than cause a ‘little one’ to sin.

And there’s the point. What standard do we set for holiness, and what things will we sacrifice for it? Is it permissible? Sure – in the broadest possible way in that it won’t block the initial open gate to Heaven. But does it ultimately bring glory to God, unity to His church, and provide a consistent standard to His children? Could it eventually steal our salvation? Do our actions – including what we watch on TV – bring the waveforms of our hearts more in line with God’s, or do they clash? Do our habits resonate with or detract from the strength and clarity of our full-throated pursuit of worship? This is the truer reading of 1 Cor. 6.

“We need to teach grace as the overwhelming reality of their situation, and from that, call them to walk with us on a genuine journey of holiness.”

Our job as youth leaders is not to help young people feel comfortable – it’s to help them feel loved by God. Our job is also not to make the Christian life easy or palatable – our job is to make worshippers who run the race marked out before them right up until the end. We need to equip young people for the long haul. We need to teach grace as the overwhelming reality of their situation, and from that, call them to walk with us on a genuine journey of holiness.

There’s really a lot to being a youth worker. Do we take this seriously enough? Food for thought!