Side Bars – R.L. Dabney on Secular Conservatives – Rethinking Public Schools – The Bible and Private Property – The Bible and Possession Laws – Deuteronomy 4:5-9 – Lord Acton Quote – The Bible and Gambling – Closing Exhortation – Our Obligations – The Purpose of Civil Government

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The Bible and Possession Laws
Sometimes biblical law does mandate that the possession of certain property is wrong (an ox that has gored a man, for instance, in Exodus 21:28). But it is the usual biblical pattern to punish how a thing is used, not its mere possession. Gnosticism wrongly taught that certain created substances were in themselves evil. But marijuana, for example, is a plant created by God, who pronounced that all His creation was good. In marijuana’s case, good for rope, and not for smoking!

In our day, possession laws are an attempt to prevent crime by drawing the limits on freedom tighter than the Bible would draw them. The temperance laws in the first part of this century are an example of this. They sought to make illegal a substance which many think God had clearly given His approval to - wine. In going beyond God’s Word, these well-intentioned laws created havoc, and the emergence of a strengthened underworld that profited from bootlegging. Now, while drunkenness is strongly denounced in God’s Word (Prov. 20:1; 23:29-35; Eph. 5:18, etc.), wine is positively commended (Deut. 14:26; Psalm 104:15; John 2:10 etc.). Marijuana receives no such commendation in the Bible! Still, it would seem that laws against being publicly intoxicated through the use of alcohol or drugs are more biblical than possession laws.

This voters' guide produced by Parents Education Association, PAC.