Apologetics

The Truth in Love

by Jeff Drinnan
09/16/21
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'"Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful". -Proverbs 27: 5,6

At Music Fest 2021 in Bensalem, PA on September 11, a benefit event to help fight addiction, one of the speakers, a public official, told the audience that people addicted to drugs are not bad but are just sick and need help getting well. Wrong!

One of the speakers at the event, Valarie Todd, said in her testimony that she was "a scumbag, a maniplulator" etc. She admitted she did bad things. "I deserved to go to hell", she exclaimed, and that she was able to get clean and live righteously by the grace of God by accepting him as Lord and Savior.

You don't help people conquer drug addiction when you moddycoddle them by telling them that the problem is not sin and they don't have to take responsibility for their actions.

Although some of their views contradict faith-based recovery ministrys, it's good that local authorities have a plan in place to help people with their drug addiction. People who choose to do drugs need medical help. Methadone, used properly, may help get people enslaved by drugs get well. When I worked part time at a methadone clinic years ago, I learned that methadone treatment works if the dosage is gradually reduced over the coarse of a year so clients can get weaned off of drugs in a year. It takes longer to get addicted to methadone than to heroin but once addicted, withdraw from methadone is worse than that from heroin.

Part of my job at the clinic was to observe guys give urine samples to make sure they weren't using drugs on the side. On one occasion I caught a guy. He handed me a bottle of urine that was cold and white right after he gave me the sample. I reported it. Next time I saw him he said "I thought we were friends, Jeff." I told him "we are", and added that he was there to get treatment for his addiction and I wouldn't be helping him by not reporting him. He got over it and we stayed friends, as I was with the other clients. I had a good rapport with the clients.

Maybe because the clinic saw the rapport I had with the clients, one of the counselors met with me next door to groom me for a job as counselor at the center. He talked with me and showed me brochures. I was turned off by the message that you shouldn't blame users for their problem. The brochure dismissed the idea of sin and mocked pastors for preaching against sin.

Christians have been reaching out to help people conquer their voluntary slavery to addiction. We need to speak the truth in love. At faith-based meetings I've attended and have taken people struggling with addiction to, the leaders have stressed learning the right doctrine, Biblical truths.

Discernment is intregal to the Christian faith. Finding a church and Christian meetings that show fidelity to scripture is paramount to overcome sin. To borrow a line from an old Motown song, "You better shop around." Oh yea...