In 1972, Christian music legend Larry Norman recorded a song that resonated with many younger evangelicals, particularly hippies whom God saved out of the Jesus People Movement. One verse in particular frames the question:
There’s a good world that God has created here,
He’s given us everything
The devil has tried to steal it
I don’t know why the devil should have
anything, anything
Not your soul, not your life, not your marriage,
not your future, not your music
Indeed.
Growing up in church in the 1970s and ’80s, I heard as many sermons that featured Ozzy Osbourne as the devil as I ever heard about the real devil as the devil. We had seminars on playing rock n’ roll records backward, looking for demonic messages as if there weren’t acres of plainly worded devilishness planted in the music when played forward.
I heard preachers condemn sports fans for rooting too vigorously for the Georgia Bulldogs or the Atlanta Braves or other teams because “you wouldn’t act that way for Jesus.” If I acted in church the way I sometimes do at Sanford Stadium on a few Saturdays each fall, my fellow church members would surely question my sanity.
While it is abundantly true that we can love the things of this world — our favorite sports team, for example, and I’m looking at me here — too much, Scripture tells us that “every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord” (James 1:17). It says, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4–5). Later, Paul reminds Timothy that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17).
Elsewhere, Scripture warns about loving the things of this world too much. So, are the things of this world sinful, or are they good gifts from the hand of God? Which way is it?
There’s a Christian doctrine little spoken of, barely ever introduced within the walls of evangelical churches, that helps us here: the doctrine of common grace.
What Is Common Grace?
In his Reformed Systematic Theology, Joel Beeke defines common grace as: “The good gifts that God gives to both the righteous and the wicked, even to those who will never repent.” Beeke also calls it “common goodness.”
Common grace is seen most clearly in Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:45, “… For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Farmer Jones, who is a Christian, receives three inches of much-needed early summer rain on his crops, a gift from God. Farmer Smith, a non-Christian whose farm sits beside that of farmer Jones, receives the same rain on his crops, also a gift from the Lord’s hand. It is God’s way of showing love to all His creation. God gives every breath to the believer as well as the atheist. Both believers and unbelievers have jobs. That’s common grace. Psalm 145:9: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” Acts 17:25 says God gives life and breath to all things.
It’s important to distinguish between common grace (which every human being receives) and saving grace (which only followers of Christ receive). Common grace is also seen in God’s restraint of evil and His meticulous superintending of every aspect of His created order. But here’s a big difference: Common grace for the unredeemed is confined strictly in this life. There will be no mercy extended beyond the grave for those who reject Christ (Isa. 27:11).
How does that apply to work, popular culture, hobbies and all the good things God gives us to enjoy during our pilgrimage through this world? Given passages such as 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14, this may be different from every believer — things like personal taste, maturity level, denominational background, tenderness of conscience, and other factors — but I see it as an area of significant freedom for the Christian, a reality for which I’ve grown increasingly grateful.
Why Is It Important?
Practically, here’s what it means: When John Mellencamp, who is no fan of the true Christian faith, warbles about growing up in a small town or Lonely Ole Nights or a little ditty about two American kids growing up in the heartland, I can enjoy both the music and the sentimental truths about life under the sun expressed therein. After all, all truth is God’s truth. Mellencamp didn’t invent these things, and I absolutely loved growing up in Blairsville, Ga., a small town if ever there was one.
It means when I hear Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” guitar solo on the radio, I can marvel with a dropped jaw at the virtuoso he was with a six-string in his hands, and I can lament his passing.
It means when a country artist croons tearfully about the difficulty of saying goodbye to Momma or Daddy or Grandpa or Grandma, I, too, can shed a tear because I’ve walked that veil of tears. I really appreciate this country lyric: “The only thing that changes is nothing ever stays the same.” That’s Ecclesiastes. Or “Don’t blink, 100 years goes faster than you think.” That’s James 4.
It means when my family watches the “Christmas Vacation” movie every year during the holidays, we can laugh uproariously when Cousin Eddie empties his rattle trap motor home’s septic tank at the end of Clark Griswold’s driveway. I’m assuming a non-Christian wrote the script, but it’s brilliant. I’ve seen it at least 50 times, and the very thought of it seriously cracks me up. I am thankful for God’s gift of humor. We should take the things of God with blood-earnest seriousness, but we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously — we’re not all that. Humor is one of God’s choicest earthly gifts.
It means when a non-Christian chef makes Southern barbeque that’s so good it curls my toes at the taste, I can enjoy and give thanks to God for both the ’que and the culinary gift He’s endowed to the one who prepared it.
It means when I take Tylenol Extra Strength and my near-migraine vanishes within a few minutes, I can thank the Lord for the scientists, many of them presumably unbelievers, who developed modern medicine.
It means when Google maps on my iPhone gets me to my destination deep in the heart of Atlanta or Chicago without a hitch, I can breathe a prayer of adoration for the One who is behind the development of such technology.
It means that when a baseball player wallops a 100 mph fastball into the bleachers at Great American Ballpark or Truist Park or Yankee Stadium, or when a basketball player scores 50 points and pulls down 20 rebounds in a game, or when a Georgia Bulldog with a Muslim surname catches a touchdown pass with the clock running low that breaks Georgia Tech hearts (it happened a few years ago), I am free to be dazzled at what the Lord has done.
It Comes with a Warning Label
Of course, it almost goes without saying, yet we must say it: Scripture is replete with warnings for Christians to avoid falling prey to the world and worldliness. The caution labels of Romans12:1–2 and 1 John 2:15–17 are particularly vital. Creation is fallen, meaning many of the machinations of mankind are either an admixture of light and darkness or are calibrated to support only darkness. Fallen man misuses the good gifts God gives him.
Many of the recording artists, actors, producers and screenplay writers — like the scientists — hold to worldviews that are contrary to biblical Christianity. If the movies are immoral or the music lyrics vile or the medicine damaging or addictive, we need to be very cautious and discerning about what we allow into our hearts and minds. Evangelicals often get that right, at least in theory.
But still, we may enjoy the gifts God has given them and they may even push us to more deeply worship Him. How?
The Sign and the Thing Signified
God distributes good gifts to both believers and unbelievers for one particular purpose: to glorify Himself. In other words, those good gifts merely contain pointer glory: the good things of creation point to the greatness of the Creator.
Thus, the things we enjoy in the culture, be it technology or modern medicine or good comedy (I’m convinced laughter is an important and delightful gift from God, but that’s for a future column) or amazing steak or a touchdown pass that’s a walk-off winner, all should lead us to give thanks and worship the One behind it all.
To worship the thing itself and not the God behind the thing would be like taking a trip to Disney World, reaching a massive sign 50 miles from DW advertising the mouse and Cinderella’s castle in all their bank account-bending glory, stopping the car and unpacking the family beside the sign, announcing joyously, “Family, we’re here.”
We’d never do that, and we must never forsake the glorious thing signified and give our hearts merely to the sign.
Larry Norman asked the question, and common grace answers it well. Those who have Jesus are free to enjoy the good things God has embedded in His good creation.
— JEFF ROBINSON is editor and president of The Baptist Courier. He also serves as an adjunct professor of church history at North Greenville University.