So I was watching Gilmore Girls last night and this scene comes up that has me thinking. If you don’t watch Mrs Kim is the religious fanatic of the show, no secular music, no dancing or prom for her daughter, no unhealthy food, no fun and everyone is going to hell, very strict woman. So, in this episode her daughter is having a hard time so she demands she follow her as she closes all of the blinds and curtains and pushes a wardrobe in front of a window that doesn’t have blinds.

She then proceeded to pull a bottle of some very strong drink from her cabinet, in an attempt to help her daughter though her hard time. All I could say was “Mrs Kim’s Got Booze.” I was shocked because this is such a strange thing for her character, don’t get me wrong I don’t believe responsible consumption of alcohol is a sin but it was very outside of her nature.

But she closed the windows, she was hiding, was this because she felt guilty or because others would look down on her? If it was out of guilt then she shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place, but how about the second possible reason?

The other night I was out with the guys and I met up with one a little early so we could talk, we were at a place that is a bar/coffee shop, I asked him if he had any personal convictions about alcohol and he said no so I got by drink. If he would have said yes, then I would have had coffee. I don’t feel guilty about it because I was simply deferring to his conscious, I would not want to offend my brother if he had a weakness or conviction in an area. Similarly I don’t watch things with half naked women because I have a conviction about that and I would hope that someone would respect my conviction when choosing a movie for a night out.

This comes from an understanding of personal and general sin, what may be acceptable to one person may be a sin for someone else. There are sins that are clear from scripture to be a sin for all but other things aren’t so clear, and so as scary as it is we must allow people to hear God for themselves but I would advise in all cased to err on the side of caution.