Free to Amusements and too Free to want Them.
I. I discover two points, included in the advice Paul gives, neither of which stands out on the face of his words, but they need only be named to be distinctly seen. The first is that, down on the low plane of mere ethical observance, he does not think it incumbent on him as a teacher of the gospel to enforce any puritanically close terms of restrictive morality. It is not for him to legislate over such questions. In this field the disciples must have their own liberty, and be responsible for their own judgments and the right understanding of their own liabilities. So far the world's law is also theirs, and he will not undertake at all to settle the casuistries occurring under it. And to set them on a yet manlier footing of liberty, he shoves restriction still farther away by telling them, when they accept such an invitation, to go with a free mind, hampered by no foolish scruples that will make them an annoyance both to the host and the company. So far, then, he sets them free free, that is, in the exercise of their own responsible judgment, clear of any mere scruples not intelligent. But we have scarcely noted the position given them under this liberty, when we begin to see that he is thinking of a second higher kind of liberty for them, which in his own view makes the other quite insignificant. Thus he drops in, as it were in undertone, at the middle of his sentence this very brief but very significant clause, "and ye be disposed to go," putting, I conceive, a partly sad cadence in his words, as if saying inwardly, I trust not many will be so disposed; for the dear love of God, in the glorious liberty of our discipleship, ought to be a liberty too full and sweet and positive and blessed to allow any such hankering after questionable pleasures and light-minded gaieties.
II. The question of amusements appears to be very nearly settled by the tenor of the distinctively Christian life itself. The Christian, in so far as he is a Christian, is not down upon the footing of a mere ethical practice, asking what he may do and what he is restricted from doing under the legal sanctions of morality. That kind of morality has very much gone by, but of his mere liberty in love he will do more and better things than all codes of ethics and moral law commandments require of him. He is so united to God himself, through Christ and the Spirit, that he has all duty in him by a free inspiration. It is not the question whether we are bound thus and thus, in terms of morality, and so obliged to abstain, but whether, as our new and nobler life implies, we are not required, in full fidelity, to pay it honour, and keep its nobler tastes unmarred by descending to that which they have so far left behind them.
H. Bushnell, Sermons on Living Subjects,p. 374.
References: 1 Corinthians 10:27; 1 Corinthians 10:28. Homilist,1st series, vol. v., p. 391. 1 Corinthians 10:29. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 266.