What Does the Bible Mean

What Does the Bible Mean When It Says Not to Love the World?
By Carey Kinsolving

"It means to love God more than your puppies," says Tori, 7.

"It means you're not supposed to love money or toys," says Tyler, 10. "Instead, God wants you to love him. He doesn't mean that you can never go out and play. It just means not to play all the time."

I don't know where people get the idea that God is against play. If you were the only human on Earth, you would know from watching animals that whoever created them intended for his creatures to play.

Puppies, kittens and even lion cubs all testify to the joy God must experience from seeing his creatures engage in healthy play. Just because some people can't imagine a spiritual Christian as anything but a killjoy doesn't mean joyful saints don't exist. Jesus himself challenged religious stereotypes by eating and drinking with sinners. By the way, he drank wine.

According to the way some Christians define "worldliness," Jesus wouldn't make the cut. He not only drank wine; he made gallons of it at a wedding feast. Am I trying to get you to drink wine? No.

If you're an alcoholic or you have a history of alcohol abuse, don't even sniff a cork. Alcohol abuse continues to destroy many lives and families. But don't define loving the world by something so superficial as having a glass of wine. It's much deeper than that.