Why does Paul tell us to "be careful" in the exercise of our freedom (1 Cor. 8:9)? He knows something about men. Liberty easily devolves into a swaggering license to sin. And thus, we must be careful with liberty. Our practice of freedom must be regulated by inward self-control, guided by love for God and our neighbor - something that most men have far too little of.
While lead was flying at the Battle of Springfield, British parliamentarian Edmund Burke made an astute observation about men and freedom:
Men qualify for freedom in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power is put somewhere on will and appetite, and the less of it there is within, the more of it there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their [chains].God looks on the heart - within us where all freewheeling sin originates. Burke observed that free men are free because an internal "controlling power" has placed "moral chains" deep within a man. Thus, freedom, ironically, comes from submission to moral boundaries. Put simply, self-control brings freedom. Correspondingly, passion, or the absence of moral restraint on one's desires, enslaves a man.
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