19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. 20 Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. 21 It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. 22 The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. 23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14)
Here we are, the third Sunday of January, and I wake up singing in my mind: "We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year." What is a happy new year? And what is happy? If you look up "happy" in the Bible, there is not a lot of happy to go around. Interestingly, there is more in old translations, like the King James, and more references in the Old Testament in the New. (In the newer ESV there are eight in the OT and zero in the NT). The passage above is the only reference in the NT in the New American Standard Bible. To be sure, we have other words like "blessed" which mean truly happy, and joy, which appears much more and is a much richer, deeper term. But not happy. But that's okay. As Paul is addressing the Romans about whether it is okay for them to eat meat and drink wine which was a part of pagan worship, the key issue is selfishness. When we live selfishly, there is not a whole lot of true happiness. NOtice that we are to be pursuing those things that make for unity and edification - focusing our lives on not what makes us happy, but others. Happiness happens for us when we know we have done all we can to please God and minister to others. So beware of thinking this happy new year is all about you. That's not happy.
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