Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks.

Where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Tanya Wilmoth. If you and I were to have a debate here in

2022 about the health risk of cigarettes I doubt we'd have much disagreement.

We've all seen maybe even personally what nicotine does to the body, right?

But this wasn't always the case.

Let's just flash back a few decades where cigarettes were a regular part of

sitcoms and restaurants and living rooms and your grandmother's astray collection revealed all the places she visited on

her road trips.

And then we got wiser.

It started in 1965 when a public health law was passed that required cigarette cartons to carry the phrase,

cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.

And then in 1967 they added, and may cause death.

But a 1981 survey revealed that the messaging had little impact on people's choices.

So they had a stronger language.

Smoking causes lung cancer.

Smoking can cause birth defects. Still we had to see it to believe it.

Anyone raised in the 80s and 90s has a visual of that nicotine infected lung stamped in your

memory. We went to school and heard the talk about saying no to cigarettes and

alcohol and then we all went home and told our parents they had to quit smoking

right away because they were going to die and they were also killing us with their

second-hand smoke while we rode around in the station wagon.

...