The Bible and Alcoholics Anonymous on this edition of Truth in Love.

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth in Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,

where we seek to provide biblical solutions

to the problems that people face.

Addiction is a common problem. In fact, for me, it's been more than a common problem. My mother,

who died several years ago, battled alcohol addiction for most of her life. She was enslaved to alcohol for over 20 years.

And so as a little boy on up into my teens, I have been to dozens and dozens and dozens of meetings

of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I am thankful for all the good things that AA brought into my mom's life

to cause her ultimately to stop drinking.

But it raises the question, what is a biblical response to addiction and what is a biblical

understanding of AA?

And to help us address this very important issue, I've invited to the podcast

this week, Mark Shaw. Mark is the executive director of Vision of Hope and a pastor at Faith Church

in Lafayette, Indiana. He's also an ACBC certified counselor and is the author of The Heart of Addiction.

Mark, we're glad you're with us. And as we think

through this issue of addiction and AA, the word addiction is really not a word that we find in

the scriptures. How should Christians think biblically about that idea? Well, I think words are very important. And they're like signposts. They point us in a

direction. And I think about 1st Corinthians 2.13 that says, we impart this in words not taught

by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

So with biblical language,

like words like addiction, and I use that in my book title and words like relapse,

alcoholism is another one of those words. I use those words sometimes to help people know what

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