When the Dangers Outweigh the Benefits

We get excited when something new comes along that improves life—and we have just such a resource! It makes pots and pans last longer. It reduces the threat of bacteria in winemaking. It resists corrosion, so it is ideal for plumbing. It even makes for brighter cosmetics.

So why haven’t we seen infomercials touting this wonder metal? Because it’s lead.

For thousands of years, we have embraced lead as the answer for better cosmetics, pots and pans, and the pipes under your house. In fact, the Latin word for lead is plumbum, which is where we get our word “plumbing.”

Of course, we know of the dangerous side of lead, and we avoid it like an episode of The Bachelorette. But that hasn’t always been the case. As long as we’ve been using lead, we’ve known lead was not necessarily good for us. Lead has been long associated with insanity. For example, Vincent van Gogh is known for both his art and the mental health issues that lead him to whack off his own ear. Considering that lead was an element in paint for centuries and van Gogh had the habit of licking the tip of his paint brush, it’s easy to see the connection between the use of lead and the loss of an ear.

Yet we continued to use lead with enthusiasm. In the early 20^th century, America was the top miner and user of lead. It didn’t seem to matter that the people who worked in lead-smelting plants couldn’t work for more than a few weeks before getting sick. Hallucinations were common and some died. We had a voracious appetite for lead in both cosmetics and industry, so business leaders turned a blind eye to the problem.

But one woman would not look the other way. In the early 20^th century, Alice Hamilton was unique, not because she was a female physician, but because she was the first American physician to pursue changing the health and safety standards of the American worker. And lead was her nemesis.

Alice Hamilton’s fight against lead only increased when, in 1921, lead gasoline was put on the market. She argued that constant exposure to lead gasoline was just as dangerous as lead poisoning. It took fifty years for the rest of us to embrace Dr. Hamilton’s warning and start using unleaded gas.

Thank you, Alice, for the constant reminder that the dangers outweighed the benefits.

What is it about our human nature that we grab on to things that are not good for us, yet despite that knowledge, we grab them anyway? I’m no longer talking about lead products. I could talk about the bad habits we continue to indulge in (like the bag of chips I’m eating as I write), but let me take this to the next level and mention the sins we indulge in.

Why do we continue in these? We continue in both sins and bad habits because of some sense of pleasure we receive from them. Americans ignored the dangers of lead because of the benefits, and there are “benefits” in sin. If not, we’d avoid sin. Our fallen human nature is enslaved to the temporary self-centered pleasure inherent in sin even when it’s detrimental to our spiritual health.

Saying no to these things is not enough. We need something better to say yes to. We find that “yes” in Christ. The wholeness—the joy, contentment, and completeness—we find in Christ is far greater than any temporary pleasures or benefits we look for in sin. And with Christ, there are no harmful side effects!

“Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12).

“In him we have boldness and confident access through faith in him” (Eph. 3:12).

“His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire” (2 Pet. 1:3-4).

There are countless benefits to embracing life in Christ, but Matthew 6:33 sums it up so well: