Theology and Essential Oils: Rethinking the Secular and the Sacred

Part of what it means to have a biblical worldview is to examine every topic through the lens of God's Word. Since we believe that the Bible is the Word of God it is therefore the standard by which we go about judging all truth claims. This means that we must constantly be asking ourselves everyday how the various truth claims that we engage on a daily basis line up with what the Word of God says.  This concept is grating sometimes though.  We live in a world that likes to separate, distinctly label, and categorize every activity, thought, and idea into distinctly specific different spaces with no room for overlap between them. There is family, there is work, there is church, there is play, and they are ALL separate. And we are taught that in order to have true balance in our lives we have to have the correct combination of all of these categories. But while we need all of them, it is also important that we keep them separate and distinct from one another. In this way of thinking, the Bible is relegated to church, and MAYBE family. The problem of course is that while this thinking may be consistent with the narrative that is constantly pushed on us by the culture, it is exceedingly inconsistent with a Biblically consistent Christian worldview. For Christians God is a part of every aspect of our lives, indeed He should be the center piece of all that we do. And since He is the center piece of all that we do, His Word ought to govern our thought in every aspect of life. There is no distinction between that which is secular and that which is sacred in the Christian worldview. God is at the center of all of it. We strive to worship Him in all that we do.  We may distinguish the way that we go about worshiping Him in different contexts such as for example, corporate worship, verses family worship, verses worshiping in the context of work, verses worshiping Him through intimacy with our spouse. Clearly not all of these elements of worship share propriety in all settings, BUT none the less, for Christians they are all worship.

So, what does all of this have to do with Young Living and Essential Oils? Three things. First, our thinking regarding Young Living and Essential Oils needs to be governed according to Scripture. As part of our walk with God as Christian we must have a worldview that is deeply rooted in and informed understanding of the Word of God.  This is accomplished by fully immersing ourselves in the study of God's word, in reading good books by good authors (R.C. Sproul, Voddie Baucham, John Piper etc.) that teach us truth about God's word, and surrounding ourselves with fellow brothers and sisters that have the same passion for God's Word that we have. One of the functions of this kind of worldview is to determine truth according to the Word of God. In other words, as we grow in our understanding of God's Word begin to learn how to think FIRST according to what God's Word says, and then evaluate other materials. In the case of essential oils this thinking would include a discussion of God's created order, the purpose for which God created plants, the impact of the Fall in Genesis 3 on creation, and a general biblical understanding of what human wellness looks like.  

 Second, we need to evaluate claims made regarding Young Living and Essential Oils against the Word of God.  There are lots of materials published about Young Living Essential Oils. Some are published by Young Living (Product guides and advertising materials), some are published outside of the company (Healing Oils of the Bible, and Chemistry of Essential Oils by David Stewart), and some are published by distributors (Blogs such as this, and ebooks that can be found all across the web). These resources contain a wealth of excellent information regarding the history, chemistry, and use of essential oils. The problem is that there also can be a dangerous mixture of truth AND error in these resources.  As the saying goes, error mixed with a little bit of truth is the most dangerous kind.  Specifically, the New Age Movement is very heavily involved in the Essential Oils industry in general, and in Young Living specifically.  This doesn't mean that we can't use and promote Young Living, but it does mean we need to be vigilant about the way that we go about reading, and repeating this material. We need to evaluate this material against the Biblical worldview that was discussed above. Is it consistent with what the Bible says about God? Is it consistent with what the Bible says about man? Is it consistent with What the Bible says about Creation? Is it consistent with what the Bible says about the Gospel? To clarify I'm not saying we need to walk on egg shells, or spend hours weighing every word whenever we write something about Young Living. I'm simply saying that we need to be thoughtful as we read and repeat the material that is out there. Specifically, we need to evaluate the claims made against the Word of God before we receive or repeat them.    

Third, building our business should not be an end in itself, its should be a means to the end of brining Glory to God. This one is actually the most important of the three. We all have a lot of "why's" for building our business. Knowing why we do what we do is an incredibly important element of building a business. There can be any number of reasons that we are building our own business, but for Christians the ultimate "why" is always the Glory of God. Making sure that the Glory of God is our first and most important why will change the entire way that we go about building our business on a number of levels. For the purpose of this blog, prioritizing the Glory of God means striving to please Him in every element of the way we go about building our business, and NOT compromising our faith, EVEN when our faith gets in the way of our business. It's important to remember that God is the ultimate provider of all good things. (James 1:17) God will use your hard work to bring about your success, but ultimately your success does not depend solely on you. It depends primarily on Him. It is incredibly freeing to know that you work for the Glory of God when you realize that the results are ultimately in His hands. 

Finally, why do I keep beating this drum? Since I started writing blogs on this topic some have accused me of being nit picky, divisive, and annoying. I actually can appreciate where these people are coming from. I mean aren't there enough issues to worry about with adding this whole other layer? But the reality is that I'm not addressing new issues here. Accusations have been persistently raised against Young Living and Christians who participate in Young Living regarding the New Age Movement. At this point I have spent HOURS defending the legitimacy of Christians participating in the Young Living both in public forums as well as private conversations. I fully believe that Christians can participate in Young Living with a clear conscience regardless of some the New Age Theology that is out there within Young Living.  However, if Christians are going to participate then we have a responsibility that comes along with our participation. That responsibility is to see that the Gospel and the Glory of God does not get draged through the mud as a result of our participation. We need to be aware of the dangers, we need to point out the dangers, and we need to be able to differentiate truth from error. We have the responsibility to make the distinction between our approval of using Young Living Oils and our disapproval of New Age Theology. We have the responsibility to see to it that the Glory of God remains supreme in all things, including our Young Living business, even when this means a little extra work and vigilance on our part.

Soli Deo Gloria