Let’s just get the elephant in the room out of the way: cigars aren’t healthy. Nobody is lighting one up thinking it’s kale in disguise. It’s tobacco, it carries risks, and pretending otherwise is just dishonest. But once we acknowledge that, the real question becomes: does that automatically make it sinful? That’s where things get a little more complicated, and honestly, worth slowing down and thinking through.
For a lot of believers, cigars get lumped into the same category as things that alter your mind and push you out of control—drugs, drunkenness, or anything that leads you into reckless behavior. But that’s not what a cigar does. A cigar doesn’t get you high, it doesn’t intoxicate you, and it doesn’t make you someone you’re not. If anything, it forces you to do the opposite. You slow down. You breathe. You sit still for a moment. You create space to listen—to your own thoughts, to God, or to the friend sitting across from you.
That’s been my reality. A cigar doesn’t change my behavior; it helps me manage it. It calms my emotions. It gives me a moment of peace that’s hard to find in the chaos of life. And honestly, some of my most genuine, Christ-centered conversations have happened over a cigar. Connection matters, and connection takes time. A cigar creates that time.
Now, the big verse everyone likes to throw around is the whole “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” passage. Fair enough—our bodies do matter to God. But if we’re going to use that verse as a blanket rule to condemn cigar smoking, then we have to apply it the same way across the board. That means the same Christians arguing that cigars “destroy the temple” need to look at their diet, their stress levels, their sleep habits, and everything else that affects the body. Most won’t, because deep down we all know that verse wasn’t written to ban specific behaviors—it was written to remind us who we belong to and how we should treat our lives as set apart. Context matters. And ripping a verse from its context to win an argument has never been a good look.
Cigars might not be socially accepted in a lot of Christian circles, but social acceptance has never been the measuring stick for righteousness. Something can be culturally frowned upon without being sinful. And something can also be culturally accepted without being healthy or wise. The point is simple: cigars aren’t a shortcut to holiness, but they’re not a shortcut to hell either.
At the end of the day, Christians should be honest, thoughtful, and intentional about the choices they make. For some believers, cigars may not be the right fit—and that’s fine. For others, they might be a tool for reflection, community, and peace. There’s room for both.
If you enjoy a cigar, enjoy it with self-control, gratitude, and awareness. If you don’t, no problem. But let’s stop pretending the Bible makes this a black-and-white issue. Faith is deeper than that, and so is life.