Featured Should a pastor be permitted to have a beer once in while?

Was He a Jew?

Let's see the verses again from Luke 7

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

Clearly they saw Him eating and drinking. They would not accuse him of being a drunkard had He not actually partaken in wine.

He actually turned the culture but not the Law. He followed the law perfectly. He then went on to fulfill the law in His death and resurrection.

 

Don't you mean Dr. Kavorkian?

 

I'm going to go with what Jesus said - He ate and drank but was not a glutton or a drunkard. If Jesus were just drinking juice, how could they accuse Him of being a drunkard? They couldn't.

I'm sorry but the fruit of the vine is wine - alcohol and non. When we read the account of the wedding feast, there is no other conclusion we can come to except Jesus made alcoholic wine.

A putrefacation? I don't think so. Think of it more like refining.

 

Because of how they wanted to attack Him. They knew he drank wine so they accused Him of being a drunkard. They knew He ate as well - and accused Him of being a glutton.

But then let's look at the wedding feast - what difference would it make if someone brought out the "best" first and then later brought out the lesser quality stuff if it were juice? I think if I had a glass or two of yummy grape juice and then had a glass that was bad, I'd know it. However, with wine, you bring out the best in the beginning and when the people have "well drunk" as the Bible says, you sneak in the lesser quality and they can't tell the difference because their senses have been dulled. But Jesus made even better wine than what was served first - which only makes sense in this context if it were true wine.

 

I think that would be George Welch's??

 

The switch from wine to grape juice probably occurred sometime after Thomas Welch perfected the process of pasteurization to prevent the fermentation of grape juice.

Prior to that it was impossible to keep grape juice from fermenting. About the only way to preserve it was to boil it down to a thick jelly and can the jelly. Then reconstitute it by adding water before drinking. But even that would only last a few days before it was fermented (remember, no refrigeration in those days). If the weather was too hot it would ferment into vinegar (fast fermentation). If the weather was a bit cooler it would ferment into wine (slow fermentation).

This also applies to Jesus turning the water into wine at the marriage in Cana. It was the spring of the year when there were no fresh grapes. All the grape juice from the previous year's harvest had already fermented into either vinegar or wine.

The wine that Jesus made was the common drink at such a feast. Wine mixed with water at a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio in order to make the water safe to drink and to avoid drunkenness.

 

Because it was common practice to put out the best wine (mixed with water) first, then, later to use the wine (mixed with water) that was more sour due to it starting to turn to vinegar.

As they had used up all the wine, the early wine which was sweet, and the later wine, which was sour, the newly made wine tasted good, even better than the first wine served and stood in stark contrast to the later, sour, wine.