Um, if the wine John had to abstain from was alcoholic, why wasn't the wine at Cana alcoholic?
In the meantime, why are good feelings enough for a drink of wine? They are enough for beautiful art, lovely music, and all sorts of non-essentials. We even prefer the foods that 'feel good' to us. We don't wear hair shirts because it doesn't feel good. In other words, we run our lives a great deal around what feels good.
Now, it is possible that you will say that a Christian should not do this. And I would reply that feeling good is not a sin, despite the Puritans. It really is OK to wear pleasant clothes, to enjoy fine art, to listen to lovely music. And it is OK to drink a glass of wine simply because you want to and it makes you relaxed and feel good.
Bob, you said that "People like yourself take where they think it says a little wine to its ok to have a few drinks to next thing that come naturally is getting drunk."
Well, I guess I am not doing what comes naturally. I'm 58 and 1/2 years old now and I have drunk wine occasionally for many, many years and I have yet (since my rather stupid time in college) to get drunk. Not only that, I think most of my friends and acquaintances are not natural either!
I used to work at Mira Loma Hospital in Lancaster, California. It was, then, (I don't know about now), a long-term hospital which housed mostly alcoholics. I saw what alcoholism means. I saw people die from it. I have a remarkable oil painting done by one of the patients a week before his liver did him in. To me, then and now, it is this which is not natural -- this craving for alcohol.
I'm afraid I do liken it to the craving for food I see in very fat people. Both are killers. But that doesn't mean food is evil.
I liken it, as well, to the craving for sex we see in some abusers. This is also deadly -- often for the victim. But that doesn't mean sex is evil. And I think you will note there are probably just as many warnings about sex in the wrong time and place in the Bible as there are about wine and other strong drinks.
And I see a LOT more damage being done by both food and sex in our culture than I do by wine. I see enormous damage being done by drugs (sorcery in the Bible), and I daresay there are those even here on BB who struggle with the control drugs can have over you, whether they be legal or illegal.
So WHY are you folks fixated on wine?
When my grandfather was a young man in the "Old West" (I have a photo of him crossing part of Montana on a mail stage. He saw the first car roll across the plains.), it was considered common sense to carry a flask of whiskey with you in the winter to prevent frostbite if you were stranded for a time or out too long. Alcohol relaxes the blood vessels and when your body is quite cold, the blood will get shunted by your system into the interior parts to keep the vitals going as long as possible. But short term exposure can still lead to painful frostbite. Alcohol prevented that by relaxing the blood vessels and allowing the hands and feet to warm up with the blood supply. Of course, if you were out too long, this could lower your entire body temperature dangerously, but most of the time the exposure was due to short term conditions such as being out getting in the animals, too long a journey on the stage, etc. These people knew that alcohol would keep them from losing a toe or a whole foot.
Not a bad thing.
I never saw my grandfather even high. I never heard of him ever being drunk. He had a lot of common sense and stayed alive through some very rough times.
So please, you folks, go fixate on something else which is doing far more harm to people. Are you afraid to talk about the damage sex outside of marriage does? The Bible isn't. Why not start a discussion on the joy of marriage, as a way of building up the body here and as an example to the evident thousands of readers who visit here?
Is this fixation on alcohol a different type of alcoholism?
