Beer Trucks,Tow Trucks & an Unsaved Brother!

Well, I am definitly not scholarly but I can share my personal opinion. I agree with you completely on this subject. I personally could not work as a check out person (even at a grocery store) where I would have to sell alcohol to anyone. Again, that is just my personal opinion. I probably would have done exactly what you did, but I would also make it clear that it will not happen again and then I would stick to that decision, come what may.

I too am interested in what the intellectual, scholarly men on this board have to say about this from a scriptural view.

Edited to say I will pray for you and your brother.

 

Greg,
This to me is not a tired old debate about alcohol use which all of us have heard hundreds of times in the Baptist faith, arguing what the Bible says. I look at the situation more from the angle of the Holy Spirit living in you. You said you had prayed about this and felt fine about the situation, that the Holy Spirit in you had given you peace about the career change on condition that you did not solicit the alcohol part of the business or aid in it. That was the standard that you felt you were lead to set. Later on in the post, you said you violated your own convictions. I think Paul calls this searing the conscience. That is what is wrong about it to me, the standard you and the Holy Spirit set going by the wayside so soon.

On the plus side, maybe God will use you to bring your brother to Jesus.

There are many things in our lives that make us not what God would have us to be, and I get so tired of alcohol being put on a pesdistal for sinning.

I do not drink, do not see one positive thing about it, go to a church where the covenant is against it, and believe I should try to be an example and present my body as a living sacrifice. Those are my reasons for not drinking, not because of some long standing Baptist rule that says the Bible says dont drink.

One more thought. I do not think any of us are immune from our jobs being involved in some kind of evil. I am an electronics tech at the postal service. The imagination can only guess what is sent via the mail. Am I at peace with my job?
Yes, its a gift of God that has blessed my family.

 

Although I understand your sentiment, I'm not sure what I would have done. But one thought came running through my head as I read this.

What was the man doing in the account by Jesus when he was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road? We don't know. It could have been evil, or it could have been holy. Yet, the account Jesus gave showed that the good samirtain helped out someone in need. It might be a little different since it wasn't someone who worked for Budwiser, but rather the actual Budweiser van. That's what ran through my head.

By the way, I don't drink, and never really have. But I don't think the Bible prevents drinking of all forms. I tell you that only so you'll know where I'm coming from.

 

I'm wondering why you went into business with your brother if he is not a Christian.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what to righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people."

"Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord."
2 Corinthians 6:14-17a

I don't mean to cause extra problems here, but how can you have peace about which something the Lord appears to expressly forbid?

You knew what he was doing beforehand. It is his business that you have joined. It was not your business. You honestly have no right to tell him how to run it. He is not doing anything illegal, and that is the one standard you two share.

 

I don't know if being "unequally yoked" refers to business or this situation. When two oxen are yoked together, they go down the same path together. Business is not going down the same path spiritually, what I believe the text is referring to. Marriage, however, is. If unequally yoked pertains to business, any believer who has a secular job is in essence "yoked" to unbelievers in the business, as they share the same goals: making the business prosper to earn an income. This line of thinking would not allow friendships or even believers from playing team sports with unbelievers.

 

Without turning this into a drinking thread, what do you think Jesus would do considering He supplied wine (yes, it was alcoholic) for a wedding? I believe Jesus would have used this opportunity to be a witness to your brother who is not saved, and others who do hold to a worldly view of drinking (drunkeness).

 

Helen..........you never cease to amaze me! You can't work for your unsaved brother but you can drink his beer???
......and just to set this thread back on Christian standards...the Lord Jesus did not make or drink or have anything to do with alcohol!

 

I agree with Helen, that as a Christian, you must submit to those in authority over you. In this case, if you you believe to do so violates your convictions, then resign. Otherise, go get that beer truck.

 

I know from my own personal encounters with the Anheuser-Busch Company, the owners of the Budweiser brands, that it is one of the most evil and diabolical companies on the face of this planet, and I believe that everyone who in anyway willfully and deliberately participates in aiding that company is participating in sins unto death.

I believe that Romans 14:22-23 speaks to the issue of violating ones own Christian convictions, whether or not the convictions are really Scriptural, which is a separate issue.

Rom. 14:22. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.
23. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin. (NASB, 1995)

 

I can scarcely believe that I am reading such worthless tripe on a Christian message board! If it was unscriptural for this man to go to work for his apparently non-Christian brother, it is unscriptural for us to go to work for secular schools, colleges, and universities; city, state, and national governments; or any privately owned company that is not owned by Christians and operated as a Christian business!!!

 

I can scarcely believe that I am reading such worthless tripe on a Christian message board!
.................................................
I see you don't get on here much.

 

I believe that this is a very good message board and that most of that which is posted on it is of at least some value. But as we have seen in that which I quoted above—there are some extreme exceptions—and this exception is extreme beyond extreme because it very strongly suggests that the very large majority of the members of this message board are sinfully yoked to unbelievers and are, therefore, sinfully out of the will of God!

 

I believe that your heart is very much right with God and that as you pray and we pray for you, you will know what to do and that you will do it, whatever that may be. Those who love God and earnestly seek to be in His will for their lives will never find themselves very far from it.

 

You will find on this board that if you stick your neck out too far your head just might get cut off.

Someone will usually come to your defense though.

 

GPS,

Do not solicit the business, but tow their trucks, IMHO. If you want to have a good testimony before you brother do not identify an issue as a hill to die on, unless you are willing to do so.

I hate to open up a can of worms here, but the word wine in John 2 is oinos. The word translated "well drunk" in verse 10 is metheuw. Both of these words are used in John 2 AND in Eph 5:18 -- Be not drunk with wine... Same words both passages, but in John 2 it is grape juice and not alcoholic? Yeah, right.

BTW, good to be back.

Ray

 

Well, the Koran does prohibit consumption of alcoholic beverages made from grain...