Is Drinking Alcohol a Sin?

If you avoid alcohol for such a reason where do you draw the line?

Some believers may stumble over televison, dancing, women wearing pants, and alot of other disputed activities. Our list would soon rival the Pharasees. That said we should not flaunt our freedom. Do not exercise those things around people you know do not have the same understanding as you do. We would return to bondage if we constantly had to worry about offending someone in the crowd. Remember that God knows our heart. Pleasing Him is the important thing.

 

2000 years ago there was no way to preserve grape juice as Welch's does, so there was not way in the world that the fruit of the vine Jesus served in the cup at Passover was unfermented. The harvest is in the fall, and passover is in the spring.

Jesus Himself referred to His own consumption of fermented wine.

Matthew 11:18-19:

A winebibber was a drunkard. So Jesus said that they accused John because he didn't eat meat or drink alcohol (presumably because he was a Nazarite) while they accused Him of gluttony and drunkardness because He did eat meat and drink alcohol-containing wine. He was pointing out their hypocricy, trying to have it both ways, but the passage makes no sense if they hadn't seen Jesus drinking wine.

Again, there was no way of keeping grape juice from fermenting. There was a whole culture around vineyards and wine in that day, as there has always been in countries around the Mediteranean. Jesus lived in that culture. And the comments at the marriage at Cana make no sense unless the wine contained alcohol. People don't compare and comment on the quality of sweet juice.

Those who insist that something is a sin where there is no scripture calling it sin are adding something that isn't there. Being a drunkard is condemned. Just as being a glutton is sinful, but eating is not.

If you wish to, you could insist that somehow Jesus miraculously preserved grape juice until the spring to use at the last supper, but such a miracle would have been noted in scripture I think. Without a miracle, how would the juice have been preserved for at least 5 months without fermenting? No refrigeration, no chemical preservatives, no canning process. How could it have been done?

My .02 cents from a Biblical perspective.

 

tim,

It has been proven through historical documents time and again that the abiliity to make non-alcoholic wine was known and practiced in Bible times, and even before Christ walked the earth.

Well aged does not mean alcoholic.

 

I would love to see a document talking about well aged juice that wasn't refering to wine.

 

bubba,

Go back and study

 

Alcohol in and of itself is a-moral. It is what one does with the alcohol that makes the difference.

A lot of medicines wouldn't exist without alcohol. It makes a great body rub when one receives a bruising injury. A little wine for one's stomach seems to be a good thing,,maybe that is rubbed on externally...wake up Paul........

I happen to think it may be injurious to my witness to be seen consuming alcoholic beverages.

On the other hand, as an army chaplain, some believed it set the soldiers at ease when the padre sat down and had a beer with them. It didn't seem to do any harm in that context

We make to much of a big deal out of the beverage itself. Let's concentrate more on spreading the good news and let the social graces work themselves out.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Question...

Would Jesus encourage anyone to sin?

Since the answer is obviously no, Jesus would have been going against His own nature to provide an intoxicatng beverage to a crowd that had already 'well drunk'. Notice in John 2 John did not say there were well drunk, but that had already well drunk. Big difference.

These men were not drunk. The wine served at the wedding feast was not alcoholic. To imply Christ served alcohol is contrary to His divine nature.

 

Why do you assume I have not diligently studied the scriptures? I prefer to engage in thoughtful discussion rather than be confronted with flip comments, but I guess I can only control my part of the conversation. Do you have a comment on what I said, or just a personal comment directed at me? If you have scripture to refute what I said, I'd love to hear it. I'd also like to hear what the preservation methods were for preserving grape juice in ancient times. But really, it is scripture that carries weight. I can insist all day long that I'm right, and I can proclaim anything I want to be a sin, but what does God have to say about it?

 

Amen Brother Jim.

 

This method of preserving grape juice must have been in use long before the time of Pliny and Columella, because Cato (234-149 B.C.) mentions it two centuries before them: "If you wish to keep grape juice through the whole year, put the grape juice in an amphora, seal the stopper with pitch, and sink in the pond. Take it out after thirty days; it will remain sweet the whole year."

78. Marcus Cato, On Agriculture 120, 1.

Scripture to refute the ridiculous notion that alcoholic wine is ok for a Child of God to drink?

Try Proverbs 20:1; 23:29-35 Try Genesis 9 and the curse it brought upon Noah's son; Try Genesis 19 and the shame it brought Lot... for starters.

 

One could find "news stories" supporting anything one wants to support.
FWIW, I have found "news stories" that say that although there does seem to be some health benefit in RED wine; there is BETTER benefit in fresh vegetables for the same ailments. As for the red grape used in red wine; it is the grape itself and its seed where the benefit is found, NOT in the fermentation of same.

Go figure huh?

 

Looks like somebody agrees with you Jim. :smilewinkgrin:

New N.Y. law changes drunk driving rules

"Lawmakers approved a bill that sets the standard for driving while intoxicated at 0.18 grams of alcohol in a person's blood.
But a person's body can produce that much alcohol naturally, according to Rochester DWI lawyer Ed Fiandach."

Rob

 

God help us all to live a life that would not defile the temple of God and would be a Glory and Honor to Him is my prayer.

0.19 grams

Haggard?

 

Amen, Brother Bob.

I do not drink alcohol so as not to put a stumbling block in the way of my brother, and to live an example before my children that they can live a happy, healthy, Godly life without it. I believe my decision in this regard honors God, and safeguards me from self-deceptive error regarding my use of a potentially dangerous drug. In other words, I just don't go there, erring on the side of caution.

I only object to calling something a sin when scripture does not call it sin. I don't do many things that others can righteously do, but I don't call those things sin just because I don't do them.

 

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words.

 

Jas 4:17
Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.

According to your own words it is good that you do not drink in order to;
a. Do not put a stumbling block in front of your brother
b. Live by example before you children that they can live a godly life without it
c. Honor God
d. Protect yourself from being deceived by a potentially dangerous drug.

Yet you say you will not call drinking alcoholic beverages a sin but by your own criteria, it IS sin.

And this, I think, is what we have been saying all along. They who will not call it sin are in error, simply because of these very things which you have so simply stated. Based on the whole counsel of God, drinking booze, for a christian, is sin.

 

I would argue against such things as Nyquil because the US is the largest consumer of those kinds of things. Those in other countries see our country as stupid for being able to get such things so easily. Perhaps some know that medications in this country are often not used which have been found to be of great benefit because of the lack of return on the company's money. We live in a consumer driven economy. Dollars get people's attention not ethics.