Helen said:
I am a born again Spirit-filled Christian and married to a wonderful Christian man.
He does not drink. I like an occasional glass of wine.
Why?
1. Because I was raised in that environment (and no, neither of my parents was a drunk!)
If you were raised in an environment where your parents smoked cigarettes would that influence you to be a smoker? Would that make smoking anymore permissible? Our culture we were raised in does not define us. I have counseled many teens to rise above their raising.
Helen said:
2. Because I like the taste of a smooth, dry wine.
Perhaps the most irrelevant point of all. As disciples of Christ we are to put aside petty personal preferences and serve out of obedience. Helen, I like to sit around the house with my family back in Hattiesburg MS where I grew up, but the Lord has called me to be far away from my family in his service. If I as a pastor did what I liked all the time my life would be a real mess and so would my church.
Helen said:
3. Because we have friends who also enjoy an occasional glass of wine and when they are over I don't want to make them feel awkward. None of us has ever even been high -- at least not in the last forty or so years!
Yeah, well get some new friends. If you are not living the way you should because of peer pressure then get rid of the dead weight. What kind of friends do you have who cannot realistically understand as a minister of the gospel that you may abstain? You and your husband are ministers giving in to peer pressure? UNREAL!
Do not tell me that you have been drinking and never been high! You are in no position to judge for yourself if you are high or not. A frog does not know that it is boiling to death if you raise the temperature at the rate of a degree every minute. Alcohol creeps up on you and by the time it has you it is too late. You have probably noticed the effects to some degree. If you feel any effects at all you are under the influence and you cannot drink alcohol and not feel at least some effect.
Helen said:
4. Because wine is a much safer relaxant for me than any medication.
Why does a minister of the gospel or a born again believer need a relaxant? Has not Christ promised to supply us with all our needs? Does not Christ give us the peace that surpasses all understanding? Did Christ not say do not worry or fear but in all things pray and God will supply all our needs? If you seek fulfillment from anything that Jesus otherwise could have supplied you that is by definition idolatry.
Helen said:
5. Because God does not consider it a sin; in fact quite the reverse -- wine is a natural result of fruits. Noah made wine on purpose and he was a righteous man. Christ changed the water to wine (yeah, the real stuff! It rescued the groom from a possible lawsuit.) Paul told Timothy to have a little wine for his stomach's sake. Not grape juice -- wine.
Noah? Do you really want to bring Noah into this discussion? Look where drinking got Noah: "Noah began to be man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent." Moreover, his own children did something to or with him to the extent that Noah cursed Canaan for his part in the ordeal.
Helen said:
6. Wine and beer have a proper place. The Bible warns about abuse, but not about use. In fact in a couple of places it suggests and condones use.
The fact remains that the Bible does not prohibit alcohol, but the Bible also does not prohibit slavery. Do you want to suggest that we should not prohibit slavery?
Helen said:
THEREFORE there is no way drinking wine is a sin! Man does not define sin. God does. If you choose not to drink an alcoholic beverage, God bless you. If you choose to have some occasionally, God bless you. If you overdo, I pray God corrects you.
You want something that breaks up marriages even more when abused but which was instituted by God? Sex.
Then, of course, there is money -- the love of which is the root of all kinds of evil.
Why not argue against both of those, too? Especially the latter, since man cannot serve both God and mammon and the warnings about that are especially severe.
But we have entire committees in our churched dedicated to money. There are pleas for money from most pulpits.
It seems to me a glass of wine is much safer than so much concentration on money...or sex! Both have destroyed the people and marriages involved with the poor use of them.
Money nor sex are evil. The love of money is what is evil. Perversion is what makes sex immoral.
However, I must say Helen that I am very disappointed by your self-centered approach to drinking.
The Bible warns us to avoid the appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5:22).
The Bible also warns about causing an immature believer or a literal child from stumbling, "but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matt. 18:6)
Moreover, what fellowship does light have darkness? Alcohol is responsible for the rape and murder of numerous women every year. Alcohol is responsible for the death of innocent children every year through dwi and abuse. Alcohol is responsible for numerous failed marriages, businesses, and destroys the lives of those who abuse and consume it.
As Christians our role is to live lives of holiness and purity. If there is any doubt about whether something is right, we should err on the side of caution. To be honest with you I simply find your reasons for drinking alcohol to be in poor 'taste.'
I will leave you with a story that a friend of mine who is an international missionary relayed to me just the other day.
The day after Halloween is All Saints Day. It's the day of the dead. Down here men and women flock to the cemeteries. There they wine and dine and dance the day away. Drunkenness is woefully rampant. In fact, alcohol abuse is so common that it is one of our primary issues in this country from which I write. It's worse; the parents will begin offering booze to their kids as young as 12 years of age. Unlike the good Europeans who think you will adjust and learn to drink moderately, we have serious problems with alcoholism, alcohol-related deaths, alcohol-related sexual crimes, and other blights on society.
So when I hear that some of my Baptist brethren in the good ole US of A are beginning to be proponents of social drinking, I tend to want to lean harder to the right. The truth is, in almost 20 years of being overseas, I have seen a lot of evidence that the church is more comfortable with the current politically correct worldview, especially with the world's definition of tolerance, than it is with strong biblical standards.
Shhhsh!
