Strong Drink (Deut. 14:26)

[ituttut]

A brother was seen with a gallon of moonshine and he said it was for medicipal purposes.

And you know brothers don't lie.

 

[saturneptune]

I wonder how many threads on alcohol it takes for people to realize that no conclusion is ever reached, and no ones mind is changed. Maybe another 100? It is the same old tired arguments over and over. The wine was ferminted, no it wasnt, on and on.

It does not take a lot of common sense, life experience, and reading of the Scripture to realize there is nothing good from alcohol.

For those who think they had made the technical case the Bible does not teach abstainence, maybe that is true, maybe not. What is it you are trying to prove by promoting your alcohol agenda? If you want to drink, then by all means drink. Maybe if you feel about it strongly enough, you can sing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" as your invitation song. Anyone who sees anything good in alcohol has got a screw loose, Biblically or otherwise.

 

[Sober_Baptist]

I have a friend who drinks a little wine for municipal purposes.

Seeing as you're in Kentucky, your friend could be a Boone

Boones Farm, ?

 

[annsni]

We no longer drink for various reasons (but still love to cook with alcohol) but no where in Scripture does it say to NOT drink. I'm sorry but it just doesn't.

 

[saturneptune]

Seeing as you're in Kentucky, your friend could be a Boone

Boones Farm, ?

If that avatar is your image, maybe you should try some. You are not looking so well.

 

[saturneptune]

We no longer drink for various reasons (but still love to cook with alcohol) but no where in Scripture does it say to NOT drink. I'm sorry but it just doesn't.

My point is quite simple. The Bible strongly encourages people not to drink. How is that for wording? If you add life experience like I have seen, plus common sense, there is nothing good about the subject, nothing. I would be for abstaining if I never had opened a Bible. :BangHead:

 

[His Blood Spoke My Name]

If one does a careful study of the Word of God, one will find several verses that strictly forbid the consumption of alcohol.

[Ad hominem attack deleted]

 

[HankD]

It is amazing how you did not comment on verse 31.

Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

That word 'Look' in the Hebrew is the word 'ra'ah'. It means 'Do not consider, have no experience with, approve not'.

If one takes even a sip of fermented beverage, one is experiencing it... which this verse clearly forbids

The admonition is not to drink the wine while it is ruddy and moving, that is while it is still in the state of fermentation and it is still cloudy and bubbling.

Why?

Growing up in an old world Italian enivornment I can tell you why...

Because it is so deceptive, it still has the fruity sweet blush of grapejuce and is delicious (which masks the alcohol taste) and it is so very easy to drink to much and fall down drunk.

Mature naturally fermented wine with no grain alcohol or sugar fortification is tart, somewhat bitter and that normally is disciplining in and of itself (unless one is after the consciousness altering and people will put themselves through all kinds of hell to achieve it).

I am an abstainer now but not because of the concept that alcohol is intrinsically evil but that it is so offensive to so many Baptist Christians.

In another issue: Surprisingly (to me anyway) some Baptists are offended by the typical Baptist Welch's Grape Juice of communion and will only ever use fermented alcoholic wine for the Lord's Table.

HankD

 

[His Blood Spoke My Name]

The admonition is not to drink the wine while it is ruddy and moving, that is while it is still in the state of fermentation and it is still cloudy and bubbling.

Why?

Growing up in an old world Italian enivornment I can tell you why...

Because it is so deceptive, it still has the fruity sweet blush of grapejuce and is delicious (which masks the alcohol taste) and it is so very easy to drink to much and fall down drunk.

Mature naturally fermented wine with no grain alcohol or sugar fortification is tart, somewhat bitter and that normally is disciplining in and of itself (unless one is after the consciousness altering and people will put themselves through all kinds of hell to achieve it).

I am an abstainer now but not because of the concept that alcohol is intrinsically evil but that it is so offensive to so many Baptist Christians.

In another issue: Surprisingly (to me anyway) some Baptists are offended by the typical Baptist Welch's Grape Juice of communion and will only ever use fermented alcoholic wine for the Lord's Table.

HankD

Then how do you explain the many people who buy beer and wine and get drunk after it has already been fermented?

People talk about how much they like the taste of their wines and beers that have gone through the fermentation process. The deception is not just during the fermentation, but after fermentation as well.

Try again.

 

[HankD]

Then how do you explain the many people who buy beer and wine and get drunk after it has already been fermented?

People talk about how much they like the taste of their wines and beers that have gone through the fermentation process. The deception is not just during the fermentation, but after fermentation as well.

Try again.

I don't need to try again.

I stated why it is so deceptive because the alcohol taste is masked in "new wine" and people like Noah (perhaps) who wouldn't normally drink too much wine would be deceived into thinking there is no harm in drinking this bubbly "grape juice"

I already explained why people buy fully fermented or distilled liquor.

Let me repeat, I am an abstainer and it is for people who are offended by alcohol that I abstain, so I don't have an axe to grind except for the only NT scriptural principal for abstinence.

Romans 14

20 For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
22 Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.
23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.​

HankD

 

[His Blood Spoke My Name]

The passage in Romans 14 is not the only clear command for abstinence. There are at least 4 others that tell us to abstain.

 

[Tom Butler]

I can't for the life of me recall the source, but I read just this week about a Baptist church in Georgia which has instituted a "Beer and Theology Thursday."

It's a weekly discussion of theology in a coffeehouse or beer joint setting.

This is nothing new. I found a Catholic church in New Jersey which does the same thing.

I think the beer is free at both places. And they both draw some good crowds. Must be the free theology.

 

[HankD]

The passage in Romans 14 is not the only clear command for abstinence. There are at least 4 others that tell us to abstain.

Just to set the record staight it is not the alcoholic beverage that is evil:

Matthew 15

17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.​

God created alcohol. IMO, to codemn it as evil is pompous piety.


Also, it is easy to condemn others for those "sins" which we ourselves do not commit.

However it is certainly true that alcohol abstinence is the best policy in this society seeing how many lives have been destroyed by its abuse.

And that is Jesus point. The heart is the real problem. People want to drown their miseries or block out the conviction of sin or quieten their conscience with alcohol or drugs rather than to come to the light.
In fact people can and do escape their misery in an overindulgence of "good" things. The heart is the problem.

Some people escape into alcoholism, others escape into sports (for instance).

John 3

19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.​

HankD

 

[His Blood Spoke My Name]

It is not pompous to agree with the Word that teaches abstainence.

As was pointed out earlier, Romans 14 clearly shows abstinence. At least 4 other verses clearly tell us to abstain from wine.

I would submit that is is pompous to disagree with the Word of God that teaches abstinence

 

[~JM~]

The following was written by William Kelly, a pre-fundamentalist fundamentalist...if you will...

The Christian reads the Old Testament. He finds that wine intoxicated Noah and Lot, (Gen. 9, 19) and that it afterwards afforded occasion for frequent and solemn remonstrance. (Prov. 20, 23 Isa. 5, 28, etc.) Again, he finds wine brought as a natural comfort to Abraham and Isaac, (Gen. 14, 27) and often so treated, literally as well as figuratively. (Deut. 14, Ps. 104. Prov. 9: 31: 6. Cant. passim, etc.) He sees in the New Testament neither contradiction nor difficulty. The Lord commenced His miracles by making water into wine, (John 2) was invidiously compared with His forerunner because He abstained not, (Luke 7) and made bread and wine (which John the Baptist never used)* to be the chosen, constant memorial of His dying love till He come again, the symbol also of our communion with each other. Finally, the Holy Ghost more than once dwells on the end of the drunkard, (1 Cor. 6, Gal. 5) corrects the unhallowed licence of the Corinthian church at the Lord's Supper, (1 Cor. 11) and warns believers, especially such as were prominent, against excess in daily life. (Eph. 5, 1 Tim. 3 Titus 2) At the same time, He takes pains (1 Tim. 5: 23.) to remove the scrupulousness of a devoted young servant of Christ, and en joins the use of a little wine, rather than water, for his stomach's sake and often infirmities. So graciously does God deign to interest Himself even in the bodily weakness and wants of those who love Him! The conclusion is irresistible. Total abstinence, as a general rule, has not, nor ever had, divine sanction. It is a device at issue with the plain facts and doctrine of Scripture, and this as to Christians no less than as to Jews. In the Old Testament yayin and in the New Testament οἶνος — that is, the ordinary words for "wine" in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures — are used both in a good and in a bad connection; because the moral evil lay not in the thing itself, nor in its use, but in its abuse. There were different kinds of wine then, (Neh. 5: 18,) as there are now. But not a single text intimates a particular sort of yayin which could not inebriate. Nay, more: what Scripture does say, disproves the fancy, as the sequel abundantly shows. Thus, Num. 6: 3 plainly marks off yayin as fermented grape-juice, and that in the vinous as distinguished from the acetous stage; excluding other fermented drinks, vinegar, unfermented grape-liquors, as well as the solid fruit of the vine. We who adhere to the regular sense of the word are not bound to produce specific proofs; we are entitled to take it in the same sense everywhere, unless positive cause be shown to the contrary. But those who affirm that in certain places the word has a different meaning, are, in each instance, bound to give Scriptural reasons adequate to produce conviction. This they can never do. We deny their affirmation: upon them falls the burden of proof.†

The rest is here.

 

[saturneptune]

How silly is the comparison of losing oneself in alcohol and sports. Sports never killed someone on the highways, caused the breakup of a marriage, or destroyed lives beyond hope.

 

[saturneptune]

What is with all the dead people avatars?

 

[rbell]

There's been a great deal of buzz about this thread. Both sides are offering lots of proof. OH, enough puns. Let me remind you of an incredibly wise poster's prophetic words in days of old:

Hey, another alcohol thread...

"There's a 'liquor front' moving through the BB. I'm forecasting a 90% chance of conflict, with the slight chance of severe brouhaha's near the front. Stay tuned to your local moderator's bulletin for up-to-date information."

 

[~JM~]

How silly is the comparison of losing oneself in alcohol and sports. Sports never killed someone on the highways, caused the breakup of a marriage, or destroyed lives beyond hope.

Abuse is a problem for sinners.

 

[HankD]

How silly is the comparison of losing oneself in alcohol and sports. Sports never killed someone on the highways, caused the breakup of a marriage, or destroyed lives beyond hope.

I would say that an overindulgence in sports has caused many a woman to depart from her man.

HankD