In Defense Of Alcohol, God's Blessing To Man

[Standing Firm In Christ]

That's what you got from my post? Really? Wow.
 
Maybe you should find a glass of grape juice called wine. Wait, grape juice is never called wine except by IFB's.

and the Word of God.

Isaiah 65:8 (KJV) 8 Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and [one] saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing [is] in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.

[banner over me was love]

... My real objection in quoting Luther and Calvin was to show that earlier than 1800 in churches wine wasnt a big issue,...

Both Luther and Calvin, were coming out of the Roman Catholic church which teaches to consume Alcohol is ok in moderation, a doctrine of men, as it comes from the pagan mysteries.  They didn't get everything straight, and especially at the council of Trent was a great failure, but were powerful reformers walking in the light then shining.

 

PS. my offer is still open.

[Jeffrey]

Both Luther and Calvin, were coming out of the Roman Catholic church which teaches to consume Alcohol is ok in moderation, a doctrine of men, as it comes from the pagan mysteries.  They didn't get everything straight, and especially at the council of Trent was a great failure, but were powerful reformers walking in the light then shining.

 

PS. my offer is still open.

sure, BTW, let me ask you, do you believe the Holy Spirit works outside of IFB circles??

[Jeffrey]

This is how sophist reason using questions upon questions and never offer a clear answer.

I was giving an example, what was unclear about what i said?

[Jeffrey]

and the Word of God.

Isaiah 65:8 (KJV) 8 Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and [one] saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing [is] in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.

New wine had an alcohol content

Hosea 4:11 Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

 

Acts 2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judæa, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: 15 for these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. 

 

You see, peter was not talking about grape juice, and he didnt say that they didnt drink at all. Do you think the Holy Spirit would have Peter say so if the if it wasn't true?

[Jeffrey]

So are you as a Christian glorifying God when you drink Alcoholic Beverages?

Out of Thanksgiving? yes!

[Standing Firm In Christ]

 

Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. (Hosea4:ll)

 

Many people have unjustly determined from Hosea's text, that new wine (tirosh) must have been intoxicating as well as wine (yayin). They have arrived at a wrong conclusion.  A careful study of the text will reveal to the reader that the verse says nothing specifically about drunkenness.
 

The text merely states that pleasure seeking acts and sensual­ity on Israel's part would take their focus away from Almighty God. The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains:
 

The scope of the accusation widened to include the peo­ple in general. Sensual pleasures had robbed them of their senses, leaving them without understanding. They engaged in pagan worship practices, including divina­tion (seeking answers by a stick of wood), sacrificed to false gods, and engaged in cult prostitution.

 

This clearly refutes the claims of those who falsely try to use Hosea 4:11 to prove that new wine could produce drunk­enness, and was therefore fermented.
 

Another truth that they fail to grasp, is that the inspired text actually says:
 

Whoredom (prostitution) AND wine (yayin, intoxicating) AND new wine (tirosh, sweet unfermented) take away the understanding.
 

Notice it says the three combined elements took away the heart!  It was a mixture of the three that took away the heart, not any particular one.  The text does not say new wine was responsible for taking away the heart.

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says of the word tirosh:

 

...apparently the fresh juice from the vineyard, never by itself associated with intoxication.
 

The honest reader should see that even if the verse was speaking about drunkenness, no intoxicating properties can be pinned to new wine (tirosh) in Hosea 4:11.  It is only those who want to justify sin that would try to turn the "pure blood of the grape" into that beverage that God said would cause one to "forget the Law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted".  Fausset's Bible Dictionary gives us a good explanation concerning Hosea 4:11:

 

the tirosh is denounced not as evil in itself, but as asso­ciated with whoredom, to which wine and grape cakes were stimulants...

[DaveW]

I gotta say "new wine is found in the cluster" indicates to me grape juice - people don't eat grapes that are fermenting in their cluster. They throw those grapes away, because they are going off.

But that passage is not teaching about wine in any case, so speculating on whether or not this verse is alcoholic or otherwise is somewhat irrelevant.

The only possible usefulness in this argument is that it indicates (not states nor proves) that in this case new wine most logically indicates unfermented juice, and only then by speculation that people were as in my experience today, where they don't eat grapes fermenting on the vine.

But that does not mean "new wine" always means this either, but in this case it is the most likely understanding.

[banner over me was love]

sure, BTW, let me ask you, do you believe the Holy Spirit works outside of IFB circles??

Yes.

[TheSword]

First, I apologize for the delay in responding to this. I try not to spend too much time on the computer over the weekends so I can focus on family, school, and ministry.

 

Numbers 28:7, also.  The idea behind Deut 14:26 is that God enabled us to have it, drink it and give thanks to Him for it. Again, temperance is the key to enjoying it. Liquor, food and sex are all things that can become idols unto themselves though they are gifts from God

 

I think that's somewhat reading an understanding into the text. The basic meaning is talking about what an Israel was to do if they lived too far from the temple for it to be feasible to take all of their tithe goods there for the feast (Deu 14:22-26) and the process for making an offering (Num 28:1-10). In order to get any truth about God's mind on the strong drink/wine you have to either infer from the context or read your own meaning in. My understanding of Deu 14 is the basic instruction to the Israelite that if they were suppose to tithe out of all of their harvest, but if they couldn't carry that to the temple, then they were supposed to sell it and then buy a representative replacement once they got there to bring to the feast and the rejoicing is over God's provision generally.

 

Can you walk me through your thought process and how get anything on temperance, food, or sex? In my reading and study I don't find anything in the context intending to teach on those.

 

Can you show me this in Scripture?

 

Not directly, no, because Scripture isn't concerned with explaining preservation processes any more than it is concerned with explaining the harvesting or butchering process. However, we have a wealth of information on that from a man named Columella who was a farmer in Syria during the first century AD. He wrote in detail on how to preserve both fruits and juices. Here's a short excerpt from him on how to preserve fruit:

 

"Some people, after the same method, preserve green grapes in dry sawdust of poplar-wood or fir; others cover up the grapes, which they have picked from the vines when they were not too ripe, in dry flower of gypsum. Others, when they have picked a bunch, cut off with shears any defective grapes in it, and then hang it up in the granary where there is wheat stored below them. But this method causes the grapes to become shrivelled and almost as sweet as raisins."

 

Pliny, a Roman contemporary of Columella, states: "Some grapes will last all through the winter if the clusters are hung by a string from the ceiling, and others will keep merely in their own natural vigor by being stood in earthenware jars with casks put over them, and packed round with fermenting grape-skins."

 

This shows that they had the ability to preserve the grapes in a way that would enable them to produce fresh juice well beyond the time of the harvest. On boiling the juice down to make must he says, "Boiled-down must, though carefully made, is, like wine, apt to go sour. This being so, let us be mindful to preserve our wine with boiled-down must of a year old, the soundness of which has been already tested."

 

I'm running out of time at the house this morning so I'll have to stop the explanation there for today; but there is ample historical evidence on how grapes and wine/juice were preserved and used as a preservative. I'll have to dig back through my resources, but I believe there is incidental Biblical clues to the inclusion of such processes.

[Jeffrey]

Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. (Hosea4:ll)
 
Many people have unjustly determined from Hosea's text, that new wine (tirosh) must have been intoxicating as well as wine (yayin). They have arrived at a wrong conclusion.  A careful study of the text will reveal to the reader that the verse says nothing specifically about drunkenness.
 
The text merely states that pleasure seeking acts and sensual­ity on Israel's part would take their focus away from Almighty God. The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains:
 
The scope of the accusation widened to include the peo­ple in general. Sensual pleasures had robbed them of their senses, leaving them without understanding. They engaged in pagan worship practices, including divina­tion (seeking answers by a stick of wood), sacrificed to false gods, and engaged in cult prostitution.
 
This clearly refutes the claims of those who falsely try to use Hosea 4:11 to prove that new wine could produce drunk­enness, and was therefore fermented.
 
Another truth that they fail to grasp, is that the inspired text actually says:
 
Whoredom (prostitution) AND wine (yayin, intoxicating) AND new wine (tirosh, sweet unfermented) take away the understanding.
 
Notice it says the three combined elements took away the heart!  It was a mixture of the three that took away the heart, not any particular one.  The text does not say new wine was responsible for taking away the heart.
The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says of the word tirosh:

 

...apparently the fresh juice from the vineyard, never by itself associated with intoxication.
 
The honest reader should see that even if the verse was speaking about drunkenness, no intoxicating properties can be pinned to new wine (tirosh) in Hosea 4:11.  It is only those who want to justify sin that would try to turn the "pure blood of the grape" into that beverage that God said would cause one to "forget the Law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted".  Fausset's Bible Dictionary gives us a good explanation concerning Hosea 4:11:
 
the tirosh is denounced not as evil in itself, but as asso­ciated with whoredom, to which wine and grape cakes were stimulants...

I don't know where you cut and pasted this from, but the author contradicts himself on so many levels, when I get home tonight I'll explain where, can't do it from my phone

[Standing Firm In Christ]

I did not "copy and paste". Wrote it myself.

And no, I did not contradict myself in the least.

Take your alcohol stained glasses off.

[TheSword]

He is quoting Is 5;21-23, not his own words

 

yes i did, here is the full quote;

"If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life in not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says [2 Pet 3:13], we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. . . . Pray boldly-you too are a mighty sinner. (LW 48, 281-82)

 

I realized when I posted Justin's quote that he was referencing Isaiah, but after a second read through the point he was making he was not specifically addressing the use of wine, but rather was talking about the need for Christians to pray for Jews. I'll concede that point for now; but when I have time I'll do a more in-depth study into what the early writers had to say and we can talk about it later.

 

On Luther's quote...the full wording doesn't really make it any better, in my opinion. I say this because instead of getting people to acknowledge that they are sinners and to "put off the old man" as it were, what he does is say that people are sinners and must continue to sin ("As long as we are here we have to sin"). Rather than telling people to turn from sin, he tells them to embrace it and just look forward to the day when they won't have to sin anymore. Luther's heart on the matter of sin is further revealed by the other quote you posted about his intent to willfully sin so he can talk about that sin ("Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkennes of Noah, so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience.") This is far from an example or exhortation to righteous living, and this example is often used by Lutherans to justify worldly living. I posted the truncated quote because just about every time I come across a Lutheran who wants to defend his/her freedom to sin (whether it is drinking, swearing, watching porn, etc), they almost always use that short "sin boldly" quote.

[Jeffrey]

First, I apologize for the delay in responding to this. I try not to spend too much time on the computer over the weekends so I can focus on family, school, and ministry.



I think that's somewhat reading an understanding into the text. The basic meaning is talking about what an Israel was to do if they lived too far from the temple for it to be feasible to take all of their tithe goods there for the feast (Deu 14:22-26) and the process for making an offering (Num 28:1-10). In order to get any truth about God's mind on the strong drink/wine you have to either infer from the context or read your own meaning in. My understanding of Deu 14 is the basic instruction to the Israelite that if they were suppose to tithe out of all of their harvest, but if they couldn't carry that to the temple, then they were supposed to sell it and then buy a representative replacement once they got there to bring to the feast and the rejoicing is over God's provision generally.

Can you walk me through your thought process and how get anything on temperance, food, or sex? In my reading and study I don't find anything in the context intending to teach on those.



Not directly, no, because Scripture isn't concerned with explaining preservation processes any more than it is concerned with explaining the harvesting or butchering process. However, we have a wealth of information on that from a man named Columella who was a farmer in Syria during the first century AD. He wrote in detail on how to preserve both fruits and juices. Here's a short excerpt from him on how to preserve fruit:

"Some people, after the same method, preserve green grapes in dry sawdust of poplar-wood or fir; others cover up the grapes, which they have picked from the vines when they were not too ripe, in dry flower of gypsum. Others, when they have picked a bunch, cut off with shears any defective grapes in it, and then hang it up in the granary where there is wheat stored below them. But this method causes the grapes to become shrivelled and almost as sweet as raisins."

Pliny, a Roman contemporary of Columella, states: "Some grapes will last all through the winter if the clusters are hung by a string from the ceiling, and others will keep merely in their own natural vigor by being stood in earthenware jars with casks put over them, and packed round with fermenting grape-skins."

This shows that they had the ability to preserve the grapes in a way that would enable them to produce fresh juice well beyond the time of the harvest. On boiling the juice down to make must he says, "Boiled-down must, though carefully made, is, like wine, apt to go sour. This being so, let us be mindful to preserve our wine with boiled-down must of a year old, the soundness of which has been already tested."

I'm running out of time at the house this morning so I'll have to stop the explanation there for today; but there is ample historical evidence on how grapes and wine/juice were preserved and used as a preservative. I'll have to dig back through my resources, but I believe there is incidental Biblical clues to the inclusion of such processes.

I'll get more into this later, but read the the text again in Deut 14:26, it says we can buy the things we lust(crave), then says that we shall eat it and rejoice, how much clearer can it be?
Nobody has shown me yet where God has given the Jews a blessing and called it sin for the NT church.

With other blessings, food and sex us something's we can abuse. With food we can become gluttons and not be charitable with it, with sex, we can be unfaithful with our spouses, look at pornography, lust after other woman, etc. these(food and sex) are blessings from God

[Jeffrey]

I realized when I posted Justin's quote that he was referencing Isaiah, but after a second read through the point he was making he was not specifically addressing the use of wine, but rather was talking about the need for Christians to pray for Jews. I'll concede that point for now; but when I have time I'll do a more in-depth study into what the early writers had to say and we can talk about it later.

On Luther's quote...the full wording doesn't really make it any better, in my opinion. I say this because instead of getting people to acknowledge that they are sinners and to "put off the old man" as it were, what he does is say that people are sinners and must continue to sin ("As long as we are here we have to sin"). Rather than telling people to turn from sin, he tells them to embrace it and just look forward to the day when they won't have to sin anymore. Luther's heart on the matter of sin is further revealed by the other quote you posted about his intent to willfully sin so he can talk about that sin ("Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkennes of Noah, so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience.") This is far from an example or exhortation to righteous living, and this example is often used by Lutherans to justify worldly living. I posted the truncated quote because just about every time I come across a Lutheran who wants to defend his/her freedom to sin (whether it is drinking, swearing, watching porn, etc), they almost always use that short "sin boldly" quote.

I believe that Luther was using hyperbole,..I'n out live we sin day in and day out, we can't help it because if our depravity, I never thought he was giving a license to sin