Baptists abstain from alcohol but Christ created 6 barrels of it

ewq1938 · Apr 22, 2019

eleos1954 said:
Bible Drinking Alcohol

Jesus lived a pure life upon this earth; he was without sin, and there is nothing that even implies that he indulged in drinking intoxicating beverages.

It is directly given to us that he drank alcoholic wine as there was no other kind of wine.

Such action is not compatible with his pure character and teaching.

It is very compatible.

Romans 14

21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything to cause your brother to stumble.

Sure but when that brother is not around, there isn't anything wrong with eating meat or drinking.

Proverbs 2

1Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

"led astray"...this verse does not speak against sensible drinking.

The "good wine" Jesus made at Canaan was "good" not because of its high alcoholic content but because it was fresh, unfermented grape-juice.

That's not what the context of the passage tells us. It was better wine than the wine they had been drinking. No one drinking wine, will later drink grape juice and say it's better wine than they had been drinking.

The "new wine" Jesus commended through the parable of the new wineskins is unfermented (either boiled or filtered), because not even new wineskins could withstand the pressure of the gas produced by fermenting new wine.

That's not true.

Jesus’ description of Himself as "eating and drinking" does not imply that He used alcoholic wine but that He associated with people freely at their meals and elsewhere.

And drank their wines.

IF it's OK with Jesus for one to drink fermented (alcohol - strong drink) would He not be placing a stumbling block (temptation) before mankind knowing our weaknesses?

No.

Eph_5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

You can't get drunk on non-alcoholic wine.

1Ti_3:8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;

Tit_1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

Even a Deacon or Bishop is allowed to drink some alcoholic wine, just not over indulging.

Tit_2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

Same idea here.

1Ti_5:23 Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.

Medical advice. Sometimes wine is better to have than water.

eleos1954 · Apr 23, 2019

JackRT said:
Do you know what "strong drink" is?

The Last Supper was in the spring. The only time when unfermented grape juice would be available was in the few weeks of grape harvest in the fall. In that climate and without refrigeration grape juice would start fermenting from wild yeast within a matter of days.

They had ways of storing/processing to make unfermented wine out of season.

What are the facts about fermented drinks in the Bible? | Bibleinfo.com

eleos1954 · Apr 23, 2019

ewq1938 said:
It is directly given to us that he drank alcoholic wine as there was no other kind of wine.

It is very compatible.

Sure but when that brother is not around, there isn't anything wrong with eating meat or drinking.

"led astray"...this verse does not speak against sensible drinking.

That's not what the context of the passage tells us. It was better wine than the wine they had been drinking. No one drinking wine, will later drink grape juice and say it's better wine than they had been drinking.

That's not true.

And drank their wines.

No.

Eph_5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

You can't get drunk on non-alcoholic wine.

1Ti_3:8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;

Tit_1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

Even a Deacon or Bishop is allowed to drink some alcoholic wine, just not over indulging.

Tit_2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

Same idea here.

1Ti_5:23 Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.

Medical advice. Sometimes wine is better to have than water.

well, seems totally out of His character to me ... guess we will find out when He returns and we are able to ask Him directly ;o)

Knee V · Apr 23, 2019

It has never made sense to me, either, but people will always do what they do, and it is what it is.

As for myself, I have grown very fond of various whiskeys, in particular a few single malt Scotches. I can't drink most liquors straight (I mean, I can, but I don't like to at all), but whiskey rests in my mouth very comfortably, and goes down just as enjoyably. I don't drink very often though, and when I do it is not very much. I'll go weeks or even months with nothing, and then spend a week having a drink or two a night, then back to a long stretch of none.

Concord1968 · Apr 23, 2019

The Orthodox use leavened bread for communion, so I don't think the use of leaven is inherently sinful as I saw suggested upthread.

JackRT · Apr 23, 2019

James Murphy said:
The Orthodox use leavened bread for communion, so I don't think the use of leaven is inherently sinful as I saw suggested upthread.

The Bible spends a strangely large amount of attention to yeast.

GodLovesCats · Apr 23, 2019

JackRT said:
The Bible spends a strangely large amount of attention to yeast.

All in the Old Testament, right? The fact that Jesus at unleavened bread does not by itself mean it is a sin to eat bread with yeast; he would have to say so.

Jonathan Mathews · Apr 24, 2019

PostImpatica said:
I'm a Baptist but I don't understand why they believe in abstaining from all Alcohol including wine. I understand abstaining if someone you love battles with alcoholism and we don't want to be a stumbling block but to have this stance within your church doctrine when Christ himself drank wine seems really odd.

Matthew 11:19 19The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard..." So apparently Christ drank wine.

But the biggest issue I find is when Christ himself did his first miracle and created 6 barrels of wine from water. This was not some non-alcoholic wine either because in John 2:10 it says, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."

Would Christ have created 6 stacks of dirty magazines, of course not. Would he have created 6 bags of heroin, of course not. Christ wouldn't have created 6 barrels of wine if it was something to be ashamed of so why do so many households act ashamed of wine? I guess my ultimate question is, why do people try to act more righteous than Christ?

I have to say I love your thread title. LOL

mnphysicist · Apr 24, 2019

I don't think its a matter of righteousness or not, but a cultural issue. My guess is that many Baptists as well as Methodists were involved in the temperance movement a hundred+ years ago, and from the political movement, it made sense to build a theology around it to drive it home. On the one hand, it makes sense, having the church reflect the morality they wanted to achieve. On the other hand, most Baptists I know are really good at holding to a fairly plain text read of scriptures so the alcohol thing comes across pretty weird. Then again beer and wine are staples of church potlucks in my area. its also pretty common for Wednesday Bible studies to be held at local taverns with a beer or two rather than at church. My guess is Baptists would consider that pretty weird too.

As far as communion goes, I am disturbed a bit when grape juice is presented at some churches holding to ordinance theology. its an ideal breeding ground for all sorts of things to grow, to say nothing of the increased potential for disease transmission from one person to another. I'm not a germ phobe per se, but egads during cold season.... I'd rather be a germ phobe than sick. At least with enough alcohol concentration and a wiped silver cup, the vast majority of germs get killed before they can wreak havoc.

That being said, fruit of the vine could be viewed as either wine or grape juice, and for those who can't have wine, I think its a great thing even if grape juice was pretty much non-existent until a hundred+ yrs ago. I hold to a similar view wrt non-gluten hosts for some folks.

GodLovesCats · Apr 24, 2019

There are no wiped silver cups. Congregation members drink from tiny plastic cups for communion unless you are thinking of Catholics, which obviouslly Baptsts are not.

ViaCrucis · Apr 25, 2019

HTacianas said:
The idea that any consumption of alcohol is a sin is a later tradition of protestant puritanism. You find it primarily among American Baptist and Pentecostals, etc.

Drunkenness is prohibited throughout the old and new testaments, and actually was the first death penalty offense Jesus himself was accused of. But a biblical drunkard is what we would call a substance abuser today. Moderate alcohol consumption is not a sin, but allowing it to control our lives is.

American teetotalism is largely a product of Wesleyanism/American Pietism from the 19th century. Pietistic attitudes tend toward moralism; and is the foundation for things like teetotalism, and the product of "holiness" standards in some traditions (i.e. forbidding women to wear trousers, or forbidding wearing any kind of jewelry, and that goes into and includes things like forbidding secular activities such as listening to music, watching movies, watching sports, card games, etc) These are the products of American Pietism and its moralizing form of religion.

It's moralism and moralizing, because it boils down to a bland notion of "morals", and that Christian piety is expressed through arbitrary "moral" behavioral control.

My maternal grandmother was raised in this kind of environment. Growing up she and her siblings were forbidden from playing card games, watching sports, going to the cinema, or even drinking soft drinks (root beer in particular was forbidden because it had the word "beer" in it). As such it wasn't until my great grandmother's passing that my grandmother began to wear women's slacks, wear makeup, use clip-on earrings, and the like. Something that led her brothers and sisters, especially one sister in particular, to always put her down and often to tell her that she wouldn't be allowed into heaven (they themselves had walked away from religion altogether, but my grandmother continued to have faith, and they wanted to shame her; it took years of healing for my grandma to finally get past the sorts of things they said to her).

-CryptoLutheran

mnphysicist · Apr 25, 2019

ChristianForCats said:
There are no wiped silver cups. Congregation members drink from tiny plastic cups for communion unless you are thinking of Catholics, which obviouslly Baptsts are not.

Baptist churches are far from uniform, I've seen everything from a common silver cup to individual serving prepackaged cracker and grapejuice sort of like a lunchable thingie.

FireDragon76 · Apr 26, 2019

thecolorsblend said:
I was a member of a Southern Baptist ecclesial community for seven years and I never figured out the alcohol thing either. I obeyed but it never made sense to me.

I believe it is due to Pietism, which was a pan-Protestat movement that was very influential on British and American evangelicalism.

ViaCrucis said:
American teetotalism is largely a product of Wesleyanism/American Pietism from the 19th century. Pietistic attitudes tend toward moralism; and is the foundation for things like teetotalism, and the product of "holiness" standards in some traditions (i.e. forbidding women to wear trousers, or forbidding wearing any kind of jewelry, and that goes into and includes things like forbidding secular activities such as listening to music, watching movies, watching sports, card games, etc) These are the products of American Pietism and its moralizing form of religion.

It's moralism and moralizing, because it boils down to a bland notion of "morals", and that Christian piety is expressed through arbitrary "moral" behavioral control.

My maternal grandmother was raised in this kind of environment. Growing up she and her siblings were forbidden from playing card games, watching sports, going to the cinema, or even drinking soft drinks (root beer in particular was forbidden because it had the word "beer" in it). As such it wasn't until my great grandmother's passing that my grandmother began to wear women's slacks, wear makeup, use clip-on earrings, and the like. Something that led her brothers and sisters, especially one sister in particular, to always put her down and often to tell her that she wouldn't be allowed into heaven (they themselves had walked away from religion altogether, but my grandmother continued to have faith, and they wanted to shame her; it took years of healing for my grandma to finally get past the sorts of things they said to her).

-CryptoLutheran

BTW, Lutherans were divided over Prohibition. Many Scandinavian Lutherans supported it, Germans did not. Some of that was cultural (alcoholism was and is a serious problem in Scandinavians), others were religious in nature (Scandinavian Lutheranism in the US was/is more pietistic, that's where you get all those Garrison Keillor jokes about Lutherans that never make any sense to me- most of my contact is with German-American Lutherans).

Tigger45 said:
I read scripture as speaking against excessive drinking but not to complete abstinence against consuming alcohol altogether. Reading scripture with that in mind harmonizes the subject.

At my church we don't have alcohol aside from communion, I think it is just a policy we have agreed to. I suspect its due to the fact we have so many different kinds of people here.

Danthemailman · Apr 26, 2019

Do you all know the difference between Catholics and Baptists in regards to alcohol? Catholics will actually acknowledge each other at the liquor store.

FireDragon76 · Apr 26, 2019

Danthemailman said:
Do you all know the difference between Catholics and Baptists in regards to alcohol? Catholics will actually acknowledge each other at the liquor store.

Funny but probably true, sadly. Some of the most restrictive states for alcohol, such as Oklahoma, have a great deal of problem drinking... and plenty of pietistic religion that frowns on alcohol consumption (I lived there for a while and my family is from there).

tulipbee · Apr 26, 2019

PostImpatica said:
I'm a Baptist but I don't understand why they believe in abstaining from all Alcohol including wine. I understand abstaining if someone you love battles with alcoholism and we don't want to be a stumbling block but to have this stance within your church doctrine when Christ himself drank wine seems really odd.

Matthew 11:19 19The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard..." So apparently Christ drank wine.

But the biggest issue I find is when Christ himself did his first miracle and created 6 barrels of wine from water. This was not some non-alcoholic wine either because in John 2:10 it says, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."

Would Christ have created 6 stacks of dirty magazines, of course not. Would he have created 6 bags of heroin, of course not. Christ wouldn't have created 6 barrels of wine if it was something to be ashamed of so why do so many households act ashamed of wine? I guess my ultimate question is, why do people try to act more righteous than Christ?

they said why serve grape juice after they drank fermented wine. Jesus grape juice didn't have a chance to ferment. it was freshly squeezed grape juice.

JackRT · Apr 26, 2019

tulipbee said:
they said why serve grape juice after they drank fermented wine. Jesus grape juice didn't have a chance to ferment. it was freshly squeezed grape juice.

Not in the spring at Passover.

tulipbee · Apr 27, 2019

JackRT said:
Not in the spring at Passover.

freshly squeezed grape juice and you want to tell us how it was done?

JackRT · Apr 27, 2019

tulipbee said:
freshly squeezed grape juice and you want to tell us how it was done?

Did they fly the fresh picked grapes in from South Africa or Australia or Chili?

tulipbee · Apr 27, 2019

JackRT said:
Did they fly the fresh picked grapes in from South Africa or Australia or Chili?

Jesus flew it in from the heaven's vineyard.

Baptists abstain from alcohol but Christ created 6 barrels of it

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