There are Christians that do not believe in drinking. Is there something wrong with that? NO It is not a sin to not drink alcohol. But it is a sin to condemn those that do. False accusations can drive people away from Christianity. And that is all part of the man-made sins topic… people playing God. Is that a sin?
The Jewish leaders where big on doing things like this, like interpreting the Law to make it more burdensome and hard to keep and Christ called them out on it.
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Matthew 23 is a good chapter.
People like these will preach that the Bibles says drinking is a sin and smoking is a sin when neither are in the Bible. When just the opposite is true.
I like the ones that say that they always mixed it with water! And try to convince people that the wine at the Last Supper was a wine and water mix….LOL But the scriptures do not say that. The wine represented Christ’s blood….it was not watered down no more than His sacrifice was watered down.
Did they mix wine with water in Christ’s day? Well if we go with Bible only….NO. There is no description or example in the Bible Old or New Testament that they mixed wine with water. Now for the Bible only people that is that…..
But history tells another story….
The Greeks noted that cultures that drank wine often had less disease and were healthier. Of course they really did not know why but it is true. Over the last 50 years medical science has been finding more a more reasons why drinking wine in moderation has health benefits. And now we know why the ancient cultures that drank wine had less diseases and where healthier…even like less plagues.
Besides the health benefits we know how many ways the water was contaminated back then. To neutralize or reduce germs and bacteria it has be a 70/30 mix….70% wine.
So history shows that they did mix wine with water….maybe at every or most meals. They also knew that fresh moving water generally was more pure.
The next topic is “strong drink” what do the scriptures mean by this? To be perfectly honest….we do not know. There is no description of what strong drink is in the scriptures. What is strong drink in a drinking culture? The way the scriptures speak of strong drink, if it was just wine that would make Christ either stupid or a sinner. But no we do not know exactly what they meant by strong drink.
History tells us that during the 1st century that wine was not the only alcoholic beverage. But biblically from there it is speculation. People had been making wine for millenniums, can we speculate that they knew how to make Port wine….a stronger wine. History say that Port wine was not produced until the 1700’s. But sometimes the historians are surprised.
And then what is drunk or intoxicated in a drinking culture? Hard to say. I am just going to say negative affects. Now a day if your life revolves around drinking even in moderation, you are drinking too much. If drinking affects your health or your job or gets you in trouble with the Law….you are drinking too much. Moderation goes for most anything. But still this is advise, not biblical.
If drinking is not forbidden then smoking weed wouldn't be forbidden either!
