Convictions and Complexities about Drinking

[JNoël]

Bert Perry wrote:

So new wine is not completely fermented—that’s why it’s also called “sweet wine”—but it definitely contained alcohol. And which was better? Well, look at Luke 5:39. The ancients preferred fully fermented (“drier”) wines, according to our Savior. Part of the attraction for old wines was also that it was pretty completely fermented and would not become vinegar if exposed to air.

So is God contradicting himself? How does that passage compare with the obvious preference by all for the new wine?

Preference by whom for sweet wines? Yes, wine is an acquired taste, much like coffee or Tabasco sauce. But that said, those who have acquired the taste have a general disdain for excessively sweet wines, even as a dessert wine. And even dessert wines (most whites, a few reds) that are “sweet” are not “sweet” like juice or pop, but rather have a hint of the sugar that existed in the original juice before it fermented. One analogy is that those who learn to ditch the Super Big Gulp find after a few weeks that a carrot tastes sweet. It’s all about appreciating subtlety, really.

It’s also worth noting, per Ed’s comments, that alcoholism and the consequences of it (e.g. cirrhosis of the liver) correlate really well to the drinking of hard (distilled) liquors, but really poorly to the drinking of wine. This is because it is (a) difficult and (b) expensive to get drunk on decent wine, plus wine culture discourages people from drinking that much that quickly. Beer is in between—it’s difficult to drink enough to get drunk (I’d have to drink a 2 liter to get to .08, and the Bible describes drunk at around .2% BAC), but there is a culture of drinking (cheap) beer to excess.

Since this thread has degenerated into a discussion of Rom. 14 (Is the meat idolatrous?) vs. I Cor. 8-10 (“I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils…”) let me put in my 2 cents worth.

In a matter of dispute of interpretation always fall back on what you absolutely know. What we KNOW about the matter of meat (or other things tainted by the idolatry of the culture generally referenced as “pollutions of idols”) is that refraining from them as an obedient believer was an ABSOLUTE—it was not a liberty issue at all but a rightly defined conscience matter. This is discerned by a chronological walk through the presentation of this abstinence injunction beginning with Acts 15, I Cor. 6-10, Acts 21, with the concluding summation given by the post-incarnate Christ Himself in Rev. 2.

Don has done an admirable job pointing out that Rom. 14 does not reference idolatry in any way (idolatry hasn’t been referenced in this epistle since chap. 2). Furthermore, since Rom. 14 chronologically follows I Cor. and is also written under inspiration, if Rom. 14 references the meat of idols Paul is either qualifying his previous statements (which would contradict the absolute of Christ in Rev. 2) or he is contradicting his previous inspired instructions. Neither is legitimate for consideration.

Maybe this whole debate about beverage alcohol should center on determining whether alcohol is a 21st century equivalent to the meat of 1st century Corinth. IOW, is beverage alcohol an integral part of the predominant cultural idolatry that has been incorporated into the commerce and/or customs of society as was the meat of Corinth? If so, then abstinence is the absolute.

When the Pilgrims came to North America the Mayflower was stocked with 50 barrels of beer. Many say that they drank beer because the water was bad in Europe. Some water in the cities may have been tainted, but the English and Europeans did not like drinking water. There was plenty of pure water from springs and creeks and wells. They felt because water was free, it wasn’t as good and it didn’t nourish like the ale.

The temperance movement was really kicked off by many of the industrialists in Europe and US because they didn’t like the workers drinking on the job (and rightly so).

John Kellogg the originator of the breakfast cereal was a staunch advocate of the temperance movement. He was a brilliant doctor. Kellogg a Seventh Day Adventist also advocated not eating meat, avoiding sex because it was unhealthy (boy he got that wrong). He also had a strange fascination with stopping people from self stimulating to the point of advocating mutilation.

I only mention Pilgrims because they were true conservatives. They walked the talk- practiced what they preached and were true lovers of God’s Word. Luther was also known to have his ale as a good German. Did not these men know the Scriptures?

As an amateur (heavy emphasis on that word) church history hobbyist, I have found no evidence of tee totaling as part of a church culture before the 1800s.

Regarding Don’s exegesis, he’s more or less arguing that since Romans 14 doesn’t flat out state that the issue with meats and wines is idolatry, that we cannot assume that.

Now on one hand, there is the objection which Dan raises; that since the same person (Paul) is writing to similar populations (churches with mixed Jewish/Gentile converts with Oral Torah/idolatry issues), we would have to assume that Romans 14 is at least in part dealing with this. In fact, we must infer some level of spiritual issues because Paul describes it as a matter of faith—again, personal preference does not suffice to make this argument.

At a more basic level, arguing that something was not a concern of a person because it was not directly mentioned in the text is a basic fallacy of arguing from silence. Let’s draw a picture; you are talking with your wife. Now just because she does not mention something is important to her, is it safe to assume that it really isn’t important to her?

The wise husband says “no way” and understands that in every conversation, there is a subtext; unspoken assumptions are instinctively assumed by one culture, but another culture must have them stated openly. An example from the Odyssey is that when Homer wants to describe pagan sacrifices, he rarely says as much. The phrase used is some form of “waving the thigh bone” to the deity being sacrificed to. The original readers/hearers would have understood this automatically; we have to have it explained to us.

In the same way, the meat & wine portions of Romans 14 have a subtext, just like any other literature. Notice that Paul does not explicitly say why one might object to eating meat or drinking wine; he simply notes that some have a scruple in this regard. This is—just like the conversation with your wife—not the place to assume that there is no subtext. It is the place to make a good analysis to figure out that that subtext might be.

And in 1 Corinthians 8-10, we have the same author writing to people from pretty much the same culture, and in this case, he mentions that temple markets are the issue for meat and wine. Now we can posit that the Romans may have had yet other reasons for disdaining meat and wine—reasons that we might deduce from a good understanding of other passages and Roman history—but that does not change the fact that there is a subtext in Roman culture that we will do well to heed.

Now what is at stake? Simple; if indeed Romans 14:1 ‘s comment about receiving those who are weak in faith suggests that there is something bigger than mere preference/offense involved, as the 1 Corinthians parallel would suggest, then Romans 14 does not constitute permission for a believer to say that he has a problem with “behavior A” and infringe on the liberty of others. To use a picture Don used in a sermon, Romans 14 does not require the pastor to switch to a KJV to preach when he notices people he suspects are KJVO in the congregation.

Or, to use the more direct picture, if someone tells me (cue Jim’s graph) that they have a conviction against the use of alcohol, there is nothing wrong with asking them how this impacts their faith. In fact, just as most KJVO activists really need someone to ask them “what real evidence to you have that non-TR manuscripts are corrupted?”, most “Group A” people in Jim’s taxonomy of liquor need to be asked “how does the drinking of liquor affect your faith?”

As I noted before, and as Jim noted, Romans 14 serves all too often as a means for legalists to hold their brothers in Christ hostage and abridge individual soul liberty. If we take a good look at the subtext, however, we get rid of this.

[BrianW]

I only mention Pilgrims because they were true conservatives. They walked the talk- practiced what they preached and were true lovers of God’s Word. Luther was also known to have his ale as a good German. Did not these men know the Scriptures?

Devil’s advocate: David was a bigamist.

JNoel,

Any scriptures you can post recognizing bigamy as a good gift from God?

Two categories are important to maintain in this discussion:

1. Use
2. Abuse

May the twain never meet.

[DavidO]

JNoel,

Any scriptures you can post recognizing bigamy as a good gift from God?

No; can you refresh my memory on scriptures that recognize consumption of alcoholic beverages to be a good gift from God?

I think Deuteronomy 14:26

but I am at work so didn’t look up….

back to work.

[JNoël]

DavidO wrote:

JNoel,

Any scriptures you can post recognizing bigamy as a good gift from God?

No; can you refresh my memory on scriptures that recognize consumption of alcoholic beverages to be a good gift from God?

Here you go.

By the way, pointing out David’s polygamy (not bigamy, that would be only two wives) is a “guilt by association” fallacy. Such “arguments” ought to have no place in theological discussions among mature believers, as they are the rhetorical equivalent of a spitball fight in junior high school.

[Dan Miller]

The phrase “connection to idolatry” is too unclear. 1 Cor 8-10 speaks of two different sorts of “idol-tainted” meat.
εἰδωλοθύτων - “idol-meat” - is meat that has been sacrificed to idols in the presence of the eater and eaten there, in the idol’s temple. That’s the stuff of 1 Cor 8-10:22.

1 Cor 10:25-30, though, is about meat from the market - much of which was leftover εἰδωλοθύτων - “idol-meat.”

Don Johnson wrote:

…If Rm 14 deals with idol meat at all, I would agree that it would be in the sense of 1 Cor 10:25-30, but not the meat of 1 Cor 8-10:22. But even in 1 Cor 10.25-30, he forbids the practice if the source is known. As noted above, Paul is here tolerating the practice. Would Paul tolerate in Romans what he would forbid in 1 Cor? I doubt it. I think we would have a serious problem with his authority if he did.
…

But Don, look at 1 for 10: 25-29

25 - go ahead and eat what is sold in the market

27 - If an unbeliever serves you meat, go ahead and eat it.

28 - BUT - if someone tells you, “This is idol-meat,” then don’t eat it for his sake.

29 - NOT for your sake. Only for the sake of the one who served it and ID‘d it as idol-meat.

The fact that you know it’s idol-meat doesn’t mean you can’t eat it. It’s the fact that the other guy knows that it’s idol-meat and cares enough to say so. And it’s only for his sake that you abstain. The unbeliever is respecting the idol by telling you that the meat is idol-meat.

Dan, I am with you on the interpretation up to this point. But here is where we see it differently:

1 Corinthians 10:25 Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’ sake;

Why no asking questions? What happens if the question is asked and you find out that in fact the meat sold in the market is idol-meat, what then? Isn’t the implication that as soon as you know it is idol-meat, it is off limits?

The way I understand 1 Cor 8-10, the bottom line is “Don’t eat idol-meat if it is identified as such” - although as meat by itself, it won’t hurt you. There are three reasons given in the passage but it all comes down to this, “don’t do it.”

In Romans, IF it is idol meat, he makes NO such prohibition. He says, “tolerate each other in your differences.” Since idol meat is prohibited in Acts 15 and related passages, since it is prohibited explicitly in 1 Cor 8-10, and also churches are condemned for allowing it in Rev 2, how can we say that Paul is now saying in Romans, “Oh, about that scruple about meat, tolerate each other.” If it is idol-meat, that is. Doesn’t make sense to me.

[Bert Perry]

By the way, pointing out David’s polygamy (not bigamy, that would be only two wives) is a “guilt by association” fallacy. Such “arguments” ought to have no place in theological discussions among mature believers, as they are the rhetorical equivalent of a spitball fight in junior high school.

Thank you for the link to the article. After clicking, I realized I read it several years ago. The fact that many minds far greater than mine continue to have the discussion reveals to me the issue is not as clear cut as the article tries to make it. I think the problem may be the apparent contradiction - if so many scriptures warn against consumption of alcohol, how does that contrast with those scriptures that apparently encourage it?

–

My point in bringing up David’s polygamy is that God didn’t deal with that sin the way I think he should have. God judged various other sins severely while seeming to ignore polygamy. But that does not mean God endorsed it. The fact that consumption of alcohol is seen in scripture does not automatically validate it. That’s all I meant by bringing up the multi-marriage comparison.

[Bert Perry]

Regarding Don’s exegesis, he’s more or less arguing that since Romans 14 doesn’t flat out state that the issue with meats and wines is idolatry, that we cannot assume that.

“more or less”? - Bert, it is a little disturbing that you don’t seem to make an effort to understand what I am saying.

[Bert Perry] In the same way, the meat & wine portions of Romans 14 have a subtext, just like any other literature. Notice that Paul does not explicitly say why one might object to eating meat or drinking wine; he simply notes that some have a scruple in this regard. This is—just like the conversation with your wife—not the place to assume that there is no subtext. It is the place to make a good analysis to figure out that that subtext might be.

And in 1 Corinthians 8-10, we have the same author writing to people from pretty much the same culture, and in this case, he mentions that temple markets are the issue for meat and wine. Now we can posit that the Romans may have had yet other reasons for disdaining meat and wine—reasons that we might deduce from a good understanding of other passages and Roman history—but that does not change the fact that there is a subtext in Roman culture that we will do well to heed.

No he doesn’t mention the temple markets except as an appendix to the main argument, meat eaten in idol temples. The markets aren’t mentioned until late in chapter 10. You need to read Gordon Fee on this, or, if you don’t have access to his commentary, read Tom Constable’s notes which rely a good deal on Fee. You can find Constable online and download his notes free.

Further, you are basing your argument on your assumption that you know what the so-called subtext is. In fact, you don’t. You are just guessing. That is called eisegesis, not exegesis. You aren’t getting it out of the text.

[Bert Perry] Now what is at stake? Simple; if indeed Romans 14:1 ‘s comment about receiving those who are weak in faith suggests that there is something bigger than mere preference/offense involved, as the 1 Corinthians parallel would suggest, then Romans 14 does not constitute permission for a believer to say that he has a problem with “behavior A” and infringe on the liberty of others. To use a picture Don used in a sermon, Romans 14 does not require the pastor to switch to a KJV to preach when he notices people he suspects are KJVO in the congregation.

Or, to use the more direct picture, if someone tells me (cue Jim’s graph) that they have a conviction against the use of alcohol, there is nothing wrong with asking them how this impacts their faith. In fact, just as most KJVO activists really need someone to ask them “what real evidence to you have that non-TR manuscripts are corrupted?”, most “Group A” people in Jim’s taxonomy of liquor need to be asked “how does the drinking of liquor affect your faith?”

As I noted before, and as Jim noted, Romans 14 serves all too often as a means for legalists to hold their brothers in Christ hostage and abridge individual soul liberty. If we take a good look at the subtext, however, we get rid of this.

I am not sure what you mean by this last line. Romans 14 admonishes believers to be tolerant of one another over religious scruples, not over differences regarding things tainted by evil (i.e., idolatry). And more than being tolerant, it admonishes the strong to restrain their practices for the purpose of building up the spiritual life of the weak (not convincing them their scruple is wrong).

I think you misunderstand my illustration about the KJV, but I’ll leave that aside since we don’t need to sidetrack the discussion further!

[Don Johnson]

…for daily consumption as a beverage, they mixed their alcohol in such a way that it was far less potent than drinking it straight - this included Greek and Roman practices, not just Jewish practice. The alcohol they had available was in fact less potent than the alcohol available today.

Let’s examine this.

What I see today is that many abstentionists will “excuse” the consumption of alcohol in biblical times because it was mixed/diluted with water. (The presumption is that this was done because water quality was often suspect, and the alcohol in wine would purify/make safe contaminated water to drink.)

The ratio of water to wine that is typically stated is 3 parts water to 1 part wine (a 3:1 ratio). (Sometimes you’ll see claims that the ratio was as much as 20:1, but this ratio actually comes from Greek mythology: Homer’s Odyssey. In the poem, there is mention of a magical wine that was potent even at the extreme ratio of 20:1. In practice, such a dilution rate would be too weak for the alcohol to have the intended effect of purification.)

Since (non-fortified) wines are typically in the range of 8% to 14% alcohol, dilution at a ratio of 3:1 would reduce the alcohol content to, let’s say, 3% to 4% (just to round off). Compared to today’s alcoholic beverages, this would fall roughly in the range of many common beers (per Google):

3.5% Heineken Premium Light, Amstel Light
4.0% Guinness Black
4.2% Bud/Coors Light
4.6% Corona Extra
5.0% Coors/Budweiser/MGD/Stella Artois
5.0% Heineken

So at a ratio of 3:1, mixed/diluted wine in biblical times would appear to have alcohol content comparable to many of today’s common beers.

–––––––––––––—

If wine consumption in biblical times gets a pass because it was often diluted, let me present a scenario for today:

Joe B. Liever walks into a restaurant & orders a ribeye. He thinks a glass of red wine (approx. a 5.5 oz. serving) would complement the steak, so he orders one. (Let’s say its alcohol content is 14%.) As he sips the wine, he alternates sipping from a 16 oz. glass of water. The net effect of the 16 oz. of water mixing with the 5.5 oz. of wine in his stomach is a dilution of about 3:1.

Questions: Does Joe get the same pass that is afforded to wine-drinkers in biblical times? Has Joe just sinned? If not, what is the real issue behind a belief in abstentionism today?

No, Don, I understand your argument. You have argued, repeatedly, that since the word idolatry does not appear in Romans 14, that we are powerless to infer it. In other words, you are committing the logical fallacy of an argument from silence.

Sorry, but sound exegesis do take a look at parallel passages from the same author and the culture at hand. One may get it right, and one may get it wrong, but either way, there is a subtext—things that Paul did not need to say, but we need clarified. In this case, Rome and Corinth shared a common Apostle, a common language, common pagan gods, and common institutions, including temple markets where the poor could buy food cheaply. Hence it is a reasonable inference that part of what Paul was getting at—beyond Jewish traditions—was not a simple “scruple”, but rather a genuine concern over whether a believer ought to be buying meat that had been sacrificed.

And in that light, we find that a lot of the “scruples” that fundamentalists entertain—like an abhorrence of wine (but not meat of course) or the Majority Text or the Eclectic Text—are not what Paul was getting at. They need to be confronted, not coddled, because they’re really about personal preference and not any test of faith.

[JNoël]

Bert Perry wrote:

By the way, pointing out David’s polygamy (not bigamy, that would be only two wives) is a “guilt by association” fallacy. Such “arguments” ought to have no place in theological discussions among mature believers, as they are the rhetorical equivalent of a spitball fight in junior high school.

Thank you for the link to the article. After clicking, I realized I read it several years ago. The fact that many minds far greater than mine continue to have the discussion reveals to me the issue is not as clear cut as the article tries to make it. I think the problem may be the apparent contradiction - if so many scriptures warn against consumption of alcohol, how does that contrast with those scriptures that apparently encourage it?

–

My point in bringing up David’s polygamy is that God didn’t deal with that sin the way I think he should have. God judged various other sins severely while seeming to ignore polygamy. But that does not mean God endorsed it. The fact that consumption of alcohol is seen in scripture does not automatically validate it. That’s all I meant by bringing up the multi-marriage comparison.

The question, however, is not whether Scripture mentions it. It is whether Scripture mentions it as a blessing from God. I think if we’re honest, we’ve got to say that yes, God’s word emphatically describes wine as a blessing to His people—in moderation, of course, but a blessing nonetheless. Hence an appeal to the principle that “description does not equal prescription” fails for the simple reason that God’s word does not merely describe the use of wine, but rather notes that it is a blessing for God’s people.

Again, we don’t have to drink, and certainly we ought not forget the plight of the alcoholic or problem drinker. But when we take a look at Scripture as a whole, we cannot support the notion that all alcoholic beverages are evil. It simply doesn’t come from the text. Put bluntly, do we believe Sola Scriptura and the first fundamental, or do we not?