On the "requirement" to be a teetotaler

[TimG]

Jim

I can appreciate the fact that gluttony is a sin, in one sense, as drunkenness is a sin. But my friends haven’t lost their lives to sugar addicts. I haven’t watched marriages destroyed by sugar. I don’t see children in sub-first-world conditions going hungry while their parents consume their paychecks on sugar. The social costs of alcohol to societies has been vastly different. Having watched Christian women who were shy young ladies at one point in their lives later destroy their marriage through sexual promiscuity with a neighbor or an acquaintance while under the influence of alcohol puts alcohol, in inebriating quantities, under a difficult category.

No debate that drunkenness—as defined in Scripture—is not a disputable matter. But just for curiosity’s sake, I googled what portion of car accidents are due to medical events (usually heart attacks, diabetic seizures, etc..), and found that it may be 5-10%. That would be up to 3-4000 traffic deaths per year—and for reference, I’ve personally assisted as an epileptic crashed (slowly, thankfully) into a tree. Nowhere near as many as the ~10,000 traffic deaths related to alcohol, and it’s often harder to tell when it’s a heart attack or such (no clear smell like whiskey), but it does in fact happen.

But regarding gluttony and obesity, obesity kills about 300k per year, and heart disease about twice that amount. My grandfather, at about 5’8” and 220 lbs, was one of them, and it came close to ending my dad’s time in college. Dying half a year before your pension is vested will do that. Going further, if we look closely at the “organ recitals” (health concerns) we hear each Wednesday at prayer meeting, apart from cancer it’s mostly the consequences of overweight and gluttony, and even a fair number of cancers (colon, breast) are linked.

We react more to sins of drunkenness really because (a) they are not generally ours and (b) the consequences are more immediate, not because they are more severe. Gluttony and sloth kill far more people than does overindulgence in alcohol. Plus, if we want to teach about gluttony and a proper attitude towards work, we end up at the very same place we might go to discuss drunkenness—Proverbs 23. I think Solomon, at the urging of the Spirit, did that for a reason.

Here’s a table for calculating blood alcohol content for your weight and sex. The symptoms described in Proverbs 23 end up at about 0.15%-.2% BAC, in my view. For a man my weight—210 lbs—that’s 8-10 beers, two bottles of wine, or about eight to ten shots (12-15 oz) of hard liquor. Divide that by two to be below the legal limit for driving.

Put gently, one does not need to dilute an ounce of wine with four ounces of water to be, Biblically and legally speaking, sober. Both Biblical and legal standards are set up for when a person is seriously impaired. You might also conclude—as does any partier at a school like my alma mater—that if drunkenness “sneaks up” on someone, hard liquor is generally going to be involved. Otherwise getting drunk will simply take too much work, and quite frankly too many trips to the bathroom.

I am all for teaching, Biblically and practically, about the dangers of drunkenness. I do it with my kids. My dad did it with me, and the hard liquor warnings (and how to spot a party where it was flowing freely) were quite valuable.

[Bert Perry]

TimG wrote:

hmmm… http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

MADD, FADD etc. throw around stats of over 60% auto fatalities alcohol related.

Jim

I can appreciate the fact that gluttony is a sin, in one sense, as drunkenness is a sin. But my friends haven’t lost their lives to sugar addicts. I haven’t watched marriages destroyed by sugar. I don’t see children in sub-first-world conditions going hungry while their parents consume their paychecks on sugar. The social costs of alcohol to societies has been vastly different. Having watched Christian women who were shy young ladies at one point in their lives later destroy their marriage through sexual promiscuity with a neighbor or an acquaintance while under the influence of alcohol puts alcohol, in inebriating quantities, under a difficult category.

No debate that drunkenness—as defined in Scripture—is not a disputable matter. But just for curiosity’s sake, I googled what portion of car accidents are due to medical events (usually heart attacks, diabetic seizures, etc..), and found that it may be 5-10%. That would be up to 3-4000 traffic deaths per year—and for reference, I’ve personally assisted as an epileptic crashed (slowly, thankfully) into a tree. Nowhere near as many as the ~10,000 traffic deaths related to alcohol, and it’s often harder to tell when it’s a heart attack or such (no clear smell like whiskey), but it does in fact happen.

But regarding gluttony and obesity, obesity kills about 300k per year, and heart disease about twice that amount. My grandfather, at about 5’8” and 220 lbs, was one of them, and it came close to ending my dad’s time in college. Dying half a year before your pension is vested will do that. Going further, if we look closely at the “organ recitals” (health concerns) we hear each Wednesday at prayer meeting, apart from cancer it’s mostly the consequences of overweight and gluttony, and even a fair number of cancers (colon, breast) are linked.

We react more to sins of drunkenness really because (a) they are not generally ours and (b) the consequences are more immediate, not because they are more severe. Gluttony and sloth kill far more people than does overindulgence in alcohol. Plus, if we want to teach about gluttony and a proper attitude towards work, we end up at the very same place we might go to discuss drunkenness—Proverbs 23. I think Solomon, at the urging of the Spirit, did that for a reason.

Bert:

I once arrested a drunken sailor who had a 0.435 BAC - verified by blood analysis. This has nothing to do with this topic, but I felt compelled to share this amazing fact. I defy anybody to beat that.

Tyler; no, thank you, especially since .3 and up is generally lethal. Somebody was very lucky to be alive.

One other thing to add about the dilution topic is Isaiah 1:22—your choice wine is diluted—which would suggest that at least some people liked to drink it straight. I do not know whether this was about the former plenteousness of wine and a paucity at the time, or whether people could drink wine straight because they didn’t go to the bathroom near their wells (like most gentiles, sigh), or what, but it introduces all kinds of questions.

Which is a nice way of sneaking into a “thank you” to TIm for his comments from Maccabees—hopefully he repents of that Romish book (ha), but the argument from example is well taken, as is the CDC link.

Isn’t Isaiah 1:22 a statement about judgment conditions? In other words, isn’t diluted wine presented here as an undesirable consequence of disobedience to God, and hence God’s judgment? Isn’t Isaiah saying that an economic downturn, the result of God’s judgment, will force them to drink diluted wine? Doesn’t this indicate that when God’s blessings abounded, they did not drink diluted wine? Doesn’t this indicate that for the Jews of Isaiah’s day, undiluted wine was the norm, the desired condition, and diluted wine was only practiced when hardship required it? Just asking. Perhaps I have it all wrong.

You both bring up a great question from Isaiah 1:22 and this is the one and only text that I have found that argues against my position with absolute consistency in the entirety of the Scriptures. Every other text I have examined, if interpreted through a wine-mingled-with-water paradigm fits perfectly. Except this one.

The Hebrew verb is mahal which means watered down, diluted. It is followed by a preposition that typically means “by/in/with” and the noun “water.” Put together = “diluted with water” and it is clearly a bad thing in Isaiah’s mind. Why would this be a bad thing if the social paradigm was that wine should be mingled with water? Is this akin to saying, “May your wine (that you are going to mingle with your water) be powerless, tasteless and unsatisfying?” That’s a difficult argument to make.

So my question of this text is whether this is a curse on your wine that says, “may your wine be impotent” or does it recognize mingling wine with water as a matter of economy during hardship and indicative of hardship, completely against the Maccabean and other testimonies that say wine mingled with water was the norm. I have to yield the high ground to you on this text for the moment. Every other text I’ve found fits except this one.

[Bert Perry]

…

On the flip side, there is a point where a Romans 14 or 1 Cornithians 8 conviction becomes sin, and that’s when we start to contradict Scripture in defending our convictions. If Scripture says wine is a blessing—and it repeatedly does—by what Biblical logic do we call it a curse? Isn’t it sin to contradict the Bible?

I can go with a number of abstentionist arguments, but contradicting Scripture crosses a line where I can no longer call it a conviction, let alone a beautiful one. We are to be conformed to His image, not the other way around, no? I’m OK with abstaining for the sake of those who cannot be moderate—with alcohol or certain foods, even—but a line is crossed when we call God’s blessings curses.

Indeed, Scripture calls wine a blessing. To call God’s gift evil is a sin; that is the sin of blasphemy. But note that Romans 14:16 places a burden on those who are able to drink. They are to Take steps so that the unable don’t blaspheme. Therefore, one can hold an legitimate conviction against alcohol with or without going on to blasphemy.

Therefore, Paul knew that the unable would often (and unfortunately) possess universal-evil thoughts about his conviction, yet Paul still presented the conviction itself as the persuasion of his mind, order of his Master, and duty to follow.

Sooner or later this whole discussion boils down to a single concept: is drinking alcoholic beverages ever the same as drinking any other beverage or eating any other particular food?

[Dan Miller]

Bert Perry wrote:

…

Indeed, Scripture calls wine a blessing. To call God’s gift evil is a sin; that is the sin of blasphemy. But note that Romans 14:16 places a burden on those who are able to drink. They are to Take steps so that the unable don’t blaspheme. Therefore, one can hold an legitimate conviction against alcohol with or without going on to blasphemy.

Therefore, Paul knew that the unable would often (and unfortunately) possess universal-evil thoughts about his conviction, yet Paul still presented the conviction itself as the persuasion of his mind, order of his Master, and duty to follow.

Really, this very concept is why I wrote the original post, and a couple of follow-ups, as well. Can we imagine any more loving thing for the brother laboring under false information than to give him what the Word actually says?

Bert and others,

For I have become like a wineskin in smoke, Yet I do not forget Your statutes. -Psalm 119:83

The Bible does not speak in detail about how they dressed and preserved meat, but that no more means they only had rotten meat than that they were helpless in preserving various kinds of wine. Scripture does not detail many of the skills of that day. The above verse, however, alludes to some of this practice.

Fire and cooking are often mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 22:6; Exodus 12:8; John 18:18; 21:9; Acts 28:2….). Israel was more forested in that day (modern Israel is bringing that back). They certainly had the ability to boil wine.

As to boiling wine in the ancient world:

“The caldron room, in which boiled wine is made, should be neither narrow nor dark, so that the attendant who is boiling down the must may move around without inconvenience.”

“The more the must is boiled down – provided it not be burnt – the better and the thicker it becomes.”

- Columella (4 BC-c. AD 70) a Roman.

Aristotle spoke of wine so thick it had to be scraped from the wineskin.

Hippocrates (c. 460 BC – 370) often mentioned boiled wine.

“With Vulcan’s aid boils the sweet must-juice down, and skims with leaves the quivering cauldron’s wave.” -Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC).

Patrick E. McGovern is a pro-drinking secular authority on ancient and modern wine. He said, “Concentrating grape juice down by heating is still used to make the popular shireh of modern Iran and was known to the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia as well as the Greeks and Romans. It enables fruit to be preserved, and, diluted with water, it produces a refreshing, nonalcoholic beverage.” -Ancient Wine: The Search For The Origins Of Viniculture by Patrick E. McGovern, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2003.

These quotes and many more, and more detail are given in “Ancient Wine and the Bible.” Many Scriptures are discussed:

http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2014/10/scripture-index-for-ancient…

David R. Brumbelow

A summary of my view in favor of abstinence from alcoholic beverages is here:

http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2013/03/ancient-wine-production-and…

The Scripture Index, mentioned above, even includes Isaiah 1:22.

David R. Brumbelow

[pvawter]

I highly recommend Randy Jaeggli’s “Christians and Alcohol.” He debunks many of the silly arguments made by teetotalers and offers a balanced argument for abstinence.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1606824899/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=147…

This book was originally met with criticism from Fundamentalists, pulled by BJU Press, partially rewritten, and then reissued:

http://sharperiron.org/tags/people/randy-jaeggli