Baptist Kids Learn Exciting Account Of Jesus Turning Water Into Grape Juice

Very simple answer, Bert. What I’m saying is not false. But you seem to have a real problem when someone disagrees with you.

By the way, as I’ve pointed out here before, it is not the alcohol in wine that is heart healthy.

“Alcohol is not actually heart-healthy…Red wine contains some beneficial compounds such as flavonoids and resveratrol, a potent antioxidant in the skin of grapes associated with a number of health benefits. Of course, grapes, raisins, berries, and other plant foods also contain these beneficial compounds. You do not have to drink wine to gain these benefits.” -Joel Fuhrman, M.D., The End of Diabetes; 2013.

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

Very simple answer, Bert. What I’m saying is not false. But you seem to have a real problem when someone disagrees with you.

By the way, as I’ve pointed out here before, it is not the alcohol in wine that is heart healthy.

“Alcohol is not actually heart-healthy…Red wine contains some beneficial compounds such as flavonoids and resveratrol, a potent antioxidant in the skin of grapes associated with a number of health benefits. Of course, grapes, raisins, berries, and other plant foods also contain these beneficial compounds. You do not have to drink wine to gain these benefits.” -Joel Fuhrman, M.D., The End of Diabetes; 2013.

David R. Brumbelow

I don’t know if Dr. Fuhrman is the best person to quote, since he is more of a quack nutrition physician. Men’s journal stated he “preaches something closer to fruitarianism or Christian Science than to conventional medical wisdom.”

What Joel notes about Fuhrman. Like most medical doctors, he has little or no training in diatetics, and his diet is actually dangerous because he excludes animal products—the only source of vitamin B12 in the diet. Really, if you count him as an expert in diatetics, you’d better be a vegan, and then you run into some serious issues with the Scriptures as well.

(my late mother was a dietician, and one of her big pet peeves was how medical doctors are not trained in diatetics, but many of them—Atkins, Pritikin, Fuhrman, and a host of others—use the presumed prestige of the MD degree to sell diet books where they are completely unqualified….it’s a good business, but a complete lack of professional ethics)

One of many demonstrably false claims you’ve made, and which you repeat even after they’re pointed out to you, David. Others include that fermentation is “rotting”, that grape juice has no health consequences, that there are no medical benefits to wine, that drinkers admit they do it for the alcohol, and a whole bunch more. Sorry, brother, but you’ve got a real credibility problem.

“Does grape juice offer the same heart benefits as red wine?

Possibly. Some research studies suggest that red and purple grape juices may provide some of the same heart benefits of red wine, including:

Reducing the risk of blood clots

Reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol

Preventing damage to blood vessels in your heart

Helping maintain a healthy blood pressure

Grapes are rich in health-protecting antioxidants, including resveratrol and flavonoids. These antioxidants are found mainly in the skin, stem, leaf and seeds of grapes, rather than in their pulp.

Keep in mind that it’s also beneficial to eat whole grapes — not just grape juice. Some research suggests that whole grapes deliver the same amount of antioxidants that are ingrape juice and wine but have the added benefit of providing dietary fiber.”

-Answers from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eatin…

A medical doctor told a deacon in my church to start drinking wine for his heart. Next visit the doctor asked and he said he never drank and was not going to start now. The doctor replied, “Well, drink grape juice, it does the same thing.”

David R. Brumbelow

A medical doctor told a deacon in my church to start drinking wine for his heart. Next visit the doctor asked and he said he never drank and was not going to start now. The doctor replied, “Well, drink grape juice, it does the same thing.”

David R. Brumbelow

This week my cardiologist told me that wine was better. BTW, he said he’s been asked the question many times during his more than 40 years of practice.

Brother Aaron:

Thanks for your reply. I’d like to reply to your follow-up both from a general view of hamartiology and also specifically to the passage in question.

From a general viewpoint of hamartiology:
Regardless of how you frame the argument, it is the causal relationship between alcoholic consumption and the sin of inebriation that leads one to conclude that the product is defective or potentially harmful. The larger point is, that there is nothing that Jesus has made or created that man can’t use outside of its divinely intended purpose (sin). Even His name, given among men, can be used outside its intended purpose.

Therefore, God has always created substances and things that He knew would cause men to stumble and sin. To say that X is “safer” than Y and that God should just have created X only denies the fact that man can corruptly use ANYTHING that God has made.

From the specific passage in question:
Apart from the hamartiological issue, I don’t see anything internally wrong with the logic of the clause/premise argument that you are proposing Jesus used in making wine.

Aaron wrote: Other things being equal, A is better without potentially harmful substance B included. Premise 2: Jesus would have no difficulty accomplishing the “other things being equal” and making A without B.

However, the issue that gives me pause is using it as a hermeneutic tool. We are using this clause/premise relationship to force a reading on to John 2. So the questions are begged, by what basis do we know that God uses this framework to base all his creation decisions on? and also, If He does not base all his creation and supply decisions on this clause/premise relationship, by what basis do we apply it to John 2?

I posit that we have no right to do either.

Furthermore, we have to remember that John 2 is not a contextualess creation. His action was motivated by His mother’s observation that there was no more wine. I believe that had His mother not made the statement of petition, there would have been no miracle since His time had not yet come. His mother specifically stated that there was no more wine, not that there was nothing left to drink. This was a petition to supply more of the same substance, not just any beverage available. In order to fulfill His mother’s statement of petition, the beverage provided had to be of the same essence to which she was referring.

So we’re left at this point - was that specific beverage that needed to be replenished grape juice or alcoholic wine? We can either use exegetical hermeneutics to ascertain, or we can apply the clause/premise relationship to the passage.

I am personally convicted that a non-presuppositional exegetical hermeneutic is the best choice.

David, I’m glad that you’re quoting a good source, but Mayo doesn’t say what you want to say. You claim that “there are no good reasons to drink beverage alcohol”.

However, the very word possibly at the start of the very article you link indicates that….there are peer reviewed journal articles which suggest that yes, there are definitely real health benefits to using alcoholic beverages in moderation, especially red wine.

Really, David, with all I’ve seen of your work, your citation of authorities can only graciously be described as “opportunistic”, where you ignore very serious issues with the sources simply because it sort of says what you want to say. Any stick, as it were, as long as you can beat on beverage alcohol with it, and you’re not particularly interested in their credibility (Fuhrman), their applicability (Roman noblemen 4000 miles away from Israel), their methods (Bob Jones 1 on John 2), or even what the sources actually say. This is a really, really, really bad habit that you need to repent of.

[Aaron Blumer]

My argument is far simpler than you have tried to make it. Your analogies don’t answer the argument because they are not actually causes.

The argument is extremely simple:

Other things being equal, A is better without potentially harmful substance B included. Premise 2: Jesus would have no difficulty accomplishing the “other things being equal” and making A without B.

I appreciate John Lee’s extended comment here, but another way of viewing Aaron’s comment is the simple question of whether, a thousand years before the distilling column was invented, and even longer before alcohol was identified as a unique substance (apparently in the 18th or 19th century), people would have seen the presence of alcohol as an inherent defect. Given that (1 Tim. 5:23) Scripture and history suggest that people did understand that alcoholic beverages did have properties that helped health from very early times, I would dare say no.

The question, then, is whether the party could have enjoyed real wine of their preference (Luke 5:39 and elsewhere, pretty much a dry red) without getting drunk. Now 100-180 gallons sounds like a lot, but if we’re talking (as the historians claim) that a typical wedding would have hundreds of guests and last for a week, you could go through that in a day without anyone’s BAC getting past .02%.

It is certainly possible that He made wine without alcohol, but just as certainly the text does not require it—it’s guesswork on our parts.

[Bert Perry]

The question, then, is whether the party could have enjoyed real wine of their preference (Luke 5:39 and elsewhere, pretty much a dry red) without getting drunk. Now 100-180 gallons sounds like a lot, but if we’re talking (as the historians claim) that a typical wedding would have hundreds of guests and last for a week, you could go through that in a day without anyone’s BAC getting past .02%.

It is certainly possible that He made wine without alcohol, but just as certainly the text does not require it—it’s guesswork on our parts.

–––––––––––––––––––––-

BAC Level Generalized Dose Specific Effects:

0.020-0.039% No loss of coordination, slight euphoria, and loss of shyness. Relaxation, but depressant effects are not apparent.

0.040-0.059% Feeling of well-being, relaxation, lower inhibitions, and sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of judgment and memory, lowering of caution.

0.06-0.099% Slight impairment of balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing. Euphoria. Reduced judgment and self-control. Impaired reasoning and memory. [NOTE: The legal driving limit in most states is .08, the midpoint of this range.]

0.100-0.129% Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgment. Speech may be slurred; balance, peripheral vision, reaction time, and hearing will be impaired.

0.130-0.159% Gross motor impairment and lack of physical control. Blurred vision and major loss of balance. Euphoria is reducing and beginning dysphoria (a state of feeling unwell)

0.160-0.199% Dysphoria predominates, nausea may appear. The drinker has the appearance of a sloppy drunk.

0.200-0.249% Needs assistance in walking; total mental confusion. Dysphoria with nausea and vomiting; possible blackout.

0.250-0.399% Alcohol poisoning. Loss of consciousness.

0.40% + Onset of coma, possible death due to respiratory arrest.

http://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-being/alcohol/blood-alcohol-concentration/

I would respectfully submit that anyone who views the idea of insobriety as a matter of BAC is a legalist, and an enormous one at that.

Just like the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-22), we can say that we have followed God’s law by following the letter of the law.

But when it came to the end of the day, God’s test as to whether we have used alcohol in a godly and spiritual way will not be whether we can point to the BAC list and tell him “See, I never went above this limit!”

Anyone who thinks this way has got another thing coming.

[JBL]

I would respectfully submit that anyone who views the idea of insobriety as a matter of BAC is a legalist, and an enormous one at that.

Just like the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-22), we can say that we have followed God’s law by following the letter of the law.

But when it came to the end of the day, God’s test as to whether we have used alcohol in a godly and spiritual way will not be whether we can point to the BAC list and tell him “See, I never went above this limit!”

Anyone who thinks this way has got another thing coming.

Agreed 100% that if we’re simply drinking as much as we can without “crossing the line”, we go into legalism in the same way the abstentionist who trusts in his abstention does.

My goal, and I’d guess Larry’s as well, is simply to provide something of a reference point that we can apply against Biblical (Proverbs 23) and legal (DUI laws) in the same way we’d suggest that a brother concerned about gluttony to do a “gut check”. Being “below the line”, or “having six pack abs”, are no guarantee that one is enjoying wine or food Biblically, but it is an indication that things haven’t gotten too far out of hand.

Baker’s yeast is originally a byproduct of brewing, and the “diastatic malt” used as a help to rising bread is the same stuff that brewers use to make beer. So if you want to avoid being tainted by the brewing industry, you need to grind your own grain, malt your own barley, and make your own wild sourdough starter. And even then, you’ll notice that you’ve used malting advice from a homebrewer, and of course the yeast in your starter will still produce alcohol.

No way of escaping that taint, I guess, except for avoiding any wheat product entirely, unless you grind your own bread wheat and don’t allow any barley or yeast products near it.