Strong Drink (Deut. 14:26)

Can you ask the Lord what you will and He will do it? God talked and listened to His covenant People. Jesus told His Apostles to just ask and it is yours.

Did Jesus ever condemn man for making wine - Mark 2:22? If he allows for us to make it, surely it should be put to use.

 

Next round is on me.

 

Huh?

 

God did not allow the making of alcoholic wine in Mark 2:22. As a matter of fact, Jesus taught to put new wine into new bottles. The old bottles have the sediment from old wine in them and would cause the new wine to ferment causing the old skins to expand and burst.

Mark 2:22 is not an allowance to make alcoholic beverages.

 

Wow. I've heard lots of people explain away all the obvious references to real wine, but this one is new to me, and the most imaginative artful dodge yet.

 

Coming from a heritage of an Italian culture with my fore-fathers making their own wine both here and in Italy, I can tell you that you need do nothing to freshly squeezed grape juice but let it sit at room temperature and it will become either wine or vinegar just sitting in the container.
The fermenting yeast is in the grape itself.

Untreated, old fashion apple cider does the same thing.

Mark 7

18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;​

Matthew 15

16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.​

The Scripture teaches sobriety not abstinence (with one exception).​

Your brother's spiritual health is the scriptural reason to practice abstinence from alcoholic beverage.​

Romans 14
20 For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.
21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.​

Why press this issue?

Because our motive needs to be pure, not one of puffing ourselves up because we (perhaps) see ourselves as "holier than thou".

"Love one another". This is the pure motive.

NKJV ​

1 Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;​

HankD

 

Why press the issue?

Because there are many false prophets gone out into the world deceiving and being deceived.

Because God's Word says 'Don't have experience with alocoholic beverage. Because God's Word commands us to abstain from drinking wine.

If it tells us in one verse that we can drink wine and in another we are to abstain completely... if both wines are alcoholic, then we have a contradiction in the Word of God.

Obviously, there is no contradiction. One is speaking of alcohol, the other is not.

Now we know that alcohol perverts ones judgment. Why would the alcoholic wine be the one that we are told to drink and the non alcoholic be forbidden? The answer, it would not be.

The Word of God tells us to be wise as serpents but harmless as doves. We cannot be wise if we are imbibing that which bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. We cannot be wise in partaking of that which God's Word clearly forbids in His Children.

 

You are living proof.

Because alcohol kills bacteria.

 

And bacteria is almost always a symbol of evil, esp. in the OT. That's the reason for unleavened bread, etc. Welch's wasn't around back then, so all grape juice had bacteria in it, and the way to purify it was to allow it to ferment so that the alchohol would kill off all the bacteria.

 

You have to remember that they didn't have crystal pure water like we do, so the average Joe (average Isaac?) would find it safer to drink wine than anything else.

We all use Clorox here and Lysol there, so, in that spirit, just think of using Black Jack for disinfecting purposes.

 

His Blood Spoke My Name, you are still relying on dictionary games to prove your "total abstinence from all things alcohol" point. You also still have not adequately addressed the OP, Deuteronomy 14:26, in which during the annual tithing festivals, the people could eat and drink "whatsoever thy soul lusteth after," including wine3196, and strong drink7914. There is absolutely no wiggle room in the definitions of either of these Hebrew words, and this is coming from the mouth of God in His own laws.

H3196
יין
yayin
yah'-yin
From an unused root meaning to effervesce; wine (as fermented); by implication intoxication: - banqueting, wine, wine [-bibber].

H7941
שׁכר
shêkâr
shay-kawr'
From H7937; an intoxicant, that is, intensely alcoholic liquor: - strong drink, + drunkard, strong wine.

 

I have not used dictionaries, but rather, reliable sources. The Word of God first off, Strongs Exhaustive and Strongs Concise Concordance, and many commentaries.

I do not need dictionaries to show me what is allowed in the walk of a Christian. God's Holy Spirit has revealed to me that we are to abstain. I need not agree with man when God has spoken.

 

Never in my wildest imagination thirty years ago could I ever believe I would have found myself as a conservative presbyterian taking the side of abstainance with so many Baptists arguing the other way.

At that time, Baptists were admired as someone who stood the high moral ground. This is just not so, and it is not a small minority either.

If Romans 12:1, life experience, common sense, and Holy Spirit conviction is not enough for you to be convinced (forget the greek and hebrew, what a ridiculous nit picking excuse to drink), then the situation is beyond hope.

 

It is a reference of what not to do for the home bottler, and maker of wines.

 

If I had read further I'd have noticed no need for an answer to His Blood Spoke My Name with your and npetreley replies

 

Really not arguing. Mostly pointing to scripture to show outright verification that we today (and His Nation then) were given authority to spend our money on what ever we find acceptable to us as Christians. He has provided for each one of us, and He lets us know we have freedom and liberty in Christ Jesus. We are not to take advantage of our position in him, or abuse our privileges, and we are not to judge others by what we think to be sin. Nowhere does the Bible say you shall not drink what I gave you to make your heart glad.

 

Not directly in our language today, but in the original Hebrew and Greek, it shows that the wine that maketh the heart glad cannot be fermented. That has been shown over and over ... [attack snipped.]

The Word of God shows in Deuteronomy that the Israelites refrained from drinking alcoholic beverage!

Deuteronomy 29:6 (KJV) Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I [am] the LORD your God.

Moses telling them to buy what their souls lusted after was a test. Apparently they passed the test, for the twenty-ninth chapter shows they did not drink wine nor strong drink. Nowhere between chapter fourteen and chapter twenty-nine do we see the Israelites went out and did what Moses told them to do in Chapter fourteen verse twenty-six.

 

I have shown before that your reasoning here is flawed, and yet you just ignore it. Deuteronomy 29:6 was given in reference to the wilderness wanderings, just before they were to enter the promised land. The point of this was to acknowledge that God sustained the people through His power. This verse is a continuation of the previous verse in which it is said that their clothes did not wear out. According to verse 6, would it be wrong to eat bread?

Although chapters 12-14 were given chronologically before chapter 29, they were commandments, laws, and ceremonies to be observed when the people would take the Promised Land, which would happen after chapter 29. There was no "test" that they passed. Chapters 12 and 14 are part of the Levitical laws that would be observed annually after they entered the Promised Land after chapter 29.

 

Show me Scripture where the Israelites drank strong drink and wine in the chapters following chapter 14 in Deuteronomy please. I cannot find it.