Day: October 14, 2008

Newsletters On Alcohol and the Christian

/ Tim A. / 2 Comments

The following is from the October edition of the Barry County Southern Baptist Association’s Newsletter.  Brother Jerry Williams is our Director of Missions, and he introduces David Baker.  Read and hear these important words that Christians of the day need very greatly to heed.

A NOTE FROM YOUR DOM

I recently received a Newsletter from FBC of Belton, MO where Bro. David Baker is pastor. I would like to share with you his article entitled, “Should a Christian Drink Alcoholic Beverages?”

He writes, “Strong drink? What does the Bible actually say? The reason the issue of alcoholic drinks or beverages being appropriate for the Christian is even debated, is that most of our pastors, theologians, and other Christian leaders simply do not understand the Biblical text.

We have several problems that have led to a clear misunderstanding of the text. The first, our seminaries and Bible schools, have not required that our young pastors are adequately trained in Biblical languages. Second, many our most renowned theological commentators on the text entered into this debate with a clear bias, they were imbibing or were looking for an excuse to continue using alcohol as a beverage. As a result, they interpreted the text in error. Third, the approach of many pastors and scholars to hermeneutics have been flawed by a lack of textual and historical knowledge. Fourth, we have allowed the trends of our modern culture to affect our practical application of the text. Fifth, we greatly underestimate the power of sin.

Many pastors are guilty of accepting popular ideas about the Bible, particularly presuppositions, which upon a more objective analysis of the text, are simply not true. In my own case, after undergraduate studies in classical Greek, and nearly four years in Biblical Greek, I came to the conclusion that we must examine the text as it is, not with the intent of establishing cultural acceptance. It was my good fortune to study under one of the finest Greek scholars ever produced in Baptist life, certainly not a Biblical conservative, but a brilliant teacher. I have also been fortunate in becoming acquainted some of our current Greek and Hebrew scholars, particularly with the work of the late Stephen Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds earned his Ph.D. in Biblical and oriental languages at Princeton University where he studied under the teaching of Henry Gehman, Phillip Hitti, and Harold Bendes. He also worked in the field of Biblical archaeology under Dr. William Albright. He is known for his articles in Baker’s Dictionary of Ethics which is edited by Dr. Carl F. H. Henry. Dr. Reynolds published the most exhaustive study on this subject I have seen in 2003 called The Biblical Approach to Alcohol. This book was a project of the Lorine L. Reynolds Foundation, a foundation committed to issues of Biblical translation.

Stephen Reynolds says, “The fact is there is no evidence anywhere that Jesus ever drank a single drop of alcohol.” He goes on to examine every Biblical text with a rigorously objective hermeneutic, and draws the conclusion that the Biblical evidence overwhelmingly supports the position of total abstinence from alcohol beverages. He also notes the historic bias of many theologians on this issue, and he comments concerning his own exegesis, “I am, however, rather confident that they cannot be proved contrary to sound rules…” After years of my own study on this issue, and after carefully examining Dr. Reynolds work and conclusions, I am deeply convinced that the only consistently Biblical position on the matter of beverage alcohol, is total abstinence. This is the position that I hold without apology, and expound consistently.

Baptists have historically held to the position of total abstinence. While I am aware that there are those who deny that more ancient Baptists held to this position, my own study indicates that the earliest Baptists in North America were amazingly consistent in their opposition to the sale and use of intoxicating drink. Even without the knowledge available to us today of the Biblical languages, our forefathers saw the terrible toll of alcohol on the culture, and condemned it for practical reasons. We should at least have this much common sense. I have listened to the arguments favoring the use of alcohol patiently. I am not convinced. I believe the text, rightfully interpreted, is clear. If there are those who hold otherwise, I shall say with John Huss, “Mighty is the truth, and it will prevail.” David Baker

I too believe and practice total abstinence and am totally convinced that it is the Biblical position.

I stand with Bro. Baker and will continue to preach against the use of drinking alcoholic beverages.

Bro. Jerry-DOM

Let me end by asking this question as a matter to provoke some serious thought.  There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of testimonies of former drunks, and alcoholics and social drinkers who upon coming to faith in Jesus Christ immediately turn away from alcoholic beverages; it puzzles me greatly and makes me wonder seriously why some Christians and Christian preachers want to say “It is okay to drink beverage alcohol”.  How can you do that?  How is it right when those who have come out of it have given it up, and see the evils of it?

If you can stand in the pulpit and tell people “God doesn’t hold you guilty for drinking alcoholic beverages”, and someone in your congregation ends up an alcoholic or a drunk, and they kill someone while driving drunk; are you guiltless?

-Tim A. Blankenship

The Pretty Women…

/ Tim A. / 1 Comment

Prophet’s Possible Perspective

Coming from a family of nobility I guess it kind of hard to notice how things really are here in Jerusalem. Many of us profess to know the Lord, but we just walk on by the suffering and the hurting enjoying our little trinkets of jewelry, silver, gold and precious gems.

Walking through the Sheep gate today, though it is a place where the lambs for slaughter are brought into the city, I noticed a lot of pride. The women walking with their heads held high as though they had no problem in the world and the men no better. The women, at least more than a good majority of them, are full of haughtiness, thinking that beauty is the main thing of life. They call attention to themselves with jangling jewelry. They cry out for men’s attention; even men who are not their husbands.

One day this arrogance and pride will be judged by the Lord. He will take away the finery; The jingling anklets, the scarves and the cresents…will he do away with. What will these “pretty” women do then. LORD help us.

The sweet fragrance of their perfumes will turn to a stench of death. Rather than having well kept hair, they will be bald. O that the people of God would hear; O that we would obey His voice, and turn from our sins. God, the LORD of hosts, will brand them rather than give them beauty. What will become of the men they lure and chase after then? They will perish.

The women of Jerusalem, Judah, and all Israel will find themselves without enough men for husbands to go around. They will be slaughtered. There will be a great lamentation throughout all the land. There will be desolation.

When will people learn that the way of the LORD is through faith in Him? Faith is turning from the life of sin and death to live in Him.

O, the time is good, but Oh such darkness. There is a darkness that many do not see. There is light. O, come to the Light. Come that you might see.

“Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:  Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.  In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,  The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,  The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,  The rings, and nose jewels,  The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins,  The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.  And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.  Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.  And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.” Isaiah 3:16-4:1 (KJV)

 

-Tim A. Blankenship