"… We should watch and we should BE SOBER. For those sleeping, sleep by night; and those BECOMING drunk, get drunk by night. But we being of the day should be BE SOBER…" (1 Thessalonians 5:6-8) Sober – Nepho: "to be free from the influence of intoxicants." (Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words)
NOT: how much can I get away with, yet perhaps be saved? RATHER: how much can I please the Lord in every way?
‘And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?’ (1 Pet. 4:18; Note context: they previously attended drinking parties 4:3 but now became sober & prayerful 4:7 because the final judgement is at hand.) Continue reading “All or Nothing – Bottle or Christ”
Deuteronomy 14:26 simply refers to wine and fruit-cider (yayin and shekhar) at a feast. The Hebrew text does not specify ‘hard’ cider.
Hard cider recieves no specific endorsement.
Grape juice already called yayin (wine) in the press.
(Broad meaning of wine (yayin) – documente.)
Shekhar: noun, fruit-cider; juice from dates, palms, or various fruits (generally other than grapes), whether it be unfermented sweet cider, or else fermented – (i.e. vinegar or any kind of intoxicating hard cider); sometimes even the fruit itself (Hebrew, Strong’s number: 7941). Continue reading “Deut. 14:26 Shekhar – meaning sweet drink or strong drink in Bible?”
Firstly: nobody is disputing that alcoholic wines existed (but non-fortified). Yet here is some of the evidence why anybody who wished to avoid all alcoholic wine was able to avoid this type in Biblical times.
…the Roman writer Cato, in his treatise On Agriculture, gave this prescription: ‘If you wish to keep new wine sweet the whole year round, put new wine in a jar, cover the stopper with pitch, place the jar in a fishpond, take it out after the thirtieth day; you will have sweet wine all the year round.’ The ancients knew if somebody wanted to get intoxicated, then the sweetest wines were very unsuitable.
Cato, On Agriculture, Section 120.
Continue reading “Some ancient wines not even mildly intoxicating. Others were intoxicating.”
Giving at one view Version, Criticism, and Exposition, in regard to all passages of Holy Writ bearing on ‘wine’ and ‘strong drink,’ or illustrating the principles of the temperance reformation.
By Dr. Frederic Richard Lees, F.S.A. and Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A., 1870, National Temperance Society and Publication House, New York.
View Contents on books.google.com (1868 edition) Plain Text Scanned PDF (19.3 MB).
View Contents on archive.org: (1870 edition) download the entire book: Plain Text (1.6 MB) Scanned PDF (23 MB) other formats. Continue reading “The Temperance Bible-Commentary – Dr. F.R. Lees & Rev. D. Burns”
NOT ALL oinos wine is alcoholic. (See also: broad meaning of wine (oinos) – documented.)
‘The burden of proof here rests with the advocate of alcoholic wine…’
—Frederick Richard Lees & Dawson Burns, The Temperance Bible-Commentary
When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine [oinos]… the master of the feast called the bridegroom. And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk [are satisfied], then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”
John 2:9-10 NKJV.
See also: Bible says be sober again and again.
…oinos is used in the Septuagint for both fermented and unfermented grape juice. Since it can mean either one, it is valid to insist that in some cases it may simply mean grape juice and not fermented wine.
…the Roman writer Cato, in his treatise On Agriculture, gave this prescription: “If you wish to keep new wine sweet the whole year round, put new wine in a jar, cover the stopper with pitch, place the jar in a fishpond, take it out after the thirtieth day; you will have sweet wine all the year round.” Continue reading “Water to wine miracle: NO REASON to assume it’s ALCOHOLIC wine”