Tag: Alcohol

Categories
Lord's Day Liturgy

Word Then Wine

I noticed something last Saturday for the first time while reading Nehemiah 8 for the Bible Reading Challenge. Nehemiah 8 is classic passage about preaching. Ezra “brought the Law before the assembly” (verse 2). “He read from it from early morning until midday,” “and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law” (verse 3). Ezra “stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose” (verse 4). He “opened the book in the sight of all the people” (verse 5), he “blessed the LORD, the great God” (verse 6). “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that people understood the reading” (verse 8).

As a preacher I’ve gone to numerous preaching conferences where other preachers preach about preaching. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this paragraph of Nehemiah preached. Preachers who love the Book, who own the stewardship “to make the word of fully known” (Colossians 1:25), who do not “shrink from declaring…the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), point out the priority of reading the Word and explaining the Word.

What I cannot remember ever hearing are any comments about the next paragraph in Nehemiah 8, about the application that Nehemiah and Ezra expected of the people who had heard the Word. Those who “taught the people said to all the people”:

“This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. (Nehemiah 8:9–12)

When God’s people hear God’s Word they are tempted to make holiness glum, to mourn and weep. They are tempted to act as if they must reject taste in order to prove they’re taking it seriously. But if we read and understand the Word, that is not to be the required response of those who understand the Word.

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Eat the fat and drink the sweet wine. Share portions and make great rejoicing. Though Nehemiah 8 obviously isn’t a reference to the Lord’s Table, it does provide a pattern for us: Word then wine, big portions, generously shared.

Categories
Enjoying the Process

Harassing the Devil

In 1530 Martin Luther wrote the following to his friend Jerome Weller for his fight of faith against the evil one.

Whenever this temptation of melancholy comes to you, beware not to dispute with the devil nor allow yourself to dwell on these lethal thoughts, for so doing is nothing less than giving place to the devil and so falling. Try as hard as you can to despise these thoughts sent by Satan. In this sort of temptation and battle, contempt is the easiest road to victory; laugh your enemy to scorn and ask to whom you are talking. By all means flee solitude, for he lies in wait most for those alone. This devil is conquered by despising and mocking him, not by resisting and arguing. Therefore, Jerome, joke and play games with my wife and others, in which way you will drive out your diabolic thoughts and take courage.

Be strong and cheerful and cast out those monstrous thoughts. Whenever the devil harasses you thus, seek the company of men, or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you, “Do not drink,” answer him, “I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.” One must always do what Satan forbids. What other cause do you think that I have for drinking so much strong drink, talking so freely and making merry so often, except that I wish to mock and harass the devil who is wont to mock and harass me. Would that I could contrive some great sin to spite the devil, that he might understand that I would not even then acknowledge it and that I was conscious of no sin whatever. We, whom the devil thus seeks to annoy, should remove the whole Decalogue from our hearts and minds.

—Martin Luther, quoted by Jim West, Drinking with Calvin and Luther, 34-35

Categories
Lord's Day Liturgy

No Good Drunk

The first man to get drunk that we know about was Noah. He’s given credit for consummate obedience in the matter of the ark, he’s given credit for cultivating science in the matter of the vine, and he’s given no free pass in the matter of his overindulgence. He sinned, albeit in the privacy of his tent, because he drank too much.

We ought to appreciate Noah’s viniculture. As the psalmist sings, God causes plants to grow that man cultivates for wine that gladdens man’s heart (Psalm 104:15). Drinking wine and beer and strong drink can be done for God’s glory; the Israelites were commanded to do it as worship during certain festivals (Deuteronomy 14:26). The goodness of fermented grain and grapes is something that not everyone is persuaded of, and it’s worth more attention at another time. But what must be received without question or qualification is that drunkenness is always wrong.

God prohibits it in both Testaments, before and after the coming of His Son (Ephesians 5:18). Drunkenness is a work of the flesh (Galatians 5:21). Drunks are listed among sinners who cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

The reason for the prohibition is that drunkenness scotches the image of God in man. It disrupts, if not ruins, relationships and it impairs ability to fulfill responsibilities. Drunkenness is a state of control by something else when, for Christians, we are to be controlled by the Spirit.

Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, is no good god. The best he offers is forgetfulness and, even that is temporary and incomplete. As Jim West has written, unbelievers drink to forget but believers drink to remember and to give thanks to God for specific gifts. That can’t happen when the brain is foggy. Drunkenness is not funny and it is not godly, not ever.