Quote:
Originally Posted by armourbearer  Rich, I drink wine at the communion. It is not my personal conviction that I am against alcohol use. You seem to be misunderstanding what the other side is saying. |
I wasn't referring to use in the Sacrament of course. I don't believe I'm misunderstanding at all.
I'm going to say this one more time and then quit this thread because it has been said so many times now that it should be obvious.
It's all about the motivation. As I've asked above, I didn't find anything distinctly Christian in the above arguments. I didn't even find a single point of balance.
It is one thing for me to make a case that a certain course of action may be prudent. If I begin by pointing out that not taking a course of action is likened to putting a gun to one's head and taking a chance that one of the chambers might be loaded then, if I'm arguing Biblically, I need to be able to sustain that point.
If I cannot, it simply does not do when other point out the
fuller Biblical position of a thing to continually retreat back into a one-sided presentation of the dangers. If you read the above in their context, every time someone wanted even a simple acknowledgement that there is a Biblical balance to this issue, the responses were as the above: "Well nobody thinks they're going to be addicted."
It's not as if I didn't see the kernel of truth in what bw was saying but her presentation didn't even admit to a fuller Biblical treatment. Nothing about Gospel motivation, simply the terror of a substance that seizes control of you that you have no control over. The Christian, in fact, is no longer a slave to Christ because alchohol, in her presentation, is a substance that seems to possess power in itself to enslave.
In your presentation above, for instance, you make an argument that would even be worth pursuing about private enjoyment vs. social enjoyment of the fruit of the vine. BW's presentation did not even admit to a single aspect where the drink could be responsibly enjoyed as a blessing given by God. It would be interesting to engage on whether she agrees with you on whether wine should be used in the Sacrament as the same line of reasoning is typically used by its opponents about addiction and the like.
Next, as I have repeatedly offered, everything needs to be subjected to our understanding of the Gospel. You'll never see me arguing for liberty for license sake. Nevertheless, alchohol use is a great substance to obscure one's belief in liberty and the way in which Christians are to be taught in how to exercise it. Types of mollycoddling do nothing but have the person focus on the prohibition itself as opposed to why it is being argued for. As I have repeatedly demonstrated, I have not seen anything in her presentation that indicates that the motivation offered to a person would be based on anything other than "...this is in your best interest that you not do this because it will destroy you...." On one level that is a good motivation but it is not a fully developed motivation. I would have liked to see a motivation developed that focused upon our status in Christ and the manner in which Paul argues that we ought to do things that flow out of doxology. Perhaps you detect something in her argumentation that I have missed but I haven't seen a bit of it. Frankly, if we're arguing about a thing in the Law of God forum then this is a
requirement and not an option lest we forget how the Law and how wisdom function in the light of the Gospel.
Thus, it's not that I don't see the "warnings and threatenings" and conclude there is no validity in them. It is that we are in the Law of God forum and I have repeatedly asserted that there is a lack of a proper development of how these warnings function. Frankly, one need not go into a Reformed Theology board to get all the warnings about how alcohol can destroy your life. I dare say I've probably had more exposure to the effects of alchohol as a leader of thousands of Marines. I've ordered men and women into treatment. I'm not ignorant of its dangers.
But this is a Reformed board and when we talk about Law and wisdom, it's in light of the Gospel. To argue simply as the world does to warn people of the dangers of alcohol is incomplete. When challenged, bwsmith has repeatedly refused to bring a Biblical balance to her presentation. To chalk it all up to: "Well, nobody knows that alcohol can ruin your life" is dubious as if that's not apparently obvious to the casual observer.