SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/1/2019
9:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Guidelines
for Christians
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:18a
Message of the
verse: “Don’t
drink too much wine. That cheapens your life” (Message).
In today’s SD we begin to look at
the last main point from John MacArthur’s commentary which is entitled “Guidelines
for Christians.” In this last main
section we will be briefly going over different sub-sections each day until we
are done. In today’s SD we will be
looking at “Is Today’s Wine the Same as That in Bible Times?”
First we have to determine what kind
of wine was used in both the Old Testament and New Testament times, and then
look at what we have today as far as what kind of wine is being drunk. Believer’s today justify the drinking of wine
because of what the Bible says about what was being drunk in Bible Times. I had a Pastor who said about Paul telling
Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach.
He said that if you have Timothy’s stomach problems then you drink
Timothy’s wine, inferring that if you don’t have his problem don’t drink the
wine.
MacArthur talks about the different
kinds of wine in the Bible and the first is called sikera in the Greek and found in Luke 1:15. The word is shekar in Hebrew (Pr. 20:1), and this is a strong drink. Next is called gleukos and we get our English word glucose from it. This is “new wine” and is sweet. A third kind of wine, however, is the one
most often referred to in both Testaments.
Hebrew word is yayin, the root
word for bubbling “and this did not come from the pouring of the wine but the
boiling of the fresh grape juice to reduce it to a heavy syrup, sometimes even
a thick paste, that made it suitable for storage without spoiling.” People would mix the past in water to drink
it, “even when the reconstituted mixture was allowed to ferment, its alcohol
content was quite low.
I will conclude this SD by giving a
quote from MacArthur’s commentary: “It
is clear, therefore, that whether the yayin
or oinos mentioned in Scripture
refers to the thick syrup itself, to a mixture of water and syrup, or a mixture
of water and pure wine, the wine was either nonalcoholic or only slightly
alcoholic. To ‘get drunk with mixture
wine’ (oinos) would have required consuming a large quantity—as is suggested in
other New Testament passages. ‘Addicted
to wine’ (1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 1:7) translates one Greek word (paroinos) and literally means ‘at, or
beside, wine,’ and carries the idea of sitting beside the wine cup for an
extended period of time.
“The answer to the first question is
clearly no. The wine of Bible times was
not the same as the unmixed wine of our own day. Even the more civilized pagans of Bible times
would have considered the drinking of modern wines to be barbaric and
irresponsible.”
I have expressed my opinion in
earlier SD’s and I stress it is my opinion, that because of our Church covenant
that I do not drink wine or any other product with alcohol in it, but I will
not argue with people who do, as the Bible tells us not to get drunk, but does
not tell us not to drink wine.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have to
look at wine drinking is a similar way that Paul wrote about other things that
people can get upset about. The most important
thing is to live a life pleasing to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Being humble, I believe, helps me to get
along with others.
Today’s quotation is from
missionary J. Hudson Taylor who stated “All God’s giants have been weak men who
did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.”
7/1/2019 9:37 AM
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