I dunno......geeez

Romans 14:14-15As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.

22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God.
You know…one thing that I am certain of….its hard to keep your belief on this between yourself and God.

i had a Baptist Minister friend in my home a couple of weeks ago...and he said to me, " only an idiot would read the bible and decipher that it is a SIN to drink wine (alcohol)" not to get drunk mind you...but drink period, yet the Tradition of the Baptist Church...is that drinking is a sin.



Bllly Sunday an evangelist who was a former professional baseball player and lived from 1862-1935 said, “I tell you I never saw a drinking, dancing, card playing Christian who amounted to anything.”

OUCH!


then you could listen to this guy..and therefore...he must be an idiot.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?currSection=sermonsspeaker&sermonID =8405104120

Im not sure of the history...and after looking it up on Google....the best I have found is that during prohibition, most churches publicly denounced all liquor because it was acceptable to denounce it. Over time, alcohol has lost its stigma and therefore become more mainline..and only the “freaky” Baptists adhere to this century old practice.

WIKIPEDIA: Prohibition was an important force in state and local politics from the 1840s through the 1930s. The political forces involved were ethnoreligious in character, as demonstrated by numerous historical studies.[6] Prohibition was demanded by the "dries" -- primarily pietistic Protestant denominations, especially the Methodists, Northern Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Scandinavian Lutherans. They identified saloons as politically corrupt and drinking as a personal sin

Drinking is a sin for some people.....minors, alcoholics, people who are under covenant NOT to drink, also...for some mainline Baptists drinking IS a sin. The whole weaker brother (one adhering to some form of legalism) I feel applies to this person. I was at one time, one who adhered to the policy of the church i was serving under. I abstained and held the position of the church. Did i believe that all drinking was bad...no, did I believe Jesus turned water into wine...yes,

where I have now landed is this...... I can drink....but there are times when I wont drink.

My kids have never seen me drink....however my son knows know I have drank in the past (sinfully) and I may on occasion drink now (with clear conscience/no sin) because he has asked the questions and we have "gone there" with him.

Charles Spurgeon wrote when being called out on his smoking a cigar:

"I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin. Together with hundreds of thousands of my fellow-Christians I have smoked, and, with them, I am under the condemnation of living in habitual sin, if certain accusers are to be believed. As I would not knowingly live even in the smallest violation of the law of God, and sin in the transgression of the law, I will not own to sin when I am not conscious of it. There is growing up in society a Pharisaic system which adds to the commands of God the precepts of men; to that system I will not yield for an hour. The preservation of my liberty may bring upon me the upbraidings of many good men, and the sneers of the self-righteous; but I shall endure both with serenity so long as I feel clear in my conscience before God. The expression "smoking to the glory of God" standing alone has an ill sound, and I do not justify it; but in the sense in which I employed it I still stand to it. No Christian should do anything in which he cannot glorify God; and this may be done, according to Scripture, in eating and drinking and the common actions of life."

I think the mainline Baptist (who adhere to this tradition) may have a leg up on us when it comes to keeping this disputable matter between themselves and God…because we don’t seem them drink…..but they have need to tell us that they don’t drink…..and worse yet…..take it a step further…and since their own belief is not to….condemn drinking as sin.