May His grace continually flourish in the good work He has started in our life.<\/p>\n
About Romans 14:21, many brothers in our congregation are having a field day with this verse. The worse are the defenses they use to justify drinking. I will not say am the weak type, but I have a distaste for alcohol. The worse are brothers who use this verse to allow a social drinking avenue. We always evangelize on the last Lord’s Day of each month. How do we preach the right words when they compare the fruit of the vine with strong drinks?<\/p>\n\t
“It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak<\/em>” (Romans 14:21).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m puzzled as to how this verse is being used to justify the use of alcohol as a casual drink. The point is that a Christian avoids causing others harm by his actions. I know brethren who because they’ve come out of alcoholism avoid all use of alcohol, even legitimate ones, such as cough syrup. They fear that the taste of alcohol will trigger their cravings and so they avoid it entirely. A faithful Christian would be more concerned about a brother’s safety than his personal rights and so would joyfully not use any alcohol for his brother’s sake.<\/p>\n
In this context, the concern was over meats that came into the markets from the sacrifices to idols. What this verse points out is that the concern wasn’t just limited to meats, grape drinks and other things also appeared on the market that once were offerings to idols. Whether the use of oinos<\/em> (“wine”) in this verse referred to alcoholic drinks, non-alcoholic drinks, or both doesn’t matter. The concern was that some wanted to avoid all possible connections to idolatry. You would have to turn to other verses to determine if the use of alcoholic beverages was permitted or not to the Christian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: May His grace continually flourish in the good work He has started in our life. About Romans 14:21, many brothers in our congregation are having a field day with this verse. The worse are the defenses they use to justify drinking. I will not say am the weak type, but I have a distaste…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[371,120],"class_list":["post-24555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-alcohol","tag-romans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":59741,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/social-drinking-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":0},"title":"Social Drinking (Thompson)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Floyd Thompson Many times in trying to justify social drinking people will use as a defense Paul's admonition to Timothy in I Timothy 5:23, which says, \"use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities.\" I think this passage has not been thoroughly discussed until we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1721,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-use-of-alcohol\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":1},"title":"The Use of Alcohol","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Can a Christian drink? It is a question that comes up frequently. Earlier this century, the United States ended the sale of alcoholic beverages because of the perceived dangers of these drinks. The prohibition did not last, due to strong demand for access to liquor. However,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2684,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-romans-14-give-the-liberty-to-drinking-alcoholic-beverages\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":2},"title":"Does Romans 14 give the liberty to drinking alcoholic beverages?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a person wants to have a glass of wine privately in their home, then don't they have the liberty to do so by Romans 14? Answer: \"Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1718,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-paul-sometimes-drink-wine\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":3},"title":"Did Paul sometimes drink wine?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Paul said in Romans that he would eat no meat if it causes his brother to stumble or be offended. In the same context, he mentions wine a few verses later. I have concluded that he would neither eat meat or drink wine if it caused his brother to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40986,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/romans-14-follow-after-things-which-make-peace\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":4},"title":"Romans 14: “Follow After Things Which Make Peace”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Melvin Curry Truth Magazine, January 4, 1979 When Paul affirmed that \"there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same Lord is Lord of all\" (Romans 10:12), he was fully aware of the problems posed by the fellowship of Christians with such different religious backgrounds. The Greeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86675,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/much-wine\/","url_meta":{"origin":24555,"position":5},"title":"Much Wine?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tracy Dugger In giving the qualifications of elders, the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write that an elder is not to be, \"\u2026given to wine\u2026\" (I Timothy 3:3). Then in I Timothy 3:6, Paul stated of deacons, \"Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued, not given to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}