We just had the funeral for my Great Aunt Cleo. Knowingly, and yes even unknowingly, this staunch believer has given me some great anecdotes for the Christian Ear. She was also a zealous member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union - an organization of women concerned about the destructive power of alcohol and the problems it was causing their families and society. Laughing one of her friends said, “We all ought to be glad that Cleo took to religion rather than to alcohol…she’d have been one mean drunk.”
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I have always been leery about zeal for the Lord. The destructive power of zeal brought down the World Trade Center in 2001. But of that zeal, we really can not say it was for the Lord as much as it was for Allah. On the other hand, zeal for the Lord tortured many folks during the inquisition. Yet we must admit the inquisition was the product of men following men rather than the Word. Alas, zeal for the Lord continues to maintain denominational barriers, program and paradigm controversies, and doctrinal disputes which fracture the unity of Christ’s body today.
-----Paul invokes zeal from the saints (Rom 12:11.) However, zeal is only one emotional term of an attitudinal equation. Paul even recognized it as such (Rom 10:2 and Phil 3:6.) If a person’s zeal were perfectly for the Lord, it would be for exactly what the Lord desires. And who knows exactly what He desires? We only know in part through our limited perceptions of the Word as we have applied them to the very tiny slices of life our experiences have sampled. So we can only conclude with limited accuracy what He desires. It is God alone who is true, and all men who are false (Rom 3:4.) Therefore, He alone knows perfectly His desires (Isa 55:8-9.) We can only guess about them with more or less instruction. It is this term of the equation about which I am leery.
-----One can not fail to recognize the good the Women’s Christian Temperance Union has done for society. Although they stand like the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike, forty feet yonder the levy has broken and the inundation rages. Still the WCTU refuses to give up its example. But one must not fail to recognize the harm they have also done. They really are a league of those who are false, as we all are, while only God is true (Rom 3:4.) Even Paul encouraged Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach’s sake. And the reason the best wine was served to the wedding guests first was because the worst wine could later be served once everyone was drunk on the best. The servants at the Cana wedding distinguished the wine Jesus made to be the best because it was. It is nonsensical to acknowledge their comment about it without acknowledging their recognition of it; the wine Jesus provided was alcoholic. So, apart from His being male, He could not have been a member of the WCTU, nor could have Timothy, nor Paul for his recommendation.
-----Temperance is a wonderful term with a wonderful place, as is abstinence. Abstinence from sexual pleasures outside marriage, “marriage” of same sex friends, murder of human life inside or outside the womb, etc., is joined by Biblical support. But abstinence is about refusal while temperance is about moderation. To invoke Biblical support for abstinence from matters about which the Bible teaches temperance only adds to the public’s misperceived stigma against Christian perspective and lifestyle. In fact, it offers that age old placebo of legalism to function in the stead of knowledge, understanding, and relationship, thus creating a captivity of its own. One can be held captive by drunkenness, or by the abstinence from replacing the vinegar in one’s salad dressing with a bit of malt liquor. If you are not a captive, try it; you will taste what I mean. Some of the force of the water ripping through the levy down yonder from the proverbial boy is partly due to his finger being thrust clear up to his abstinent knuckle into a moderate hole.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment