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this is a daunting life of man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into
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it. Our guys today, we're going to be talking about Christianity and alcohol. This is actually
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something that has come up fairly recently here for me. There's been quite a few people
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in my life. People close to me. Some people not so close to me where this subject matter
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has come up. It hasn't always come up in a terribly polite or productive manner. But
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there seems to be a whole lot of confusion and a whole lot of misinformation. In general,
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just not very well thought out philosophies on the subject of alcohol specifically within
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Christianity. And so I wouldn't dig into that a little bit here today because I know
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if it was confusing for me, I'm sure it's going to be confusing for a lot of you guys.
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And for some of you, you've already been through this, you've already kind of gone through
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this philosophy. And so I hope you would still listen to this so you can kind of get an understanding
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of where I'm coming from and how my research went. But I know for a lot of you guys out
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there, you just either act in one way or act in another way and you don't really give
1:04
it much thought. So hopefully we're going to be able to put some thought into our different
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philosophies. But before I get into the research here, I try to every time that I say something
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that I've recorded or that I've researched and then recorded and kind of gave you guys
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I always try to give whoever wrote it as much credit as possible. And I try to make sure
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the sources that I go through for anything that I'm going through in here, I try to make
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sure that they're legitimate sources. And there's a lot of things out there that are
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not considered terribly legitimate. And one of those things is Wikipedia. And so Wikipedia
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a lot of times again, yes, things can be shifted and changed and moved. And you know, there's
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always a funny thing whenever a team like gets beaten in the playoffs or a guy gets dunked
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on immediately, someone goes into Wikipedia and changes their ownership to like somebody
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else or something, something weird like that. But Wikipedia, I felt like was really, really
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helpful here. It broke down some of the generalized arguments in this area in some of the history.
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So I thought that was very, very well done by them. And it would also provide me the
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opportunity to go and fact check a lot of those things. So again, I'm not getting paid
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by Wikipedia. This is not to say that they do everything incredibly well, but I felt
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like on this particular subject matter, it was very, very helpful in formalizing the early
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parts of my research. But now launching into a little bit of the research, it's not that
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simple of a subject matter. There's a whole lot of information and a whole lot of thought
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that has gone into this and it's been thousands of years in the making. But essentially, if
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we were going to boil everything down, I want to try to make this as easily digestible for
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you as possible. There's basically three views on Christians consuming alcohol. There's three
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camps that you can be a part of. The first is prohibitionism. The second is abstentionism.
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And the third is moderationism. Okay. And we're going to go into all three of those and we're
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going to be looking at them in detail. And I'm going to give you all the different viewpoints
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there. And then we can continue to launch into the other parts of this podcast. So let's
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go with the first one. Let's talk about prohibitionism. And this is exactly like it sounds. This
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is a worldview. And a viewpoint in the subject matter where we're basically going to abstain
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from alcohol as a matter of law. And we're going to basically abstain in all circumstances.
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And so this is a viewpoint that is typically held by people that would align themselves
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with the Southern Baptist Convention. Seventh day Adventists also look at this. And it's
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seen by many to be a very old school and old school type of a thing. And we'll talk a
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little bit more here in a second about why this is considered kind of an old school viewpoint.
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But this viewpoint is also held by some Christian heavyweights that you may have heard of before
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like Charles Spurgeon, William Booth. He's the founder of the Salvation Army, Billy Sunday,
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who is an athlete and an evangelist. There's some really big time people that think that
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we should be prohibited from having alcohol and all forms. But it's going to give you
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a little bit more information about what prohibitionists believe. One, they claim that the Bible
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condemns drinking alcohol entirely. They don't they don't see any scripture in the Bible
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or they don't exeget it in a way that would give us the idea that we would be able to
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consume alcohol. Also, they claim that wine when it's referred to in scripture for medicinal
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use or any type of other stories, maybe with Jesus in them or anything like that, that
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the wine that was referred to was non alcoholic. They also claim that most Bible translators,
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I don't really know why or where they would get this idea. But they claim that most Bible
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translators actually exhibited bias in favor of alcohol when they were doing their translations.
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And so they're basically saying these people that are trying to be as as core and conservative
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to this, what the scripture says, they're basically saying the people that have translated
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it to a language that we can understand today, they didn't do it accurately. So I think inadvertently
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they're basically saying that the entirety of the gospel is is not accurate. And a lot
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of ways that these translators had the power to change this and change it away from the
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original Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever was written down. And so that's a little bit
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troublesome. But the last thing here is that prohibitionism has reduced in popularity considerably
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in the West and considerably in the United States since prohibition ended in the United
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States. So it's kind of ironic that this has kind of gone by the wayside a little bit.
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But in a nutshell, I can go in a lot of different directions, but that's what prohibitionism
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is. That's essentially what that group looks at. It's not an incredibly popular opinion
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today, but there are certainly people that still believe that. Now the second group is
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abstentionism. Okay. So that is a much harder word to say than what it sounds. So if I screw
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it up, then just for giving me abstentionism. Okay. So this is basically abstaining from
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alcohol as a matter of cautiousness or prudence or discretion, something more so like that.
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So this is a view that is typically held, uh, modernly by Baptists, Pentecostals, Nazarene
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Methodist kind of that group. And there's also some Christian heavyweights that have
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this viewpoint, uh, the late Billy Graham, Albert Moller, who's a favorite of this podcast,
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John MacArthur, John Piper, and some others. These are people that basically think that
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you should abstain, uh, as a good idea, that it's a good idea to abstain. So I'm going
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to kind of go into a lot of different directions about some of the arguments and what some
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of they believe here. Um, but many churches. So think of entire church units that kind
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of hold to this point of view, they require abstinence from alcohol from their church
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leader, uh, ship positions. So if you're going to be in leadership within the church,
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you have to abstain from alcohol entirely. And so, uh, my guess here is that they're getting
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that from first Timothy three eight. This is where it's basically talking about the qualifications
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for deacons. And this is first Timothy three eight deacons. Likewise must be dignified,
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not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. And so I think
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they're using the not addicted to much wine part to suggest that they can't have alcohol
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at all that they should abstain. So, uh, I guess you can use your, uh, deductive reasoning
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to determine whether or not that's a good idea, but to continue abstentionists reject
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the prohibitionist arguments that wine referred to in scripture was non-alcoholic. Abstentionists
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don't believe that. They don't believe that every time that alcohol specifically wine,
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that every time it was mentioned in scripture, that it wasn't actually alcoholic. They don't
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think that's a good idea. And the general consensus here guys is almost no serious biblical
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scholar or language scholar would consider that to be the case either. I mean, the abolitionist
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position when it comes to the wine described in the Bible being non-alcoholic, it's not
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really a tenable position. And we know that and we have a lot of evidence to prove that.
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Uh, in absentionists, they also believe that moderation has caused the alcohol problem
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in the world. Because they feel like if you as a sinful being, uh, as a fallible human,
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if you're given the ability to moderate that you will obviously take that to its logical
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ends, which for some people is abuse, right? So that's what they believe. They also believe
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that alcohol is simply too dangerous for most people that it's just not a necessity for life
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or good living or any of those types of things. And so that's another thing that they believe.
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But here's some of the arguments. Those are just kind of general ideas, but here's some
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arguments given for abstentionism. So I just want to kind of run through these, uh, just
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like quick. And, uh, one is that the Bible warrants that alcohol can hinder moral discretion.
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And so we, we get this from Proverbs 31 versus four and five. So I'm going to read from the
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ESV. Here we go. It is not for Kings. Oh, Lemuel. It is not for Kings to drink wine or
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for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and
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pervert the rights of all the afflicted. So, so this is kind of thinking, you know, if
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you're in a position of authority or position of power and then you get drunk, then obviously
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you're going to forget about all the altruistic things that you did or something. That's kind
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of the, the viewpoint there. Then there's also the argument that drinking alcohol as
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a Christian may offend other Christians that don't drink. And so essentially what this is
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looking at is that this is going to create a schism of sorts between believers, right?
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It's going to create a rift of sorts between believers. Um, I don't know if I really, well,
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I was going to be nice. This is really stupid argument that, that if you drink alcohol on
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someone else that doesn't drink alcohol, that they're just going to be mega offended. I feel
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like this argument, which is not a kind of new age argument. This is an argument that
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kind of plays into whole, like PC culture thing. Like let's make everything politically correct.
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Let's not say anything that could at all offend somebody. I just don't really like that one
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very much. Another argument that they make is that you should abstain from alcohol because
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of the sin of drunkenness and that you as a Christian need to make a public statement
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against it. And the way that you make that public statement is that you say, look, I'm
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able to do this, but I'm not going to do this. Okay. So that's another argument. Another one
9:34
is that drinking was more acceptable in ancient times. Like there was a lot of people that they
9:39
had to drink. They had to, they had to use wine to purify polluted drinking water,
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uh, different things like that. And so that's something that they claim and that, that they
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stick to. That's an argument. Another one is that just in general wine was much weaker in ancient
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times than it is today. That alcohol is more potent today and even further that alcohol is
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much more efficiently produced today. Thus it's more readily available and it's cheaper,
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which leads to more people being able to consume it and you can get this really, really strong
10:07
alcohol, something with a high alcohol content and not pay very much for it, which leads to
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alcoholism, which kind of feeds back into the moderation argument. So in general, that's what
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abstentionism, that's what they believe for the most part is that even though it's okay,
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even though it's biblically acceptable for you to do so that you shouldn't do that. Okay. So
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we've talked about prohibitionism, abstentionism. And now we're going to talk about the last one,
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which is moderationism. And so what, what you believe within moderationism is that you can
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consume alcohol, but maintain moderate usage, right? It's right there in the name. Uh, this is a
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viewpoint that is typically held by Anglicans and Lutherans, a lot of reform churches. So I know
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there's a lot of reform guys that listen to this, uh, Roman Catholics, ether, Eastern Orthodox. Um,
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and in a lot of these groups that they still use fermented wine during communion, right,
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or the Eucharist or however they describe it. Um, and in those other two groups, they don't use
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fermented wine. Those are, those are grape juice only or some other type of substitute. But, um,
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I could go into a lot of different areas with moderationism, but I did find a really, really
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great quote that kind of encapsulated moderationism. So I'm just going to go ahead and read that to
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you here. Moderationism holds that prohibitionism airs by confusing the Christian virtues of temperance
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and moderation with abstinence and prohibition. And by locating the evil in the object that is
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abused rather than in the heart and deeds of the abuser. Moreover, moderationists suggest that the
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prohibitionists and abstentionists positions denigrate God's creation and his good gifts and deny that
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it is not what goes into a man that makes him evil, but what comes out that is what he says and does.
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And so I felt like that was a very fair summarization of these three different areas. But again,
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all of us kind of fit into one of those three. You can't really like hover between two because
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they're fairly well defined. And so for a lot of us, it brings about some big questions for us
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individually. For most of you, you didn't even have to think, yeah, for some of you that grew up in
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church, you maybe grew up in a church that was considered more liberal or more conservative or
12:07
more big city or more rural or whatever. And that kind of led to your viewpoints about this. But it begs
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a really, really big question. And this is the question. Why did prohibitionism and abstentionism
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become popular with many Christians? So I know for a lot of you listening to this, especially if
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you grew up in church, which again, as a reminder, I did not, you had some of the older people that
12:28
were just like, nah, you shouldn't drink. And I remember the very first church I started going to
12:32
was first Baptist West and lot in Oklahoma, right? And that was kind of a thing. I remember one of
12:38
the first camps I went to, I think this was a, I can't remember the name of the world changers,
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it was a world changers, I think I was in Missouri. Yeah, anyway, that doesn't really matter. Missouri
12:47
or Louisiana, I was in one of those two places where basically you pay money to go be on work crews
12:51
and you work on homes and people that are in kind of decrepit living conditions, you go and kind of
12:56
assist those individuals and you clean up their houses and help build some stuff and you have
13:01
actual contractors that are helping you out. But anyway, it's not going to be here nor there. I
13:04
remember one of the nights when we're just hanging out in the wherever we were, we were staying on
13:09
like a junior high or something like that. We're in this gym and there's this guy talking. He's
13:13
kind of talking about what we're going to be doing that week and blah, blah, blah. And for
13:17
whatever reason, I can't remember a ton of details about this event or about this week that I spent
13:21
out there. But I can remember this guy saying, you know, he was probably in his late 40s or
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something like that. Even to this day, I've never had a beer and everyone just like started clapping.
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And I was like, I don't know, I think I was like, you know, 13 or 14 or something like that. And I
13:33
started clapping too. I was like, Oh man, that's pretty cool. I just thought that that's something
13:37
adults did. You just drank beer. It was just kind of a thing. But he was saying that as like a badge
13:41
of honor, like, you know, this was a way that he you should act. It wasn't like, hey, I haven't had
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a beer in 20 years because I used to be an alcoholic. And you know, I've beaten it and it's something
13:51
I always have to keep an eye on. You know, just kind of as as I grew older, I kept going back and
13:55
thinking about that time and wondering why he said that because he was trying to elicit an
14:00
applause. But again, back to the big question about why prohibitionism and abstentionism becomes
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popular or has become popular with many Christians. The thing that's weird about that is the first
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1800 years or so of Christianity, Christians drink alcohol. I mean, fairly regularly. I mean,
14:15
it was just a part of their everyday lives. I mean, and they use alcoholic wine 100% alcoholic wine
14:21
for communion, not 100% alcohol, you get what I'm saying, but it was absolutely alcohol. Like,
14:26
it was an alcoholic wine for communion in the Eucharist. And so this all changed, though,
14:31
in the 19th century. And so this is a thing that's very, very important for us. And so this kind of
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gives us a hint as to why we even right now in 2019, why there's so much of this thought process
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about it's almost like this internal struggle with alcohol and a Christian. And it has a lot to do
14:47
with what they call the temperance movement. And so as opposed to trying to summarize this for you,
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I actually found a few paragraphs here that kind of give us a good idea of what the temperance
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movement was, why it came about, and then we'll talk a little bit more about how that kind of has
15:00
back ended its way into how we feel about alcohol today. So here we go. In the midst of the social
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upheaval accompanying the American Revolution, an urbanization induced by the Industrial Revolution,
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drunkenness was on the rise and was blamed as a major contributor to the increasing poverty,
15:16
unemployment, and crime. Yet the temperate sentiments of the Methodist were shared only by a few others
15:22
until the publication of a tracked by imminent physician and patriot Benjamin Russ, who argued
15:26
against the use of ardent spirits, i.e. distilled alcohol, introduced the notion of addiction,
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and prescribed abstinence as the only cure. Some prominent preachers like Lehman Beecher picked up
15:37
on Russia's theme and galvanized the temperance movement to action. Though losing influence during
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the American Civil War, afterward the movement experienced its second wave spearheaded by the
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Women's Christian's Temperance Union, and it was so successful in achieving its goal that Catherine
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Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army, could observe in 1879 that in America, almost every
15:57
Protestant Christian minister has become an abstainer. The movement saw that passage of
16:02
anti-drinking laws in several states, impeaked in its political power in 1919 with the passage of
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the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which established prohibition as the law of the
16:13
entire country by which was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment. Initially, the vast majority
16:19
of the temperance movement had opposed only distilled alcohol, which they saw as making drunkenness
16:24
inexpensive and easy and espoused moderation and temperance in the use of other alcoholic beverages.
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Fueled in part by the second Great Awakening, which emphasized personal holiness and sometimes
16:34
perfectionism, the temperance message changed to the outright elimination of alcohol. The
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legislative and social effects resulting from the temperance movement pinked in the early 20th century
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and began to decline afterward. The effects on church practice were primarily a phenomenon in
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American Protestantism and to a lesser extent in the British Isles and Nordic countries and a few
16:55
other places. The practice of the Protestant churches were slower to revert and some bodies,
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though now rejecting their formerly prohibitionist platform, still retain vestiges of it such as
17:05
using grape juice alone or besides wine in the Lord's Supper. So that kind of gives you an idea
17:10
of the temperance movement. So again, this was a movement I want you to remember from some of the
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things that I described that wasn't really based on scripture. That wasn't really based on
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a viewpoint that hey, in this new revelation, not you know, like Mormonism, but like in this new
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revelation about what was meant in the original Hebrew or the Greek or whatever the thing was,
17:31
this is how we're going to act now. It was more of a social upheaval. It was a group of people that
17:37
had kind of a social ideal of morality that they were going to be espousing to the rest of the world
17:43
and specifically starting with the United States all the way to the point to where alcohol became
17:48
prohibited in its use and sale and transport in the United States. Just think about that. I mean,
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that wasn't that long ago. I mean, not even 100 years ago. So it's crazy to think of now in the
18:00
culture that we live in now with the ubiquitous nature of liquor stores and beer ads and all these
18:06
different things to to have less than a hundred years ago, not even be able to do any of those
18:10
things. Really, really interesting. So for the most part, what's happened here is there are still
18:16
some remnants of the temperance movement today. That's why we're doing this podcast. That's why,
18:22
because you know, when I'm sitting with certain people that are close to me or certain things
18:25
like that, and they're asking these questions, almost in abiding in judgmental manner or making
18:29
comments about alcohol consumption or why would anyone do such a thing. It's because of the
18:35
the remnants that are left over from here that it's left over from the temperance movement. But
18:39
at the same time, there's no quoting of scripture. There's no biblical study. It's just an ideal.
18:45
So they are basically taking their set of ideals and morals, and they are placing it on to the
18:52
scriptures. And basically, if we violate those things, or if we go counter to those things,
18:57
they're not going to go to the scripture and prove us wrong, because they can't. What they're
19:00
going to do is they're just going to say, well, you're wrong, and I'm right, and I'm doing it the
19:04
right way. So without getting too much onto a soapbox here, I want to actually go to the scripture
19:09
here. And what does God have to say about alcohol? Because that's way more important than anyone's
19:15
opinion, right? Because here as Christians, as thinking Christians in a thinking man's religion,
19:20
this is something that's really important because we have a reference book that we can go to and get
19:25
some sort of an understanding. So I'm going to go over several scriptures here that are kind of like
19:30
basically giving us an idea of what God thinks about alcohol. And these are all very pro alcohol.
19:35
The first and probably the most important is Psalm 104. And we're going to be looking at versus 14
19:40
and 15. So all the scripture readings I'm about to do will be from the ESV, just so you guys will
19:44
know if you are following along. But Psalm 104 versus 14 and 15. You cause the grass to grow for
19:51
the livestock and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth
19:56
and wine to gladden the heart of man oil to make his face shine in bread to strengthen man's heart.
20:02
So here in this passage, we don't see a prohibition of alcohol. We see a description of alcohol
20:09
and what it's supposed to do, which is gladden the heart of man. Okay, so that's very, very
20:14
important as we move forward. The next is Ecclesiastes 97. Go eat your bread with joy and drink your
20:20
wine with a merry heart. For God has already approved what you do. Pretty straightforward there. The
20:26
next one, Isaiah 62 versus eight and nine. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty
20:31
arm. I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies. And foreigners shall not drink
20:35
your wine for which you have labored. But those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord.
20:40
And those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary. Right. So so in Isaiah,
20:45
we're looking at one of the prophets here. And this is the Lord basically saying, uh,
20:49
no, you will have this wine. You will drink this alcoholic wine. It is the Hebrew word for or the
20:54
Greek word for for alcoholic wine. And you will enjoy it in my sanctuary. It's pretty straightforward,
20:58
right? Then we see 1 Timothy 523. No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake
21:04
of your stomach and your frequent ailment. So this is one of those areas when we talk about
21:08
when alcohol is described in the Bible for medicinal purposes, right? And this is one of the first
21:12
places that prohibitionists will look at. And they will look at this area and say, actually,
21:17
that's not the same alcohol. That's really not it. And I was when I was doing my research,
21:22
you could tell when you stumbled upon a prohibitionist blog, because they were so dismissive of the
21:27
original Greek and they were so dismissive of the language surrounding what type of alcohol was
21:32
being discussed, because it's so unbelievably clear that the, the wine and the drink being
21:37
discussed here in 1 Timothy 523 is alcoholic wine. But then also the biggest argument that I make,
21:43
whenever we're talking about this, it's because it's a direct corollary to what we're discussing,
21:47
is Jesus's first miracle. Now, if you go to someone that, you know, considers themselves a
21:53
prohibitionist or an abstentionist or something like that, you would probably ask them, Hey,
21:58
what was Jesus's first miracle? And they might get it. But then they may not understand kind of the
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gravity by which them admitting that would would give them away. So I'm going to go ahead and read
22:08
Jesus's first miracle, the story of that. And we have the recording of this in John chapter two.
22:14
And this is verses one through 12. I'll be reading them from the ESV here.
22:17
On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus
22:22
also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said
22:27
to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me?
22:32
My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now,
22:37
there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rights of purification, each holding 20 or 30
22:42
gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water, and they filled them up to the brim.
22:47
And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it.
22:52
When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine and did not know where to come from.
22:57
Though the servants who had drawn the water knew the master of the feast called the bridegroom and
23:02
said to him, everyone serves the good wine first. And when people have drunk freely, then the poor
23:06
wine, but you have kept the good wine until now. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in
23:13
Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum
23:19
and his mother and his brothers and his disciples. And they stayed there for a few days. So again,
23:23
guys, we're looking at a story here of our savior, the savior of the entire world. That guy,
23:29
the very first miracle he does is not spitting in some dirt, rubbing it around, making mud and
23:35
putting it on someone's eyes and making them see. It's not raising a dead man from from the dead,
23:40
right? It's not healing someone that had leprosy. It's not driving out demons. It's turning water
23:47
into wine. So a party could keep going. I mean, what else do you need to say here?
23:53
Like, I don't understand it's kind of like with when people kind of some of the same people that
23:57
have made the comments that are recently led to me doing this podcast, when they say that baptism
24:02
is essential for salvation, as in you have to be dunked in water, where you can't go to heaven,
24:07
right? But there, there's so much wrong with that, you know, on so many different levels. But again,
24:12
we see the examples in Jesus's life. We see the three men on the cross, Jesus and the two criminals,
24:17
right? One of the criminals accepted Jesus at that moment. Jesus said, you will be with me today
24:22
in paradise. They didn't take the guy down off of the cross, dip him in water and, you know,
24:26
nail him back up, right? It's adding stuff to the scripture that's not there. And the thing that's
24:31
very important about this story here is why would Jesus have done such a thing if alcohol, by its
24:37
very nature, was a problem and could only be sinful? It's a gift from God, right? So that's
24:45
something that's very interesting for us that obviously lets us know that, yes, you can consume
24:50
alcohol. And that is a good idea for a lot of people. However, however, there's plenty of
24:54
scripture that would say you need to proceed with caution. And there's three scriptures I want to
24:58
bring up here because I do want to be fair about the subject that first is Proverbs 20 verses 1.
25:02
Wine is a mocker. Strong drink is a brawler. And whoever has led a stray by it is not wise,
25:07
right? It's pretty straightforward. Then we look at Galatians, Paul getting in on the action.
25:11
This is Galatians 5 verses 19 through 21. Now the works of the flesh are evident,
25:15
sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, immunity, strife, jealousy,
25:21
fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
25:27
I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
25:32
Right? That's a pretty like scathing lists of things drunkenness being added.
25:36
Then the last one is 1 Corinthians 5 11. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone
25:41
who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or as an idolater,
25:46
reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even eat with such a one. Right? So the thing about this is
25:52
obviously there is a way where alcohol can be enjoyed, and then there's a way that alcohol
25:58
is not to be enjoyed. So this leads us to, from our perspective, which viewpoint do we think is
26:03
best out of the three we talked about earlier? And we obviously believe that moderationism is the
26:09
best way for us to move forward. Because prohibitionism, we feel like that's antithetical,
26:14
and really anti-biblical. Abstentionism, some of the main tenets of that have some issues,
26:21
even just from an argumentative standpoint. But moderationism is one of those things where
26:25
if you can handle it, it's something that helps reveal God's glory and his beauty to you.
26:31
Because here's the thing, there are many good gifts from God that can be abused to the point of sin.
26:36
It's not just alcohol, it's certainly alcohol. But what about sex? How about food, rest,
26:43
entertainment? I mean, there's all kinds of different things that are gifts from God,
26:48
things that we're used, that can be used to glorify him and for him to reveal his beauty
26:54
of his creation to us. But when they become idolaters, or when they become an idol, sorry,
27:00
when they become an idol for us, it becomes a big issue. I mean, sex outside of wedlock, food,
27:05
to the point of not honoring our bodies. We talked about that a lot, talked about it on the last
27:09
podcast, where we're basically not honoring ourselves. If, you know, we're supposed to be given a
27:13
Sabbath, but some people are slothful, right? So, you know, he gives us music. Music is a gift
27:18
from him and those types of things. But if you're listening to so much music that you're like
27:21
ignoring your family, like that's not a good idea. You're always taking these things to the logical
27:26
conclusion for most humans, which is sinful, which is overindulgence, right? But here's the
27:32
thing that I want to make sure that we're talking about when we're talking about alcohol, is can
27:36
and should are very different things, right? Because it's obvious at this point that if you have any
27:41
type of understanding of scripture and exegesis that you can absolutely be a Christian and drink
27:46
alcohol, absolutely 100%. But the should part is very different and it's contextual because
27:53
some people can't control themselves. I mean, some people have addictive personalities, right?
27:59
They're addicted to chemical substances of some kind, right? Some people have bad histories
28:05
with alcohol. And so whether they become a Christian in the meantime doesn't really
28:09
take it away. Some of the things they've had to deal with in terms of alcohol and abuse.
28:15
I mean, some people have easily influenced friends that have trouble in these areas,
28:19
right? And so I think there's a couple of scriptures here that will really help us
28:23
with understanding kind of the dynamic between can and should. The first is 1 Corinthians 1023,
28:29
and that's all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful,
28:33
but not all things build up. So again, this is one of those things for you personally,
28:37
and you can handle it. Go ahead and enjoy yourself. But if you can't handle it,
28:41
you should probably not do it, which leads us to Romans 14 20 here. Do not for the sake of food,
28:47
destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another
28:52
stumble by what he eats. It is not good to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your
28:57
brother to stumble. So again, we go back to the story in john two about Jesus. Can we really
29:01
assume Jesus would turn water into wine if it was wholly sinful, completely sinful. And that's
29:07
holy W H O L Y. Holy sinful. Can we really imagine that would be the case if the entirety of the
29:13
consumption of wine was some sort of a sinful act in Jesus's revelation to the world where he's
29:18
basically saying to everyone, this is who I am, you should follow me. This is going to be a crazy
29:23
next three years of y'all's lives. Why would he do that? Why would he do something that was so
29:28
definitively sinful? Okay. So this is a very difficult subject. I know for a lot of you out there,
29:35
but this is a part of the podcast where you really need to do some internal dialogue and maybe go
29:41
ahead and consult the Holy Spirit here, you know, talk to the trying God through prayer, do it,
29:46
do the things that you need to do. Because some of you out there have problems with alcohol.
29:50
It's so clear. And if it's not clear to you, it's probably clear to everyone around you
29:54
that cares about you. So please do not take this podcast as an excuse for you to continue drinking
30:00
if you have a drinking issue. I'm dead serious. Yes, I wanted to kind of give you a sense of the
30:06
history and the different camps that are involved here and kind of why everyone thinks of the way
30:10
that they do and all those different things. But at the at the same time, this is not a salvation
30:15
issue if you drink alcohol or not. It's just not. But for some of you, it is absolutely a health
30:20
issue. Some of you get really, really violent when you're drunk and you get drunk. So let's just
30:25
go ahead and put drunkenness in this category of sinfulness because it obviously is. But some of
30:31
you have some really, really bad, you know, after things that you're having to deal with, like, I'm
30:36
getting a little tongue tied here, but you have some things that you have to deal with that are
30:39
the consequences of some of your actions, the ripple effect of some of the things that you do.
30:43
So if you're an angry drunk, maybe you're getting in fights, maybe you're breaking things, maybe
30:46
you're hurting people, right? Some of you are horny drunks, right? You know, you get drunk and
30:51
then you start making bad decisions, right? You never really wanted to sleep with that, you know,
30:55
the secretary at the office or with the old flame from high school that you just connected back with
31:00
on Facebook or whatever the thing might be. But then all of a sudden you start drinking and then
31:03
you start making bad decisions. You start drinking alone. And then that leads to more bad decisions,
31:09
right? You're able to kind of keep your discipline in those types of things. But when you're drunk,
31:13
you just feel the need to look at porn and jerk off, right? I mean, that's a problem. Like,
31:16
we talked about that on a podcast too. I mean, there's so many different things for a lot of you
31:20
that you just you're not responsible enough and you're not disciplined enough to actually drink
31:24
alcohol. You can't enjoy it responsibly. And so for you, I would say, you know, be an abstentionist
31:30
abstain. It's probably the best thing for you and your family. So it's one of those things
31:35
that you can do. But for you, maybe you shouldn't. Okay. But as we kind of wrap up the subject matter
31:41
here, I want to kind of talk about how you should respond to people that judge or condemn you for
31:47
drinking alcohol. Because if you are someone who's a moderationist and you feel like you can drink,
31:52
and you never get to the point of drunkenness and you drink just to enjoy it, you know,
31:56
it's basically a social lubricant for you or something like that. There's basically two things
32:00
that you should do if someone's judging you or condemning you. Number one, make sure they have a
32:05
correct exit exit Jesus or general knowledge of what scripture says here on the subject matter.
32:11
I've given you a lot of those resources here in this podcast. And the second thing is just leave
32:15
them be. So if they're on the same page, if they understand what the Bible says about about this,
32:21
they understand all that and they just have a different opinion from you,
32:25
just leave them be totally fine. Like this is not one of those subjects that you should just,
32:31
this is not that hill to die on, in my opinion, in just about any way, shape or form. But here's
32:35
the thing guys, and you know this to be true. For most people, they don't have the foggiest idea
32:40
what the scripture says about it. They just remember hearing drunkenness talked about in their
32:45
church as a negative thing, which it is. But then they just skip out on what it says in Psalm 104.
32:51
Right? That it was it's a gift from God. It was given to us that kind of reveals part of his glory
32:57
to us as humans, as his created created beings, right? And so that's something that I find that's
33:04
really, really important for us to think about, because some of you guys want want to argue about
33:07
everything in every hill is a good enough hill to die on. And this is one of those things where
33:11
it's just again, make sure that they know what the scripture says. And if they don't, I feel like
33:16
that's your job as their brother in Christ, to educate them, don't educate them from a pious point
33:21
of view, like, Oh, I know all these things that I will now share them with you, lose your idiot,
33:25
like that you don't have to do it that way. But she like, Hey, well, have you ever actually
33:29
looked at the subject? Have you ever actually studied? Because that's something that I've done.
33:32
Uh, should we get together and actually talk about that? We'll talk about it over coffee.
33:35
And maybe we'll transition to whiskey or beer afterwards or something like that. I mean,
33:38
make it a joke. But at the end of the day, just leave a be after the subject's been completely
33:43
talked through. Just leave it alone and kind of move on with your day. So guys, I hope that was
33:47
really helpful for you. Uh, it was helpful for me going through some of this research,
33:50
because it kind of helped me think through some of the last stages of my philosophy in this area.
33:55
So I felt like that was helpful. But as we kind of wrap up here, I know a lot of you guys out there
34:00
are our drinkers that you're your beer guys. Maybe you like a different mixed drinks,
34:04
you like vodka gin, something like that. But as I've talked about on this podcast before,
34:09
I am a whiskey guy. So I really, really like whiskey. And a question I get somewhat often is,
34:14
you know, what should I buy? What type of whiskey should I get? But also at the same time, I get this
34:18
idea that most people just don't really know what's out there. And you know, if you're in California,
34:23
or if you're in Idaho, or if you're in Louisiana, or if you're in New York, what's available to you
34:27
is going to be a little bit different. So I'm going to give you all some recommendations actually here.
34:31
So even if you're not a whiskey person, maybe you know someone in your life that is a whiskey
34:34
person. So these are maybe good gift ideas or something like that. But I want to give you all a
34:38
list of a bunch of different types of whiskey. And these are the best, I guess, easy ish
34:45
whiskeys to find. So if you go to most places, most liquor stores, you should be able to find
34:50
these things pretty easily. So I'm not going to be giving you recommendations for like the best
34:54
in all these different categories. So don't email me or tweet me and be like, Oh man, you've never
34:59
had any good stuff, blah, blah. Trust me, I've had a lot of a lot of very good whiskey. But I feel
35:03
like it's kind of ridiculous and a little bit useless if I give you all a bunch of recommendations
35:07
for whiskeys that you might never see again in your entire life. So just to kind of run down,
35:12
first I'm going to give you some scotch recommendations. So for those of you who do know what scotch is,
35:16
you do understand that there are five different scotch regions. And so there's Eila, Highland,
35:20
lowland, space side and Campbell town. And so each one of those regions has different distilleries.
35:25
And you know, they get their water from different sources and they kind of go through things in a
35:29
different way. And so you're going to get a little bit of a different taste from those. But
35:32
let me give you some recommendations. So from Eila, which is my favorite of the five scotch regions,
35:36
that's going to be more of a peaty, smoky, I would look at Ardbeg 10, Oogadale and Anna Oa. So that
35:43
those are all Ardbeg. So that's AR D B E G. But the 10 year old is great. The Oogadale is always
35:50
going to be out there. That's U I G E A D A I L. And then Anna Oa, A in space, Oa. So that's
35:57
something that's really, really important for you guys to know is that all those are pretty,
36:01
pretty prevalent. You can find those just about anywhere. And then another Eila is a log of
36:05
Voulan. And so log of Voulan is fantastic. And you're going to be looking at the eight year,
36:10
the 12 year and the 16 year, the 16 years, the most common of all those. But those are a couple
36:14
of Eila picks for you. All right, next up, we have the Highlands. So I'll go through these pretty
36:19
quickly. Highland Park, which is actually the northernmost distillery in the world.
36:22
Highland Park 15 is fantastic. If you can afford the 18 year old, that's pretty prevalent. It's
36:27
absolutely wonderful. It's one of my favorites. Then you have Glen Morangie, the original,
36:32
the 10 year. So the Glen Morangie original is it's super available everywhere. But it's a very,
36:38
very light introduction to Scott. So if you've never had Scott before, I would not suggest going
36:42
with an art bag or a log of Voulan. Try that one out. It's going to be very citrusy, very light,
36:47
very easy drinker. And then we have the Oban 14 and also McCallen 12. So those are some good
36:52
highlands. Then we got some some lowlands here. So there's a couple that I would suggest to you.
36:57
First is the Glen Kitchy 12. And then the Ahintoshan, okay, it's really, really hard to say. But Ahintoshan,
37:04
it's a 12 year old. And guys, for some of these, I know it's like what I'm never going to be able
37:07
to remember these. I'm going to include these in the show notes. So I think they're all spelled
37:11
correctly. I think I did a decent enough job for you. So the next is space side. So space side is a
37:16
very kind of underrated area, region of Scotland, where they distill whiskey. Glenfiddick 14 year old,
37:22
it's finished in American oak barrels. That one's fantastic. Also the Glen Livet 12 year old and
37:26
the Cragenmore 12. Those are good space sides. And then lastly here on the scotches, we're going to
37:30
look at the Campbelltown and Springbank. That's kind of the big time distillery there in Campbelltown
37:36
region. So Springbank 10 year old is absolutely fantastic. So you should check that out. Now let's
37:41
talk about a few bourbon. So again, I know a lot of you guys out there are bourbon drinkers.
37:45
There's so many different types of bourbon out there now. And a lot of them have gotten really
37:50
expensive and really hard to find. So these are the ones that I feel like are fairly easy to find.
37:55
And you should be able to find in your local area. So the first is victors toasted barrel
37:59
or victors sour mash. So victors has a line of a lot of different things. But those are a couple
38:04
that have a unique taste bill to them. So you should check those out. Buffalo Trace is another
38:09
one. So the big distillery out in Kentucky is Buffalo Trace. But this is actually their namesake
38:14
whiskey. Also the WL Weller antique 107. That used to be a shelter. You could find it all over
38:19
the place and now it's harder to find. But that's a great one for Rose's single barrel. A lot of
38:23
people that know a lot about bourbon. That's one of their favorite everyday drinkers. So four
38:27
rows of single barrel. And the last one is one that not a whole lot of people have or have
38:31
drank before. It's Wyoming whiskey, Wyoming whiskey. So those are some bourbon. Now some other American
38:36
whiskeys that I feel like are fantastic. Stranna hands, they're out of Denver, Colorado. They've
38:41
got the original yellow label. They've got the diamond peak, which is the black label. And they've
38:45
got another one that's Stranna hands finished in a sherry cast. It's got a maroon label. All of
38:49
those are great. They're a little bit expensive, but all those are absolutely fantastic easy to find.
38:54
Another one is Balcones, Texas single malt. So again, I know if you don't know a whole lot about
38:58
whiskey, it can't be called scotch unless it's made in Scotland. That's actually an international law.
39:03
But this is a whiskey that's made in the same way, but it's made in Texas by a company called
39:07
Balcones. So that one's solid. And then also high West does a lot of different whiskeys. And
39:12
they're one called campfire. It's fantastic. So if you're looking for some good American
39:16
whiskeys, those are some now let's move on to rise. I know rise have kind of gotten a gotten
39:21
more popular recently here. And so angels envy rye is probably my favorite rye that I've ever
39:28
had. It's a it's a rye finished in a rum cast. So it's absolutely fantastic. Peerless is another
39:33
one. You can find it. It's a little bit expensive. It's around $100 for two year old rye, but it really
39:38
is good. Hi West again is showing up. They have something called a double rye. It's actually fairly
39:43
cheap, but that's a good ride. And then another one is mictors straight rise. So we talked about
39:46
a couple of mictors up there with the Bourbons. But those are some good rise as well. Again,
39:50
guys, these are not the best rise ever, ever, ever. These are just the ones that I think that you'll
39:53
be able to find fairly easily. All right, let's move on to Irish. So Irish, you're going to get a
39:57
little bit of a sweeter taste out of those. So red breast 15 year old is great. If you can afford
40:02
the 21 year old freaking go for it. Man, it's absolutely fantastic. But then also green spot is
40:08
another Irish. I know you all are expecting me to say proper 12 because I'm a Connor guy.
40:11
But here's the thing, McGregor is a great fighter and all that that whiskey is just okay. So I'll
40:16
keep it on my shelf just for, I don't know, because I'm a fan, but it's not the greatest. It's certainly
40:22
not better than green spot or red breast. Now we'll move on to Japanese. We only got a couple
40:26
of categories left. So Japanese, there's one that I think won some, some best whiskey awards for
40:31
this year, but it's Nika and I K K a coffee grain whiskey. And it's not coffee like the drink. It's
40:37
C O F F E Y. So Nika coffee grain whiskey, a great Japanese whiskey. And then another one is Habiki
40:42
harmony. And so again, you'll have all these later. And then one last one, it's kind of a unique one
40:48
that most people have never heard of. Most bars don't have it. Most liquor stores have it, but it's
40:52
maybe on the bottom shelf toward the right or something like that. But it's Emroot, AMRUT. It's
40:57
an Indian whiskey as in from India. And so that one is surprisingly good. Because here's the thing
41:03
about the distillation process in the aging process in Scotland, it's always, you know, it's colder
41:08
up there for the most part. But in India, I mean, they're hanging out by the equator. That's where
41:12
this distillery is. So the distillation process and the aging process is a lot quicker down there
41:18
because of how hot it is. So it produces a really interesting taste of whiskey. So those are just
41:23
some that I know guys have asked me before. So if you're not a whiskey person, you're like, Oh my gosh,
41:26
I'm glad this is over. But those are good ones for you to find fairly easily. So go ahead and buy
41:32
some of those, give those a try and let me know what you think. But I do want to let you guys know
41:35
kind of what my top three whiskeys ever are because this does come up in conversation
41:39
somewhat regularly, like what's the best you've ever had. So and here are my top three whiskeys,
41:44
and I'll go from three down to one in terms of the best whiskeys I've ever had in my life. So
41:48
third is Highland Park 40 year old. So I had never had before I had this 40 year old,
41:54
I had never had anything that was older than 25. But it was absolutely fantastic. Highland
41:59
Park again is one of my favorite distillaries. It's one of my favorite scotches. But the 40 year
42:03
old was something entirely different. It was absolutely incredible. My number two favorite whiskey
42:08
of all time is Pappy Van Winkle family family reserve 20 year old. So if you're familiar with
42:13
Pappy, you have the old Rip Van Winkle 10 year, you have the 12 year family reserve, you have,
42:18
you have the you have the 12 year, then you have the family reserve rye, which is actually a 13
42:23
year old, then you've got a 15 year old Pappy Van Winkle, you've got the 20 year old Pappy Van
42:28
Winkle, and then you've got, you know, the unicorn, the 23 year old Pappy Van Winkle. But
42:31
here's the thing about Pappy is it brings in a lot of oakiness because most Bourbons are not
42:36
nearly that old. I mean, a 23 year old bourbon is fairly rare and fairly crazy. But the 15 year old
42:43
has quite a bit of oakiness in the taste. It's great, but it still has quite a bit of oakiness.
42:47
The 23 year old has a ton of oakiness in it. And I don't want to say it ruins the whiskey because
42:54
it's it's really, really fantastic. But there's quite a bit of oak to it. So if you don't really
42:58
like that, if you're not really a campfire or a cigar person, it doesn't really fit a lot of
43:04
people's pallets. But the 20 year old is is the best bourbon I've ever had in my entire life. It
43:10
is just fantastic. The the cherry notes that you get in the nose, and also in the finish,
43:16
an incredibly long finish. I remember one time when I had a glass of this, I went back to the
43:20
glass about 30 minutes later after I had already drank everything that was in it, and just smelled
43:24
the glass. And you still had pretty much the entire nose left in the glass. So Pabbie Van Winkle 20
43:30
year old, I mean, it's like $2,000 on the secondary market. It's absolutely insane. But if you can
43:35
find it at retail, gosh, buy all of it that you can. And then my number one whiskey that I've
43:40
ever had in my entire life is Logavool in 25 year old. So I mentioned Logavool in earlier,
43:45
talked about the eight year, the 12 year in the 16 year. But one of my buddies, he's a very
43:50
prominent whiskey collector here in the United States, we're really in the world. And he's a
43:54
buddy of mine here in Oklahoma. And I tried, he had some of that open in his office. And there's
43:59
just nothing like it. I mean, it's an isla, which I already like. Logavool in is already one of my
44:04
favorite whiskeys out there. But the 25 year old, they just they did something special with that
44:08
whiskey. So that is an absolutely amazing whiskey. I don't know that I'll ever even get to have it
44:13
again. But up to this point, it's the best whiskey I've ever had in my entire life. So
44:17
guys, before we let you out of here, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now,
44:20
we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. And specifically,
44:24
we do that by providing content that for just spiritual mental and physical toughness. So today,
44:28
we're going to work technically with mental and physical resilience. But I'm going to give you a
44:31
link to you. And I really kind of went right into the quick resilience boost because it related to
44:37
the whiskey thing. I know for a lot of you guys out there that are trying to wanting to get into
44:40
whiskey because brown liquor is becoming more popular. But maybe you don't really know everything
44:44
about it. When someone says single mall, you don't really know what that means. When someone says
44:47
bourbon, you don't really know what that means. So I'm giving you a like a 20 minute little YouTube
44:52
video called understanding whiskey. It's one of the better, shorter little things that kind of
44:57
explained the history of whiskey, how we get it, some of the different tastes, some of the different
45:01
notes you should get. But also, I just hear a lot of people make really, really stupid mistakes when
45:05
they're describing whiskey. They're like, Oh, no, no, no, I don't like scotch. But I like whiskey.
45:10
Because when you think about it, whiskey is the macro category, right? That's like saying,
45:14
Oh, I don't like baseball, but I like sports. Like that doesn't really make any sense. Because
45:19
whiskey is the main category. And then you have all the offshoes, you have your scotch, and then
45:22
you have your bourbon's, and then you have your rise, and you're, you know, kind of the categories
45:25
we were talking about earlier, right? And if someone says, Well, I don't like scotch. It's like,
45:29
all of them. There's five regions. Like you've had scotches, the big scotches from all those
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regions, regions. I don't really like rye. I mean, how many rise have you had? Did you have
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Jim beam rye? And then you're like, I don't really want to have any of that anymore.
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So it's a very, very educational thing for you. And again, if you're not into whiskey,
45:46
just skip it. But I know that a lot of people have this conversation with me and they'll ask me my
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input. So I thought that this would be helpful to you. So I'll make sure that that gets out to you.
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All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to this podcast. As always, we really appreciate it.
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Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share
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this on social media. Guys, if we deserve a five star review, please leave us one. That is how this
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podcast will continue to grow and continue to get out to more people. And if you would, please leave
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us a few comments, a few sentences to let us know why you like the content that we're putting out.
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I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the entirety of 2019. So if you want me to come
46:19
speak to your team, to your church, to your men's event, to your whatever, hit me up via email info
46:24
at undaunted.life info at undaunted.life. Our website is www.undaunted.life. And you can follow us on
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Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life or Facebook.com backslash undaunted life. Check out our free
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devotionals on the U version Bible app to search undaunted life under plans. And we want to thank
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the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music library for our content. The
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intro outro track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record
46:49
entitled Phantom Anthem. The links of all of this are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
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Keep seeking the lion of June.