A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I could care less what a legalist thinks about my drinking habit. In fact I would go to the point of taking a shot in front of one. But I think there are definitely situations where we need to abstain from alcohol.
Drink for any amount of time (shot you don’t even have to drink) and someone is going to bring up the weaker brother. But what exactly is a weaker brother (cause most people who mention weaker brothers aren’t one and have never seen one). Paul talks to the Corinthians about not eating meat sacrificed to idols. There were brothers who just came out of the world where they sacrificed that meat to false Gods. Paul says there is nothing wrong with the meat, but understands that these brothers are still new to their faith and can’t easily separate the meat from the idols. They can’t eat the meat without stumbling back into their old lifestyle.
So where does the weaker brother come into play with alcohol. If we use Paul’s conversation with the Corinthians as our basis, a weaker brother in the world of alcohol is someone for whom alcohol is more than alcohol. A beer is more than just a beer. It is a gateway into a world were they worship something other than God. I’ll talk about this more at another time.
But the main idea is that alcohol has power over them and not the other way around. It leads them away from God and not towards a closer understanding of who He is. Beer disconnects them Jesus. It doesn’t give them a greater understanding of the glory of God. For those of us that alcohol doesn’t have any hold on us, Paul warns us that we aren’t to tempt our weaker brother. We aren’t to put them in a position where they would be tempted.
I have several friends that I don’t drink around because they struggle with drinking alcohol. But that is the case, they struggle with drinking it. They don’t struggle with the concept of drinking alcohol. They actually struggle with being able to control how many drinks they have. They use alcohol to escape pain (emotional and physical), to gain approval of friends, to pump up their egos, to do all these at one time. So I don’t tempt them by drinking around them.
I do have some other friends that are new in their faith and are still trying to figure out where their freedoms lie. I don’t drink in front of them either, but I do help them to understand that drinking in itself is not a sin. I try to help them realize that not only is alcohol in itself just a drink, but that it can actually be used to bring glory to God. I help them to see the thing they think is a sin…is actually a gift from God.
How about you guys? Are there any times when you won’t enjoy a beer?
