Let's Not Drink To This Series

It would be unfair to say that the parents are motivated by this; “That is a little me out there. I could have achieved more if I had the opportunity, but I didn’t. Let my child prove to you what I could have been if I had the chance.” I say it would be unfair because this sounds so unloving to the child. Although there can be great love for the child, this motivation can still be there. When it is, it seems to look like the primary motivation because of its ugly nature.

Yet the parents can always fall back on this, “Well, I only pushed you because I love you. I just wanted you to achieve more than I did. I wanted you to have more than I had.” There is the key: The comparison to self. Why not say, “I wanted you to be all you were created for, regardless of my background and experience.” The focus of this should be on the child and their gifting, with no comparisons to the parents.

Gen 19:33-35 So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34 The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." 35 So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

So the girls went through with this on two subsequent nights. Each night, they made their father drunk with wine, so drunk, he did not know what was happening. Each night, one of his daughters came to him and slept with him to get pregnant.

There is a hot topic now days in Christianity concerning alcohol. It seems that we as a denomination are as divided about alcohol as we are any other topic. Historically, it has been universally taught that drinking alcohol for anything but medicine is a sin.

I was taught that alcoholic drinks were brewed in Hell and delivered by demons. OK, that is an exaggeration, but, honestly, what I was taught wasn’t that far from that.

If we preach that alcohol is a sin, we have to violate some scriptures and contradict some of Jesus’ words. But if we preach that alcohol is OK and perfectly safe, we violate other scriptures.

Typically, those who are against even alcohol in moderation come from two camps. One is the traditionalist; those who were raised as teetotalers always believing that alcohol consumption was a sin. They stay tee-totally away from alcohol as a recreational or casual beverage. Most of these have scriptural and theological reasons for being against alcohol.

The other camp is those who have seen the deadly destruction and powerful pull of alcohol. Some were raised in homes with alcoholic care-givers and received the abuse that comes from alcohol abuse. Others fell into alcoholic addiction and struggled with freedom from it, only to hate it in their souls. Many are the numbers of people who say they wish they never had the first drink. They will promise you that if you do not have the first drink, you will never fall into the destructive clutches of alcohol.