Booze pt. 2

As Christians we need to understand the nature of creation as innately good. Just like a beautiful painting that has been covered in smut and smoke, the world has been distorted and its beauty has been hidden. Even though its been tarnished, we can never forget the painting is still beautiful underneath! And if cleaned off, its original beauty can be restored.

Why then does the Bible speak of drunkenness being bad? Is it because alcohol itself is bad? If your answer is yes, then how do we understand the fact that God created everything good? If God indeed created everything good then we must believe that even the ingredients that go into producing alcohol are innately good. If that is true how can alcohol be bad?

Just because alcohol can be abused does not mean that it is bad. It just means that as humans we’ve found a way to abuse the beautiful creation that we’ve been given to care for. This is the problem with humans: we abuse everything around us. We abuse our resources, other people, and all elements of creation. If you want examples look at domestic abuse, slavery, dog fighting, human trafficking, strip mining, sweat shops…the list could go on and on. We call this pattern of abuse sin.

What we need to understand is that abuse is sin. The problem is that it is very easy to not understand the difference between action and abuse of the action. This is called legalism. Legalism is just as wrong as the abuse itself, because it blinds us from seeing the beauty of creation.

Thus as Christians:
1. We need to understand the innate goodness that is in the world.
2. We need to stop being legalistic.
3. We also need to stand against the abusive (or sinful) nature that is the pattern for those around us.