You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. And I'm John Galantis, and we've got a great show lined up for you guys today. But before we do anything else, we want to welcome our host with the most, Dr.
Abadan Shah, is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio.
Well, it's good to be here. Good to have you guys. Ryan back. Yes, it's good to be back in the studio. Yes.
Good to be back, man. Right in the middle of VBS. Yes. How's VBS going so far? It is going very well.
We are journeying through the Alaskan wilderness and we're learning what it means to trust Jesus. We'll paint a little bird there. That'll be a little secret just for us. I don't want to, I would never want to just air beef on the radio show. But I asked Ryan, I said, hey, look, there's a lot of rooms with TVs that just the TV's not doing anything.
Could we put Bob Ross painting on the Alaskan wilderness? You know, he lived in Alaska for a long time. I'm a huge Bob Ross fan, and I thought the kids would love, love to see Bob Ross painting those mountains. My problem is that every one of those rooms, people would be asleep. Right.
He does put me in the middle of the day. It is very just soothing. His voice is just really low. Let's put some little treats right here. Hey, before we get started with today's episode, I do want to remind you guys we are doing another live stream on August 15th from 7 to 9 p.m.
That's going to be right here in the Clearview Today Studio. It's part of our 24-hour prayer vision. We do three of these every year or four. Three every single year.
Some years we do more, but we do at least three. We do at least three every year. But anyway, you guys can call into the show. We're going to pray for you live on the air. That number is 252-582-5028.
And you can go ahead and save that in your phone right now because that number is live at all times. You don't have to text that number. A lot of the write-ins that we get from the show are not emailed. They're actually people texting into the show.
So I want to remind you of that live stream that is coming on August 15th, 7 to 9 p.m. That's right. Our verse of the day today is coming from Romans chapter 13, verses 13 and 14. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, the flesh to fulfill its That's a lot in there. You know, talking about putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, don't give any provision to the flesh.
I'm gonna ignore that because what I really wanna know, Dr. Shah, is if I'm Christian, can I drink alcohol? I know before you even say I'm missing the point, I know there's lots of stuff in that verse. I know, but I just want to zero into that one thing. Can you give me the green light to drink?
No, but let's talk about this first. Let's talk about this first.
So we cannot give the yes and no answer without talking about it. Just to let our viewers know or our listeners know, the reason we're talking about this passage in our series through Romans is because in Romans chapter 8, up until Romans chapter 8, Paul is talking about the Christian life. He's talking about what it means to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Holy Spirit of God. As we go through suffering in life, as we go through difficulties in life, this is part of our sanctification process. We are becoming more and more like Christ.
We are heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. I mean, all this is happening, but the Holy Spirit is there to help us. He is there to intercede for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. All of these are wonderful truths and promises. And then Paul sort of takes a Detour In Romans 9 through 11.
But it's not really a detour because if you know Paul's. Uh argument He is saying If God is faithful. His children, if God is faithful. To finish what he started, as it says in Romans 8, 28, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Those words are so very important in understanding Paul's structure in Romans.
Then Paul s says, wait a minute. you know that God is going to work everything together for good in your life, right? He's going to work all things together for you who are called according to his purpose. And that calling is to be be in Christ, right? To be glorified He says, and just to let you know.
Israel talking about the ethnic Israel, the Jewish people at the time. And even to this day. God is not done with them. Right. And we know that all things work together for good, even for them.
Temporarily, there is a veil over their eyes. Temporarily, they are. you know, th th they're not catching it as a group. Individually, they're being saved. I mean, Paul himself is an individual Jewish person who got saved, but collectively, they can't seem to come to the Messiah.
But God is going to be faithful to them as well. It's all part of this. And you say, well, I didn't think of it that way. You should. Imagine You are hanging from the side of a cliff.
I mean, you're going to fall. unless somebody helps you. and then you look over you see a child hanging from the cliff too. and then immediately the parent runs up. and grabs hold of the child.
And then tells you, grab hold of me. And you're like, okay, great. You're going to save your child and me. Right. And then as you are holding on to this person's hand.
That person sort of like kind of wrings his hand out of his child's, like, drops him. And drops him. What are you going to do at that point? I'll tell you what, I will do. I will quickly grab hold of that cliff.
Yeah. Because if he's not going to save his own kid, I'm not trusting him to save me. That's right. Yeah, you don't got to firm. Yeah, I'm not sure.
While you're pulling me up, you're going to kick me down, too. That is a very important point to understanding Romans. Good point. This is a great point. And God's faithfulness to Christians, but also God's faithfulness to ethnic Israel.
And in the end, God will not only save them, but he will also use them for his purpose. It seems so simple because we have the record of God making his covenant with Israel. I mean, that's the Old Testament: God being faithful to his people, even in their unfaithfulness. That's correct. And so, for us to say that, well, now God's going to change his mind, God doesn't change.
God is the same yesterday, today, forever. It seems simple, but I mean, many people have fallen down that rabbit hole. But then Paul picks up the discussion in Romans chapter 12 onwards. He picks it up and he begins to start talking again. Right.
Unfortunately, what people do is they completely misunderstand the purpose of Romans 9 through 11 and this sort of. Consider Romans 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 as just like a tail end. Let's forget that. Let's just like a mop-up, just like round. Yeah, it's not as important.
No, it's very important. Without Romans twelve through sixteen, Romans one through eight just seems so doctrinal. Yeah. There has to be application. But in chapter thirteen and fourteen, and even fifteen Paul is making a very important point.
Regarding A problem that was going on in the first century church in Rome. And the problem was there was a, as we said, Jewish background, Gentile background, believers not getting along. But he now describes them as strong and weak. These Two groups of people in the church, strong and weak. are Arguing over Food and drink Vegetables And wine.
Because when Peter saw that vision and said, Okay, now we can eat these types of meat, not everybody bought into that, right? Right. Especially those who were of the Judaizer tendency. I don't believe the ones in Rome were Judaizers as much. They were just still stuck to the law.
Yeah. And they may not all necessarily have been Jewish people. I believe some Gentiles may have been sort of Judaized. Do you think that's the reaction Peter thought? Like he sees this incredible vision of the sheet coming down, and God says, Okay, kill and eat.
And he's like, No, we can't. But God's like, No, you can eat all this food is holy. And he's like, Guys, guess what? We can finally do it. And everyone's like, We're not doing that.
Are you crazy? I believe some did that. Yeah, I feel like Peter, I mean, we give him the short end of the stick sometimes, but I feel like he's pretty sharp. I think he saw that coming. Yeah, he, I think he saw it coming.
He fell for it himself in the book of Galatians. He, instead of standing with Paul, he decided to cave into the Judaizers. From Jerusalem.
So there are a lot of wonderful and not-so-wonderful traits of Peter.
So in Romans 13, Paul. Explains to us that what's happening in this church in Rome in the first century is that they're arguing over. Of course vegetables, but also over wine. And so Paul Uses this opportunity to address something very important, which is. If you are turning to wine.
You're turning to drunkenness, you're doing the very opposite of what the Holy Spirit can do for you. Another place in the Bible, which is Ephesians, he. Chapter 5, verse 18, he even says it very clearly: which is, do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation. The word for dissipation is osotos. We often read that as debauchery.
And I've said it too, and I'm guilty of that. Who in the world knows what dissipation is? I don't know what dissipation is. Who in the world knows what debauchery is? I mean solo.
Osotose is simply The negative of Sodzo. Mm-hmm.
Souzo is to save. Oh. in front of the sozo is the alpha privative, which means it becomes a negative.
So sozo is saved. What would be the opposite of s being saved? Condemned? I would say I know theologically, maybe yes.
Okay. But more practically, I am being saved. Yeah, you are being Scattered.
Okay. You're you're uh you're being Dispersed. You are going reckless. Kind of like resources. Like I'm saving my resources versus I'm scattering my resources.
That's right. Okay. That's why in the prodigal son story, it's a prodigal son. What does prodigal living mean? Osotos.
It means you are wasteful. You are destroying yourself. That makes sense. Do not be drunk with wine, which is wasting, which is. destructive, which is scattering.
But be filled with the Holy Spirit. Yeah. So Paul writes that to the Roman church.
Well, he didn't say that. He said that to the church in Ephesus. You're right. But I think it's the same principle that is being reflected here in Romans 9 through 11. But he does say it to the early church, and everyone pretty much understands, and there's no conflict over drinking for the next 2,000 years.
I wish it was true. That's not true. I mean, right in the first century church in Rome, this is like maybe 20, 30 years after Jesus has ascended, that they're arguing over drinking. Yeah. Isn't that weird?
Like, Jesus has ascended. It's barely like, there's probably still people alive who either remember it or new people who remembered it. Or Saul. Or saw it. Yeah.
And then there's like, let's figure out whether or not we can drink alcohol or not. Like, that's really the sticking point that we need to devote our energy to arguing about. There's so much disagreement among people on this topic. And I want us to take this show. It may take us a couple more shows, but I would like to spend some time to really walk through the issues here.
And we may not go to other passages other than maybe the book of Romans, maybe a couple of here and there, like Ephesians. But overall, I want to stay here and just talk about this. Why this issue? Why is this the sticking point for people? Because I feel like there are a lot of other things that we could.
Kind of lump into sort of this quote unquote gray area. But why, why drinking is such the debate between Christians?
Well, because the Bible is clear and at the same time it does not explicitly say Drinking is a sin. Yeah. See, here's where I think about it, and maybe you can tell me if my logic is off based on this. The Bible doesn't say. Watching pornography is a sin.
But the Bible does say If you lust after a woman in your heart, you've recommended her to. We have common sense enough to know. This is a sin. Sure. Right.
With drinking, it says, hey, being drunk is a sin. Drunkenness is a sin.
So my common sense would tell me this thing that makes me drunk is sinful. Right. So I guess I don't understand why people are so like, nobody will fight for the right to watch pornography, but they will fight for the right to drink alcohol. Yeah, because in cultures, most of the time. Of course there are places like Uh ancient Rome, right?
The Roman Empire. The pornography was there. Yeah. Like in Pompeii, in many of the places, you cannot. You cannot take little children there.
Right? Pompe Pompeii was uh buried under volcanic ash because of the pornography that you find on the frescoes and on the doors and on the walls. Um it's it's pretty bad. But overall, most cultures would Most of the time, I would say, not all the time, most of the time, they will not have explicit pornography. Like even in India, if you go to ancient caves and temples, you will see pornography.
I mean, hardcore pornography. But because sometimes temples became the place of prostitution. But in a yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that was a big thing. I mean, prostitution is.
Wrong. Make it legal, but if you can make it spiritual, it's even own. I mean, take away all the guilt. I see. I see.
So they were incorporating it into the faith. I thought it was like these are holy temples, but the prostitutes are just coming in here taking over. No, no, no, no. Yeah, the human heart is evil. And so, but typically in home settings, they would not put.
Explicitly nude or sexual pictures.
So, most cultures will not do that most of the time. Drinking is one of those things that is just very unique. Where Most cultures will not oppose it. I think you're right because I can't think of any other quote-unquote sin. I want to be careful how I say that, but I can't think of anything else like it to compare.
Because I do have lots of other things where it's like the Bible doesn't say this, but we all agree this will lead to sin. But drinking is that unique one where people are like, no, I'll fight for this. Yeah. Yeah. And because it's not explicitly.
said you shall not drink wine like Why didn't God just make 11 commandments? Yeah, just number 11. Right. I mean, there is do not commit adultery, but there's nothing that comes close to do not drink wine. There's nothing that says do not be inebriated.
It does not say anything. Do not lose your mind. I mean, something could have been said, right? It doesn't do that.
Now you somebody can make an argument that You shall have no other gods before me, could be. Sure. But it's not as clear. One reason I believe is because the Bible was not given just to get people sober, it was given to get people saved. You say, What does that mean?
It means this: if The Bible were taken in cultures where alcohol was such a part of life. Drinking, not drinking, would be a huge stumbling block for them to come to the gospel. Mm-hmm.
God did not want that. He did not want any culture to reject Even listening further to the gospel because, hey, y'all don't drink. I don't know if I want this. But once you are saved, then you begin to dig into the word and then you realize, even if it's not given as a command, It is everywhere. Giving us a lot of warnings.
And there are also a lot of misunderstandings that we need to clarify. And I hope we can do it over this today a little bit, maybe, but definitely over the next couple of weeks. Yeah, I think you're right because this is a huge topic. And I'm sure there's people on Pray, there's people on Truth Network, there's people all over the place who are listening to this over our various platforms, who have lots of opinions. Drinking is one of those ones that you're going to have people who want to weigh in.
But I think one of the things that you mentioned, Dr. Shai, is that even though the Bible doesn't say explicitly, thou shalt not drink, it does say at least it communicates drunkenness is bad. It's something to avoid, it's harmful.
Well, it's more than just drunkenness. Let's back up a little bit, okay? That word for drunkenness in Greek, where it says right here in Romans 13 and chapter 13, verse 13, said, Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness. That word is, in Greek, is methay. The idea behind that word, methei, is strong drink.
Okay. Not being drunk, but the drink, the strong drunk. Yes. Gotcha. The Bible and even ancient times.
Give us a distinction between drink, like wine. and strong drink. The ancients, and I'm talking about With the Greeks and the Latins. Romans, they made a big distinction between Wine and strong drink. and even the Bible, Old Testament.
Makes distinctions. I want to discuss that now. Yeah, I think you know. Because I think people need to understand. To begin with, Distilled alcohol And here I'm referring to things like whiskey, gin, rum, brandy, distilled alcohol was not available until eighth Eighth century AD.
That's nine hundreds. 900 or 800 years after the New Testament period.
So there is no whiskey in the Bible times. That's not happening. Right. Now, don't misunderstand. The Chinese were doing some form of distillation and they were using rice to make beer in even like 8th century.
BC. But it was not to the level of distill alcohol like people. Have available to them over the past few hundred years. That science really wasn't around then. It was not there.
Like this, this drink called Erek, which is found in Southeast Asia or South Asia. This was found. you know, way back in time, yes. In in earlier times. But it was really the Arabs who mastered the skill and the science of distilling alcohol.
In fact, the word Alcohol, alcohol, is um it's a Arabic word. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Alcool.
Alcool is like distilled. Used to refer to this power. Powder that was distilled to use as like mascara or to do makeup. And from there, they got the idea of distilling alcohol. Is alchemy in a similar vein?
Yes. You think so? Yes. Because it's like, it's like, I mean, it's like mixing potions and mixing brews and stuff like that. Most of the time, when you come across a word that is al something, It is Arabic.
Did you know another one? Algebra? Yeah. Yeah. I remember you told me that.
I think we talked about it on a show one time. Yeah. That's a good point. They are Arabic words. Yeah.
So alcohol really was uh sort of Distilled alcohol was perfected by the Arab alchemists. Wow. Yeah. Did they set out to make alcohol or were they working on something else and kind of stumble upon this?
Well, there's a lot of discussion on that. You know, where did people really. Come across these things. I don't know. I think human beings are smarter than we give them credit for.
So once they figure something out, they're going to work on it. Oh, yeah. They're going to perfect it. They're going to perfect that. Especially if it gives you that buzz and makes you feel if this much does this for me, how much will this much do for me?
Yeah. So let's test that theory. That's exactly what they did. And so, um, In ancient times, now I'm backing up beyond the Arab period of the 8th century AD. If you go to the Egyptian records, you see they had beer, they had wine, but Even there there there were some strict warnings.
In fact, there is a warning we found by a father named Ani instructing his son, and he says, Don't indulge in drinking beer. Lest you utter evil speech and don't know what you're saying. If you fall and hurt your body, none holds out a hand to you. Your companions in drinking stand up, saying, Out with the drunk! Wow.
So, they didn't have a high view on drinking either. They didn't have a high view, especially when it came to strong drink. Especially when it came to a drink where you. Lose your mind. And you utter evil speech.
And don't know what you're saying means now you've crossed the limit. People drank. You know, even in biblical times, and I'm going to come to that in a moment. There was Ya'in, which is wine in Old Testament times, these are Hebrew words, and Shakar, which is strong drink.
Now recently some scholars have said shakar is not just a strong drink, shakar is beer. And Okay. The difference between beer and wine, beer is m made most mostly out of gra uh uh grains and wine would be mostly out of grapes. Yeah, that's right. That's a there's a difference.
So Okay, it doesn't matter. They say, oh, yeah, back in ancient Israel. Men, women and children drank wine. Or or beer.
Okay. What's your point? That tells again that the beer was not Distilled. It was not as concentrated as we see beer today. Right.
The point still stands either way that it was a strong drink. You could call it beer, but I mean, it was a strong drink that people were saying this is not good for you guys to drink. Right. And what was regularly consumed was not what was consumed. Was not Shakar.
Right. Was not. And if you don't want to call it Shakar, fine. It was not. As potential As the as the wine that they were drinking.
or as the beer people drink today. Gotcha. Yeah. You know, so you see that. And even among the Greeks, the ancient Greeks would store wine in large jugs, and these jugs were called amphore.
Amphore. I've seen them in the museum in Corinth. I think we can have pictures right here for people who are watching the show. Ryan, Elizabeth, David have seen it. And then they would.
Take A bowl, it's a mixing bowl called Kratos. They would first fill that bowl with water, And then they would go into The amphoré with maybe a little, I don't know, whatever, a spoon, and then pour wine into the croatos and mix it in the mixing bowl. That's very important because later on we'll hear about that in the Old Testament, about the mixing bowl, the Mimsak.
So from Amphore to Kratos, and then finally it was poured into the Kylix, which is a cup. It was not a cup like my coffee cup here. Or the wine glass that we have today, it was more like a saucer. It looked like a saucer. And then they would drink it.
So there's not that much. There's not much. There's not that much. No. 'Cause you find them in the museum.
There's an almforeay, there's a kratos, and there's a kylix, and it's like this much. Yeah, it really does look like a little saucer for a teacup. Exactly.
So you've got a little small cup and the wine that you're drinking is already mixed with water. And that was very important. Let me give you a couple of examples here. If you did not. Mix it, then that's a Akrotos.
Don't drink the Akrotos. That's what they would say. In fact, Menestheus of Athens. And this is hundreds of years before Christ. He said, in daily intercourse, to those who mix and drink it moderately, it gives good cheer.
But if you overstep the bounds, it brings violence. Mix it half and half. and you get madness. Unmixed bodily collapse. I mean, they are like saying Very explicitly, do not do this.
Where are you drinking straight wine? Yeah. Yeah, you will go out of your mind. And that's exactly what we're doing in our culture today. And I haven't even begun to look at the biblical understanding of wine.
We can come to that in a moment. But just among the Greeks And we're going to see what the Romans said as well. But let's look at one more, a couple more here, very quickly. Xenophanes. even gives the order of the mixture, and I explained that a few moments ago.
Nor would a man pour wine first in the cup when he mingled it, but water and thereafter the liquor.
So the water goes in first. The majority of what you're drinking is water. It's water. Is water. Plutarch said.
We call a mixture wine, although the larger of the component parts is water. I guess what I want to know is: like, why the wine in the first place? If you're drinking mostly water, why not just drink the water? Because water in ancient times was not always pure.
Now, yes, there were wells there. Abraham dug wells, and there were, you know. Wonderful clear streams, underwater springs. I mean, all those things were there. Don't misunderstand.
They were there, but they were not as common as we have today. They didn't have like water treatment facilities like we have today.
So, yes, you could get pure water, and yes, water was preferable in some ways, but. Most of the time You could not do that. Because it was costly to boil water, especially if it's an army on the move. How are you going to do that? Yeah, good point.
Because water is going to go bad. You know, it's going to have bacteria, pathogens in it.
So mixing a little bit of wine had a way of purifying that water. I don't think it solved all the problems, but it definitely helped. It had the benefit of not getting you drunk because it's mixed with so much water. And even beer, you know, people talk about beer.
Okay. Well, it was not as alcoholic as we have it today. That's true.
So that children could drink it. No parent, I would say, in their right mind, in their right mind, would want their children to be out of their mind just being drunk with beer. I agree. No, they would make the beer and it had to be drunk. quickly because beer would go bad.
So most of the time they would drink it just a few days, a few hours after it was made because left alone, it'll go bad. That's a good point. Maybe tomorrow we can kind of go over some of those numbers because I'm sure there's people that's like, but there was still drunkenness in the Bible, so they had to be getting drunk. Maybe tomorrow we can look at like how much those people would have really had to be drinking in order for it to compare to today and how monstrous the drinks that we have today actually are. Yeah, absolutely.
It's a different category altogether. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen.
And you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give. John, what do you want to leave our listeners with?
Well, definitely already told you about the live stream coming up on October, I'm sorry, on August the 15th, but also want to encourage you guys to follow Dr. Shah on Pray.com. We are trying to pass 50,000 subscribers. We're hanging out around 31,000, 32,000 right now.
So I want to see those follower counts going up. Can help us do that by following Dr. Abadan Shah on Prey.com, especially if you're already listening on the platform. Just run on over there, give us a quick follow. It really helps us out and helps us stay visible on Prey.
That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearby Today.
