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. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clearview Today Studio.
We are so glad that you're joining us this great Wednesday. We're having a great week. Lots of great content. Dr. Shah, we're so glad to see you in the studio today.
Thank you. Good to be here. Absolutely. If you guys are joining us for the very first time, Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and host of today's show.
We've been having a great conversation this past week. We have. We have. We've been talking a lot about drinking, about, and you know, these are things that people want to talk about on the shows, but they don't know how to or they don't really know what stance to take. But we've been taking a pretty firm stance against alcohol consumption as Christians this past week.
And biblically based. It's not just like this is what I think or this is my opinion or this is how I was raised. No, this is what the Bible truly says about drinking. It's not listed as the 11th commandment, but we talked about the reasons behind that too. Dr.
Shah, I love what you said. The purpose of the Bible wasn't to get people to sober. It was to get them saved. Absolutely. And that's.
One reason we've had a lot of people contact us, contact us online, contact me directly. Those who have my number, they're texting me, sending me emails just to say, thank you for standing firm on this issue. Thank you for going to the Bible to explain this to us and also bringing in history, archaeology, those kind of things to help not really enhance the message, but to really undergird the message to help us know for sure how the ancients saw wine and alcohol. That's right. And all of these messages have been coming not from a finger-wagging, you shouldn't do this, you can't do this.
This is all very much the heart of it. And I'm going somewhere with this, but the heart of it has been: hey, this is not going to help you. This is going to hurt you. That's right. And so we've been getting a lot of great response.
You know, with Prey, with Facebook, with YouTube, you're always going to get comments. And a lot of comments are like, amen, great show. Agree 100%.
Some might have some disagreeing opinions. But Dr. Shay, you got an email that I thought we could. Read on the show because this email, I think, is really the heart and was the goal of why we did this series on alcohol.
So, this person writes in and says, I just want to tell you, thank you. I've listened to the show several times throughout this week, and it has changed my life. Throughout my life going to church, preachers have either avoided this topic or rode the fence on it. It's always been, I've always been under the impression that it's not a problem if you don't drink to get drunk. For the record, me personally, this is me speaking now, I've always thought that too.
For the past decade and a half, I've consumed alcohol casually for the most part. There have definitely been plenty of times throughout the years where I've got drunk, but ever since a traumatic experience about three years ago, I have not allowed myself to be drunk. I've never had an issue with frequency. I've never been one to drink every day or even once a week. Typically, I'll only have a couple of beers when out of the beach or at a gathering as a social thing.
Even after giving my life to Christ back in April, I haven't felt like alcohol was a problem for me. I can control it, so it's not an issue until I listened to the show. The way you broke down the typical comments from people like, well, Jesus drank wine, so it was fine, articulated in such a biblical way that I've never heard. One thing that convicted me was when you spoke about how sometimes the problem with drinking may not be inside of you, but how it affects the people around you. You know, we did a whole episode on that.
Right. I've witnessed alcohol have a stronger hold on others than it ever did for me. And for the first time after hearing your show, I realized that I certainly influenced people's relationship with alcohol. The second and most important thing that absolutely wrecked me was a quote from you that went something like, if you are picking through this sermon, look. looking for reasons to still drink alcohol, you might just have a problem.
Because that was me. I was deciphering your messages like Sherlock Holmes, looking for any reasons I could find that would make it okay for me to still drink alcohol. There's nothing in this world that I want to have control over me like that. Because if that's the case, then that's a piece of my heart and soul that God's not a part of.
So thank you for standing on the word. Thank you for not writing fences. From this world's standards, I don't have a problem with alcohol, but the standards, but from the standards that really matter, I've realized through your messages and through your show, I did. And what a joy it is that I can simply give it to him and be free. God bless.
Wow. What is very important in that entire email is just wonderful. I've saved it and I've used it in a sermon since then. But the statement that he made is that there's nothing in this world that I want to have control over me like that. That's right.
And that. Is So important for us to hear. Nothing in this world that you want to have that kind of a control over you. Again, for someone like him and others, many others, majority of the people, don't have a problem. They can drink a few sips, put it down.
They can drink a whole beer and not come back to it until next Friday night. Or they can drink a bottle and maybe a wine glass and not touch it until the next wedding or next celebration. But That It's not true for many people. That's right. For them, alcohol controls them.
Wine controls them. Beer, wine coolers are controlling their lives. As I mentioned a couple of shows ago, the one gentleman who on the way out of church uh said you know You know, you have a problem when alcohol begins to call you from the refrigerator. Wow. And I didn't know that.
You know, that's a powerful way of saying that. And I said, wow, I don't know that. He said, you don't want to know that. You don't want to know that. You don't want.
to know what it's like when it says come now. You still got time. This is still the evening is still young. Come. You have a day off tomorrow.
Go ahead and get one. And people do that, you know, drink Saturday night and then try to stay up Sunday morning and they can't because. They're drunk. Right. That's right.
And you don't realize how much you love it until you start looking for reasons. And I think that was something that you've said. I've never heard before. Like, if you're looking for reasons to keep doing this, there's a reason that you're looking. It's because you have a problem.
There's a problem. You're trying to justify something that you know is wrong, but you're looking for that loophole. How can I? Swing this to make it okay. Yeah, that feeling, that high, that, and even if it's not a feeling, it just becomes that part of your daily routine.
Addiction. I mean, that's what addiction is. It just becomes part of that thing that makes your day complete. Yeah. Although it doesn't complete your day, it destroys your day, but it's something to To do when I sit down.
There was a time when ice cream was my part of every evening. Every night. Every night I would go sit down. And watch, start watching something. 30 minutes later, I'm making my way to the fridge and pulling out the Briars ice cream.
I was going to say, like, saucy. You know what I'm saying? I love some ice cream. Oh, man. Yeah.
Every night type of thing? I would if it was in the freezer. I don't keep it in the house for that reason. I love ice cream. Wow.
Yeah. Briars or what's the other one? The Ben and Jerry's or whatever. Yeah. Because it would be like, ooh, I know it's there.
And I ate only the first top of it. I can go and get some and I can eat just maybe the second layer of. Let me go do that now. This is the time. There's commercials coming on.
Wow. Yep. But imagine.
Now, ice cream, it's not bad. It's not good for you. It's bad for your sugar and bad for your health. It's okay to eat it once in a while. Sure.
But Nobody ever ate ice cream and decided to go out there and, you know, run into.
Someone. Right. That's right. Nobody ate ice cream and went beating up on their family or abusing loved ones. Nobody does that.
Ice cream does not alter your mind. Yeah, it's just bad for your health. Right. You shouldn't do it, but there's fewer and fewer lasting consequences than with alcohol. That's right.
Right. But imagine that with alcohol when this is saying to you, come get it. You know the taste is there and you know this is what you do. This is what completes your evening. This is what just.
Makes things right. And then to heck with the consequences.
So what? Right. So what? So, what your wife's going to fuss at you, so what your husband is going to fuss at you, so what your children are going to be sort of neglected.
So, what? Let's go ahead and do it. And just finish it. That's all right. And then tomorrow we'll deal with tomorrow.
Yeah. Too many people live like that. It's sad. But I think the other thing that is helping me through all of this is seeing people like this person who sent in this email and all the other people who are leaving comments thing. This really, really helped me.
And helped them in the sense of like, I understand that people are looking to me, people are watching me and the example that I'm setting.
So it matters not just for myself how I handle this, but it matters for other people. And I'm really glad that you didn't take the position, and we'll move on after this, but I'm glad that you didn't take the position of you're missing the point, you're asking the wrong questions. Because a lot of people, especially a lot of pastors, they will say that to. As a cop out, to not give an answer. Maybe because they drink and they don't want to say and they don't want to admit they drink or whatever.
But a lot of pastors that I've seen would be like, you know, you're asking the wrong question. Can we drink or can we not drink? Just focus on Jesus. You know, look at what Jesus. But I like that we said, no, it's not good for you.
It will hurt you. And asking the wrong question is like, are we allowed to do it? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Even from just a physical reason, I had another message that came through on my Facebook.
And this one was really good because this person wrote to me, and if I can find that real quick, oh, yeah, here it is. This person wrote to me and they sent me. A real, I think this was on Instagram, maybe, or maybe TikTok. I don't know. It said, just saw this doctor on Facebook.
So I guess it's Facebook. Speaking on. Ill effects of alcohol. Oh, I'm sorry. I think she missed uh the autocorrect must have you know jumped in here.
Just saw this doctor on Facebook speaking on the effects of alcohol to the brain. Thank you. For your great sermons. And in this, it talks about what alcohol, one to two glasses of alcohol, do to your brain. It shrinks it.
It causes Alzheimer's. It has problems. Yeah. And we know that this is not just a problem that we face, but this has been a problem for a long. Long time.
Yeah. And that sort of goes in today's verse of the day. Absolutely. Our verse of the day today is coming from Matthew chapter 22, verses 11 and 12. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment.
So he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
So I've always loved this parable. This is one of Jesus' parables, right? Where this guy comes in, he's obviously wearing the wrong thing. And the king comes in. He's like, hey, you're not wearing the right thing.
And being that it's coming from one of Jesus' parables, I thought it would be like, oh, I have nothing, sir. I have nothing. And this is the best I have. And the king would be like, well, just come as you are. It's okay.
I'll welcome you in. He says, get this guy the heck out of here and tosses him out. But this is from a sermon that you just did that sort of continues this idea. It's not really about drinking per se, but about the larger, I guess, the larger. Topic of the Lord's Supper.
Yeah, one of the things we talked about with drinking is people would point to the wine consumed at the Lord's Supper. That's why is that okay?
So, this kind of led perfectly from a series on. Alcohol drinking, yes or no, to a message about communion. That's correct. You know, in the past couple of messages, we talked about two main things. Number one, the alcohol content of wine in biblical times was negligible.
negligible compared to the alcohol content of modern Alcoholic beverages. Right. That's right. Big difference. They had to mix the wine.
And when they didn't, people would call them out. Their leaders would call them out. Even among Jewish people, we talked about the conservative view and the liberal view. Not this is not theological conservatism or theological liberalism. This is conservative in the sense of less amount Of liquid at the Passover.
Liberal view would be more amount of liquids at the Passover. But either way, even the Jewish people had. certain strictures about how much They could drink even at the Passover. And what a quarter log was supposed to be. you know, size of an egg and a half or something like that.
But I want it talk today a little bit, if that's okay, about How people see wine being used at the Lord's Supper as sort of a A permission To go ahead and drink.
So, right off the bat, I mean, I know the answer, obviously, but do we use wine? At Clearview Church for the Lord's Supper. No, I mean, use grape juice. Are there Welches? Welches?
Juicy juice? Welches. We use Welch's. We've used other ones in the past, but it's mostly Welch's. I'm just messing around.
So, are there churches that do use wine? Oh, yeah. Like non-Catholic churches? Oh. Or mostly Catholic, Death.
Mostly Catholic, but I think there are some who do kind of like the purest types. Gotcha. I don't I cannot think of their names offhand, but yeah, there are people I've heard of who are strict on that wine thing. Gotcha. And it's a big deal for them.
It's a big deal, because if not, this is not the. The more authentic Lord's Supper. It has to be done a certain way.
Now, so my follow-up question to that is: based on our conversation, do they mix the wine like they did in Bible times, or is it just people like that don't even believe that wine needs to be mixed. They have their spin or twist on this whole wine mixing thing. They don't believe that that's true. Got you. They're looking for a reason to drink.
They're looking for a reason to drink. They will say that so that their conscience will not be. You know, convicting them.
So what does, I guess the really important question is, what does Paul say about drinking wine during the Lord's Supper?
So to understand how wine was used at the communion, by the way, one more point I want to quickly mention and then let's jump right in. Sure, sure. And the second thing that we covered over the past couple of weeks was that Even if you can hold your liquor, if even if you can drink, Keep in mind that there is a brother or a sister around you, and this brother and sister may be your son or daughter who cannot do those things. And so Paul wrote to the church in Rome and he told them, Look, be careful about these things, right? You have a weak brother.
Don't do that. Keep them in mind. There's a passage here I want to mention very quickly. And this is coming from Romans chapter 14, verse 2. 21 It says, It is best not to drink alcohol nor do anything by which a brother or sister.
Stumbles or or is offended or is made weak.
So don't do that for them. Wine was diluted back then. compared to wine today. And Keep in mind, even if you can handle it, There's a brother or a sister who is not able to keep up. With that.
Do you think there's a well, go ahead? I was gonna ask the churches that do use wine as communion, how would they handle that verse? Because I can tell you I can tell you my per sel personally, I don't think I'm the type of person that can handle wine. I think I've got an addictive personality. And I think if I were to go down that road, I think that would be it.
Yeah. And in that way, I don't know if I'm ashamed to be considered weak there or if it's something that's good to know about yourself. Yeah, I mean, I would say weak at that point because that's how the Bible describes people like that. And not weak as in, like, you're a weak person physically or weak in every area of your life, but no, in just that area. Right.
You may be tempted to overindulge. Yes. My weakness is sweets. I want to be careful because that weakness may also skip over and get into alcohol. But this is not a weakness.
Correct me if I'm wrong here. This is not a weakness in the sense that we would think where it's like, okay, I'm weak in that area. I need to work on that so that I can drink and not. Lose control. It's like it's better to not even go there at all.
Don't even pick it up. You know, the best way to deal with. Alcohol addiction is? Just don't drink. Just open it.
You won't pick up the glass. And you won't have to struggle with that.
So, moving along. How do you view this whole issue regarding wine during the communion? to understand How that went, we need to understand two institutions from ancient times. One is a Greco-Roman institution. And the second is a Jewish or Old Testament inst institution.
The Greco Roman institution is the institution of A banquet. Mm-hmm. The Jewish or Old Testament institution we're talking about here is the Passover. If we do not have a good understanding of Greco-Roman banquets. And Jewish Old Testament Passovers, we will misunderstand and misappropriate.
The purpose for the Lord's Supper, the communion. Like, I think of a banquet today, like that's a fundraiser. You know what I'm saying? Right. That's like a dinner we go to, and then we pretend to like the food.
There's round tables everywhere. Yeah. Fix your plate. Yeah. You might get a little coffee as a dessert.
That's your banquet. What did the banquet look like in the Greco-Roman times?
So, Romans got the idea of a banquet from the Greeks. The Greeks, and of course, the Romans since then, they had. Banquets Um all throughout the empire, like rich. Middle class, poor, you would have your banquets. Of course, the level of money and luxury and menus and kind of wine would be different because the richer you are, The better food you're going to have, the better service you will have, the better wine you will have.
Middle class, maybe a little less. Poor may not be. As much wine. May not be as high-class wine. But nonetheless, you will have banquets.
Even the poor would have some banquets? Even the poor had banquets. Yeah, everybody had banquets.
Okay.
Now, banquets. In Greco-Roman times, were two parts And we're not referring to just the evening meal. We're talking about banquets. They were a whole different. Animal.
So, this isn't like two courses. This is like events in the evening, right? Right. Okay, so the the banquet is the entire entree. Right.
So the first part would probably be the salad and and entree, what's known as the dapnon. Dapnon was the eating portion of the banquet. The first couple of hours. In fact, a whole banquet would last maybe three to four hours, maybe a tad bit more, but not too much. Gotcha.
The second half of the banquet was a symposium.
So, first part is a deep non, the second part is a symposium. The deep non. was of course food. Um some drinks, but really focus more on the food. And For a Greco-Roman banquet the host would send out Invitations.
For people to come. And we see that In Jesus' parables, where the king sent out his servants with an oral invitation, and sometimes they were oral, sometimes they were written invitation, but nonetheless, and it was his son's wedding. He invited people to come, and they rejected. They said, No, I don't have time for that. They mocked them, whatever, whatever.
So, the king sends out more. And this time he brings in everybody from the highways, the byways to come to the feast to fill his house. Right. So. Um The invitation would go out.
and then you would come to the banquet. The rich may have a banquet every week. The middle class maybe Once or twice a month. the poor maybe every three to four months, maybe six months, maybe once a year. Nonetheless, everybody had some form of a ban banquet.
Either they gave the banquet or they um were invited to one. Right. Now Again, keep in mind. The Jewish people had their belief systems. But they also adapted Roman and Greek customs.
So that's how we have these illustrations that Jesus uses.
So people would come, and the first order of business when they came to the banquet, by the way, the banquets were. Very important. In the Roman life. One is because of patronage. This is a time where you invite people who are on your level or higher, maybe a tad bit lower at times, but nonetheless, just somewhere in that vicinity to come to your banquet.
This is a time for you to make connections with people. This is your country club. This is your. Speed. Speed dating.
Okay.
Right? You come and you quickly get to know each other and say, Hey, yeah, I heard you're building that aqueduct over there. Oh, that's wonderful. Man, it looks great. And da-da-da-da-da-da.
Hey, let me know if you want me to bring some concrete over to you. You know, be love to, love to this is your networking event. Yeah, it's a networking event.
So it's pretty good. Get your name out there, hand out your little business cards.
So if you're throwing the banquet, there's a sense of. You know, patronage happening means it's almost like I am superior to you. I'm inviting you to my banquet. I'm inviting you to my home. If you're the host.
If you're the host. The host is almost like I'm facilitating these deals for you. He's the host with the most, and he's doing the most. From coast to coast. Gotcha.
And they probably serve toast. The host in Greek was called xenos. That sounds a cool time. That's where we get the word xenophobia, which is a fear of people who are different. Wow.
So, what does that have to do with the host? I didn't even realize those were connected. Yes, yes. Huh, okay.
Well The reason the host was called a stranger or a foreigner or an alien is because his job was to connect strangers and foreigners and aliens at his heart. Those clever Greeks. Yeah. So somehow Hosts are called Zenos.
Okay, Xenos.
So he, so he, but, but, like you said, it was his job to get all these people together and network for his benefit, for their benefit, all of the other people. Everybody, is it's um. Uh kind of um You know, patronage, which means I'm doing this. For you, I'm the benefactor in this.
Okay.
And you all. come because I invited you on it. You should be grateful. And remember me in your elections. Or remember me when that auction goes out.
You know what I like. Make sure you you call me. Yeah. Or you know there's some uh biddings going to be happening on that particular job. Don't forget, right?
Remember me. Um, second reason the banquets were very important to the Romans is because. all on the banquet walls, were murals and frescoes painted of Roman gods and goddesses. Mm-hmm. Caesars Other depictions of Roman life.
So, as you're sitting there eating your meals, you're looking, you're surrounded by patriotism. And Rome loved it because one thing you have to do. During a banquet. You have to swear allegiance. Two.
Caesar. And as long as you do that, You're good. You can have as many banquets as you want. And they had all kinds of banquets. They had banquets of rich people, they had banquets of.
middle class people Banquets of poor people, politicians, associations like. metal workers or glass workers um or Based on what part of the Roman Empire you're coming from.
So if you're from Egypt, whether these are the Egyptian Romans banquet. If you're a Syrian, then this is a Syrian-Roman banquet.
So all kinds of banquets. Constantly, people were going to banquets. And all unified under Caesar. All unified under Caesar. Under is a big pur purpose or term for banquets because Not only you know, there is a sense of uh patronage, but also You see.
When you are invited and when you're not invited, you find your place in society.
So there is, there's hierarchical in structure. Absolutely. There's a hierarchy even within the banquet. Oh yeah. Because It's a triclinium.
I know that word. I've heard that word before. Yeah, the Greeks sort of had more couches, but Romans had a horseshoe-looking room, and that room was called triclinium. Triclinium means three recliners. Klino is recline.
So You would recline on your left elbow and eat with your right hand. You would recline. You would not sit on a chair, bench, dining. You're not like sitting at it, like Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. Probably didn't look like that.
It's a great painting, and I love it. I think he was doing the best he could to sort of depict the whole. Disciples, all the disciples, the 13 of them, including Jesus, you know, makes it 13, in the upper room.
So he put them all side by side. I mean, how else would he paint the Compositionally, great painting. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Historical accuracy. Not so much.
Which makes more sense when you read the passage about like John who is leaning on Jesus. That makes much more sense if you're reclining at a table versus like sitting at a table and just kind of. Yeah, I remember in the studio is sort of a triclinium. We got like planners. But I remember playing Assassin's Creed 1.
Do you remember? And if you would go into the places, it took like the rest points to save points. They had those couches and you would like lay down and you would start eating. I remember that. And when you, I don't know why, it's just a random thought, but that image came to me when you did this sermon talking about that.
Yeah. They would lay down. And actually, eat their food and stuff. And it was not necessarily invented by the Greeks. Even Assyrians had it.
Egyptians had it. This whole reclining business was something that a lot of ancient peoples did. Which is kind of the standard word. I find it awkward. I mean, how in the working class can you lie like here and be eating?
Because the food just like sticks here.
So you would not eat in your bed? Uh no. No eating in a bed. The only time we ate in a bed is like we went to this Ben breakfast, which we go to quite often. Haven't been there in a couple of years now.
But, anyways, um But if you go at a certain time when the restaurant there is closed, they will bring you a basket of food. Really? But it yes, you put it on the bed and you have a blanket. You put the basket on top of the blanket and you eat, and then you roll up the blanket and put it inside that basket. Are you in bed when they serve it to you?
Uh, yeah. I that's something I could never imagine you being comfortable with: is you being in the bed and someone brings you food and puts it. Does it make you uncomfortable? Yeah, in a sense, but really, it's such good food. I mean, from crap cakes.
Steak, shrimp, you can name it. It's all in that basket. I hate that we're running out of time, but the next, I suppose the next episode we'll be talking more into the Jewish Passover and how this is going to affect how this goes into our conversation. How this influences that. Very nice.
Make sure you guys join us same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great episode here on the Clear View Today show on tomorrow's episode. Big thank you 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, Spotify, really anywhere you can find your podcasts. And don't forget that you can support us financially at Avadansha.com forward slash give.
John, what are we sending the listeners home with us? August 15th, that's nine days from today. We are going live as part of our 24-hour prayer visual. We're going to be doing a live stream from 7 to 9 p.m. We want you guys to call us.
The number is going to be on the screen. You can save it in your phone for all future prayer vigils. But you can call us on air. We would love to be able to pray with you. Again, that is August 15th from 7 to 9 p.m.
Also, want to encourage you guys to go and download Dr. Shah's new show, The Lighthouse. It's on Apple, it's on Spotify. Anywhere that you get your podcasting content from, every single Saturday at 8 a.m., there's a new episode. It's just a weekly devotional, just something to help you develop that quiet time, especially on Saturday mornings.
That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearby Today.
