Reece’s First Endo #1

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Reece’s First Endo #1, originally uploaded by seanb724.

Reece had his 1st endo — flipped his big wheel over a small retaining wall. Normally he gets on and rides gravity down the slight grade of our drive and stops himself right before the end of the concrete. He got on without his shoes, and before I could stop him, he was off. He realized he didn’t have shoes on and pulled his feet up just before the end of the drive, ran over a little mulch, a plan, and then flipped right over the wall. Luckily it was the very edge of the wall which is only about 12″, instead of the middle which is about 36″. He only cried for about 20 seconds before he decided he was fine.

God Gave Wine. What the Bible Says about Alcohol. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

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There are 3 views for Christians and alcohol: abstention, prohibition, and moderation.

From the book:

  • Moderation: maintains that alcoholic beverages are permitted to Christians if moderately consumed and in a circumspect manner.
  • Abstention: maintains that although Scripture does not expressly forbid alcoholic beverages in toto; however alcohol consumption in our society today is nevertheless imprudent and should not be condoned.
  • Prohibition: maintains that Christians should universally avoid alcoholic beverages as unfit for human consumption, being specifically forbidden by Scripture

I’ve been in the moderation camp for most of my adult (post-college!?) life, but I didn’t really know why. I had never truly studied the issue. Almost every church I’ve been a member of, or sermon I’ve heard while visiting other churches, or pastors and radio shows and/or podcasts, have been much more abstentionist or prohibitionists than moderationists.

The prohibitionist viewpoint that alcohol is forbidden by scripture just rang untrue — there are way too many verses that talk about alcohol, many pointing to moderation as a good thing (especially in the Old Testament/Proverbs), and even Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding celebration. Arguments about wine in the Bible being non-alcoholic seemed vacuous at best.

The abstention line is something that, to me, warranted closer evaluation. Scripture does call us not to cause our brothers to stumble. So, to me, if I am around someone that is an alcoholic or has alcoholic tendencies, or has a strong dislike of seeing anyone consume alcoholic beverages, I would certainly abstain.

Gentry takes the viewpoint of a moderationist, even though he rarely or ever drinks himself. He walks through many verses in the Bible, and shows why they all point to such a view. It is quite easy to follow, and a great study for anyone that wants to dig deeper into this area. The one slight complaint I have is that he often is addressing the view point of one Mr. Reynolds, who is a staunch advocate of prohibition. Sometimes it flows like a strict response to Reynold’s writing. Not that this is a major criticism in anyway, I just felt like it was not always necessary.

I suppose in my quest to read both sides of the story, I should at least find an article (if not a book), on the abstention and prohibition views, though right now, I have no strong desire to do so.

I only have a few quotes from this book:

  • Each of the three Christians positions on the use of wine condemns alcohol abuse and dependence. In fact, Scripture unsparingly condemns drunkenness, frequently and from a variety of angles.

  • Francis Bacon in 1623 wrote “Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in condemnation of age, that age appears to best in four things — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

  • He had a little table which I won’t put here, but basically showed an argument like this, that I found funny:
    1. Scripture condemns drunkness/gluttony/infidelity
    2. Drinking alcohol can lead to drunkenness/enjoying food can lead to gluttony/enjoying sex can lead to sexual infidelity
    3. Therefore, Scripture condemns all alcohol drinking/ all food consumption/all sexual activity

Benjamin Franklin autobiography

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This was another one from DailyLit — in just 75 five-minute emails, I read this. Sometimes this is a good method, and sometimes not. When I’m really busy, it is actually hard to find 5 minutes to read an email. And then they stack up, and at some point I have to catch up. However, most of the time, it is a good motivation. I think I’ll start Dante’s Divine Comedy next.

On to the actual book. In some ways it is a bit odd, and strung together. There are a couple of long breaks where he didn’t write anything — long as in many years. And it doesn’t always flow that well. There are some sections that go into minute details on things that don’t seem that relevant to his life, and sometimes there is barely any mention of things that, to me, seem of great importance to his life. So in some ways, I feel like I need to read an actual biography now, to kind of tie it together in a neutral 3rd party kind of way.

On to some quotes:

  • I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider’d, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.

  • So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

  • In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

  • Was this the beginning of “open source?” 🙂

    Thomas was so pleas’d with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.