Guarding His Flock Ministries

A meditation upon Hosea 7:8.

“Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.” Hosea 7:8-10, KJV

In a previous generation, a churchman observed of the church’s relationship to the surrounding culture of that era and said: “I looked for the church and found it in the world. I looked for the world and found it in the church.” In the history of American Christianity there perhaps has never been a time when the criticism uttered by that Englishman against the church of his day is not also an apt indictment of Christianity in our culture today.

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Christian Maturity and Alcohol Consumption

"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." (Emphasis Mine, Romans 14:21, NASB)

Many in the pan-evangelical church possess a libertine attitude towards alcohol consumption. I have heard reports that pastors and their elder boards visit local pubs and drink together after administrative meetings. Lately, I’ve read where numbers of Christian liberal arts universities have lifted their ban on alcohol consumption for faculty and staff with the excuse that prohibition for drinking alcohol in moderation is "biblically indefensible." [1] In another instance upon visiting one blogger’s website, and as I scrolled down the section containing his Christian testimony, my eyes fell upon a picture of a large smoking stogie laying across an ashtray near a glass half-full of hard liquor. The picture’s message was, it seemed to me, that the blogger, a confessing Christian, saw nothing wrong with either smoking cigars or drinking liquor. Then of late, a movement has arisen among some emerging/emergent Christians called "pub theology." [2] Of course, Christians who might protest drinking alcoholic beverages are labeled with the dreaded "L" word, "Legalist!" But all of this, and more, raises the question, what should be a responsible Christian’s attitude toward alcohol consumption, should it be characterized by the other dreaded "L" word, "Libertine"?

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"What’s wrong with tattoos?" the adolescents asked their seventh grade Christian school teacher. On the part of Christian youth the question indicates both a fascination with tattoos and maybe, a temptation to get one. So what’s wrong, if anything, with tattoos?

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