Wine is wine...my concordance says so

My wife and I enjoyed watching the season 2 of 18 and Counting recently.  A little hum drum at times but we particular enjoyed the one featuring the wedding of their eldest son.  Several profound Kkingdom concepts were effectively communicated.  The biggest one being the benefits of total abstinence and the joy of Christian marriage.  Following them up to the door of their hotel room was more than I expected but it really is believers who ought to be bold in celebrating physical union.

I was disappointed by the pastor explaining why there was no alcohol served at the wedding.  The camera (at an attempt to make things more exciting but asking a very valid) asked why the strong stand on alcohol when Jesus miraculously made wine for a wedding.  The pastor tried to explain that the Greek word there meant grape juice.  A quick glance at a Strong's concordance would show that word 3631 used in John is also used in Eph 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

 If it is just grape juice.....then why the warning?

Never mind that if consumption of alcohol was a sin, a clearer command would have been "Do not drink wine."

The church has really been straining a gnat in focusing so much on drinking and smoking.  I getting back to the roots of reformed faith it is notable the lack of emphasis on these things.

Mark Driscoll has a great sermon on this topic. My next brewing goal is a Chocolate Stout.

I recently read the book the The Soveriegn Individual, and it has been influencing how I have been looking at the world.  Another lens I have been seeing the world through in that of population decline shown me by The Demographic Winter.  That was a jaw dropper even though I have followed that topic for over ten years.  My childrens world will be very different that the one I have known.

A sign of things to come-Mass school closures approved in Kansas City, Mo.



The key quote to me is:

Once the district had enough desegregation money to build such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. But the effort to use upscale facilities and programs to lure in students from the suburbs never worked quite as planned.

Covington has stressed that the district's buildings are only half-full as its population has plummeted amid political squabbling and chronically abysmal test scores. The district's enrollment of fewer than 18,000 students is about half of what the schools had a decade ago and just a quarter of its peak in the late 1960s.
Many students have left for publicly funded charter schools, private and parochial schools and the suburbs. The school district also isn't the only one serving students in Kansas City; several smaller ones operate in the city's boundaries.

This is the flight not of white people but wealth.  Why live in a city where laziness and irresponsibility is subsidized and achievers are punished?  Government burracracy will increasing fail in the competition to provide services, entitling it to less of the peoples money.  This hemorraging beast could get dangerous as it fights for survival.