A refrigerator in Galilee

I remember my adolescent years in the baptist church.
During communion they would pass around those teeny weeny
little glass of what the preacher was saying was wine,
but tasted like welches grape juice,
and those nasty tasting little broken crackers.

Of course I didn't know what wine was supposed to taste like anyway,
atleast not until I was 12 years old
when I went to live with an aunt and uncle for a year.
Although my aunt and uncle didn't attend church,
their next door neighbor went every sunday
and I went with him.
A methodist church! Blasphemy! Abomination!
Well atleast that was some of the thoughts
that crossed my mind at that age.
I mean after all, God had to be a baptist.
Even though no one in the church ever said so,
the feling you got was that baptist was the only way
to get to heaven and God had to be a baptist.

One sunday during service this methodist minister
passed around those same teeny weeny little glasses
and those same nasty little cracker crumbs.
What was in those little glasses wasn't grape juice,
if it was it was ruined.
I found out after service that what was in the glasses
was real wine and now I was confused.
After all the Baptist went to great lenghts
to convince everyone that Jesus never drank wine,
the apostles never drank wine,
Jesus didn't turn water into wine,
it was grape juice,
and anyone that drank wine or anything with alcohol in it
is sure to burn in hell.

Whew that was a mouthful.

Now here I was in a church that was teaching about Jesus
and not a sermon where every other word was
what I was going to hell for,
and they used real wine in communion.
Now I was really confused.

This minister told me that when it said wine
in the New Testament that was what it meant.
This area of scripture made more sense to me now.
I mean when I read that Jesus said that people called him
a glutton and a wine bibber,
I would have to substitute grape juice for the word wine
so it would read, a glutton and a grape juice bibber.
What is a grape juice bibber anyway?
Is that something like a sodapopaholic?
With my adolescent mind I wondered at times
what kind of refrigerator Jesus used to keep his grape juice in,
did he use a regular old single door
or maybe he had a big double door frost free,
maybe with a built in ice maker.
I know i'm being ludicrist,
I guess the way some people interpret scripture makes me that way.
I was discussing this the other day with a pentecostal holiness.
[That was a waste of time.]
I was discussing the aspects of the keeping quality of grapes
and how it didn't take grape juice long to ferment.
I was informed that you could step on grapes anytime and make grape juice.
[That sounds like a waste of a good bunch of grapes to me.]
actually maybe it does make sense. [to some people.]
Grapes are harvested in late summer and early fall.
If you are lucky and the weather is right they might last a week or two.
Once pressed the juice will start to ferment almost immediately.

When Jesus partook of the spring passover,
he must have sent the disciples down to the supermarket
for 4 or 5 bushels of fresh grapes
to step on for the passover meal.
Or maybe they just opened up Jesus' super 20 cubit foot
sears and roebuck chest freezer
for a few cans of frozen concentrated grape juice.
Or maybe it's just that the grape vines of two thousand years ago
produced grapes every week or so
to provide grapes 12 months out of the year.

Seriously, even though there are a few cases [very few] in the Old Testament
where the hebrew word translated wine does mean unfermented grape juice
there is no such word translated in the New Testament.
The only word in the New Testament that could be translated grape juice
appears in Acts 2:13.
The greek word gleukos [gleukos] can be translated as grape juice
or highly intoxicating wine.
In such a case you have to look at the context of the verse.
In verse 13, full of new wine..
and verse 15,not drunken,
the context points to the latter, intoxicating wine.
Every other case where the word wine appears,
the greek word translated is oinos [oinos], fermented wine.
Even new wine is fermented with some alcohol content.
Making alcohol requires three elements.
Water, sugar, and yeast, grapes contain all three.

Wine is made by placing juice in a container to ferment.
After fermentation a racking process takes place
where the wine is drained off the sediment several times until the wine is clear,
then it is put in containers for storage and to age.

This is what Jesus was referring to
when he was talking about putting new wine in old skins.
The wine was put into wineskins for storage and to age.
Some use verses Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:18
[The fruit of the vine]
as an argument for the grape juice theory.
Well the theory doesn't hold water,
[or grape juice].
Unless of course Jesus had the angels fly down to southern africa
or south america where march is the fall season
and bring back a few bushels of grapes.
I've seen grape juice ferment under refrigeration.
Common sense tells us that there was no market
for grape juice two thousand years ago.
If people were going to drink juice
they would just eat the grapes.
The offerings and ceremonies in Exodus
instituted by God that used wine
required fully fermented alcohol wine.
It was taken with God's blessings.
The sin is not in the alcohol, the sin is being a drunkard.

It's much more of a sin to twist God's word
to suit your own purpose or to remake God in your image.