A Glimpse of the Kingdom by David W. Pendergrass, Ph.D.

This is an absolutely correct post from Dr. Ben Witherington, III: (Follow his great blog at  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2013/07/17/the-relationship-of-doing-and-being-in-the-nt/ ) The Relationship of Doing and Being in the NT One of the major thrusts of my two volume work entitled  The Indelible Image  was showing the inherent, and necessary, connection between theology and ethics, between belief and behavior, between being and doing, in the Bible and in particular in the NT. I went on to stress the importance of the concept of the image of God as a connecting point between being and doing, belief and behavior, theology and ethics. By this I meant that we are all created in God’s image and we are meant to reflect that image on earth, more specifically we are meant to reflect the moral character of God on earth. God is holy, and so should we be. God is righteous and so should we be, God is compassionate, and so should we be, and so on. This refl...

Michael Why is drinking/getting drunk bad David W. Pendergrass Good question. I know of no particular teaching of Jesus that explicitly prohibits it and tells us why. Yet, based on the New Testament, I'd say that getting drunk is immoral because (1) it violates the requirement of God to have self-control (said repeatedly in the Bible) and (2) it is nearly impossible to love God with all our hearts, souls, strengths, and minds, and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mk 12:28-31) if we're drunk. It's also possible that being drunk ruins your Christian witness (Paul speaks about a similar situation in Romans and 1 Corinthians). My last two reasons are not biblical, but still matter: it can lead to an addiction, which enslaves us. Finally, because a drunk looks like a moron.  J Michael But when I have been drinking I absolutely have my clearest moments with Jesus and god and am actually a really good advocate on behalf of Christianity. I spread the word to my fr...