{"id":173,"date":"2008-11-05T16:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T16:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianmashburn.net\/?p=173"},"modified":"2008-11-05T16:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T16:23:00","slug":"social-praying-vs-social-drinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"Social Praying vs. Social Drinking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author’s Note: I’m doing a sermon series on Sunday’s about prayer. This week, I’m going to be talking about Jesus’ claim concerning praying with other people, or in other words “social prayer”. The term made me think of “social drinking”, and then the following was what came out of me for a bulletin article. But I decided that it sounded too much like an article about drinking than prayer, so instead of just deleting it, I decided to send it to you for your consideration and feedback. Enjoy. <\/font><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Eph 5:18 – “Do not use wine for something that the Spirit of God can do better.” <\/i>– Paul, in Ephesians 5:18 (BRV – Brian’s Revised Version)<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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You’ve heard of the term<\/span> “social drinking”? It’s a word that is<\/span> used, mostly by Christians (<\/span>to distinguish themselves in their use of alcohol from those who use it to get drunk), but also by alcoholics (to discuss their own capacity or incapacity to be around people who drink without taking one themselves)<\/span>. Drunkenness is prohibited specifically by the writers of scripture, and therefore, so the thinking goes, is prohibited in the l<\/span>ives of Christians. Drinking socially, however, is not specifically condemned (and is even exemplified in scripture)<\/span> and therefore is considered <\/span>“permissible.” <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span> <\/p>\n

I wouldn’t argue with that. Technically speaking.<\/font><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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But <\/span>Andrew Murray observes that “So many Christians imagine that everything that is not positively forbidden and sinful is permissible to them. So they try to retain as much as possible of this world with its property and enjoyments. The truly consecrated soul, however, is like a soldier who carries only what is needed for battle.”<\/o:p><\/em><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Oddly enough, while so many Christians defend their right to indulge in (moderately, of course) <\/span>this<\/span> world‘<\/span>s “property and enjoyments” freely, boldly protecting (if not promoting)<\/span> their right to do so, they oftentimes take issue with the suggestion that they should <\/span>freely take Heaven’s “property and enjoyments” and expand them, too,<\/span> into all arenas of life.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Social prayer is one of those things. It is amazing to me how many Christ followers are self-conscious, some to the point of thinking themselves incapable,<\/span> about praying together. They’ve deemed their prayer life a private thing, which is true, but it is not the whole truth. So, the irony that some Christians practice social drinking in front of the world feeling as if it is faithfulness to Christ will not practice social prayer, even with their spouses, let alone with fellow believers, and yet still feel faithful to Christ.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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I’m not trying to say that social drinking “is a sin” as much as I am saying it is an entanglement with the worldly way of life that many Christians are uncomfortably bold about. Additionally, <\/span>I’m not even <\/span>trying to say anything about social drinking as much as I am trying to promote <\/span>social praying.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Because Jesus gave a special promise for the united prayer of two or three who agree in what they ask. He said, “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them.”<\/i><\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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Oh, that Christians would be more prone to <\/span>deem their drinking the<\/span> private thing, rather than something to fellowship around with other believers, and then move prayer to the status of a<\/span> social thing around which they enjoy their time together.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: I’m doing a sermon series on Sunday’s about prayer. This week, I’m going to be talking about Jesus’ claim concerning praying with other people, or in other words “social prayer”. The term made me think of “social drinking”, and then the following was what came out of me for a bulletin article. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-2N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}