…they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins. – Numbers 6:3-4

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 30, 2021): Numbers 6

Poet T. S. Eliot argued that “most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.” Maybe they don’t recognize the evil that they do. Or perhaps they play a little too close to corruption and get caught up in its embrace. But either way, they do evil, and they cause pain. In the church, it is present sometimes in our decision not to accept people who don’t believe exactly as we do. It is the story of good people doing evil.

One concept that we don’t seem to understand in our contemporary society is the idea of staying away from even the appearance of evil. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, argues that “we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man” (2 Corinthians 8:21). Often our argument seems to be that if we are right in the sight of God, that is all that matters. But Paul raises the stakes. Don’t even come close to evil, and don’t let even the appearance of evil destroy your reputation.

In Israel, a man or a woman could make a vow to live life as a Nazarite. A Nazarite voluntarily separated from society for a certain length of time. The only record we have of people who were Nazarites for life were Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. Theologian John Joseph Owens argues that a “Nazirite .... is spelled with exactly the same consonants as separate, and is thus closely related to the idea of separation.” But just because no one was forced to be a Nazarite doesn’t mean that the commitment should be made lightly. If a person decided to make the vow to separate, the person would fulfill certain practices for the length of the vow, and one of those practices was to abstain from wine or any other fermented drink.

But the restriction went further than just wine. The community would know if you decided to live as a Nazarite. And so, the one keeping the vow would abstain from all products of the grape. If you didn’t have anything connected to the grape, no one could see you and think it was wine when it wasn’t, and it also eliminated the excuse that you drank wine, but you thought it was just juice. It helped the Nazarite to refrain even from the appearance of breaking the vow, which would be evil. A lesson which we need to try to understand and apply to our own lives.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 7