“And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter 4:18.

Many Christians appeal to 1 Peter 4:18 to say that if we do our best as Christians, we will barely be saved. Consequently, many Christians do not have confidence about their salvation. God wants us to know that we have eternal life that our joy many be full (1 John 1:4; 5:13). God does not want us to live in continual anxiety about our eternal destinies, but rather to have confidence at Christ’s coming (1 John 2:28). Does 1 Peter 4:18 tell us that we, as Christians, will barely be saved?

First Peter is a book about suffering. In 1 Peter 4:12, Peter begins talking about the trials that will soon come upon the Christians that were the original recipients of this letter. The time leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was fraught with wars and persecutions from various groups (Matt. 24:6-12). Nero set fire to Rome and blamed Christians; thus, Roman persecution of Christians was a danger. The Jewish arm of persecution on Christians reached beyond Jerusalem to other cities that were strongholds for Judaism (Acts 9:2; 14:19; 17:5-9; 26:11). These Christians were about to suffer because they owned Christ as their Lord. They were encouraged by Peter to rejoice for the reason they were persecuted was “for the name of Christ” (1 Peter 4:14).
In 1 Peter 4:17, Peter talks about an imminent judgment. We know that he cannot be referring to the final judgment because as we stand here today it has yet to come. Nearly 2,000 years away would not be described as “the time has come” (1 Peter 4:17). The judgment is a period of severe trial upon the church, the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15); this would take place in the years leading up to the Roman-Jewish War. Thus, in 1 Peter 4:18, Peter is not talking about the salvation of their souls from sin, but rather the salvation of their lives from the bloodshed in this upcoming war. When Peter talked about their souls being saved, he painted a very different picture. In 2 Peter 1:11, he writes, “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” These then must be different salvations, for one is said to be scarce while they other is abundant. The Christians who obeyed Jesus’ warnings of Matthew 24:4-35 would barely be saved from the bloodshed of the severe trial that was soon to come upon the church, but Christians who walk in the light of God’s commands are given an abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom.
Take heart, Christian brothers and sisters. Jesus is the captain of your salvation (Heb. 2:10), and because of who He is, those who are saved do not barely squeak by, but dwell in the love of God and are made whole, that boldness may be theirs in the day of judgment (1 John 4:14-18).

-Mark Day

Paul instructed Timothy to, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Tim. 5:23). What was the “wine” Timothy was to take?
The English word “wine” does not prove that this was alcoholic for it often appears in the Biblical text to indicate unfermented grape juice (Gen. 49:11; Isa. 16:10; 65:8; Prov. 3:10; Amos 9:13-14; et. al.); furthermore, the underlying Greek word oinos that is translated wine in 1 Tim. 5:23 is also a generic term that can refer to alcoholic wine or unfermented grape juice.
Paul directed Timothy to “use a little wine” for medicinal purposes: that is for his stomach troubles. If alcoholic wine is what Paul meant by a little oinos, then this text certainly does not teach that we today can use alcoholic beverages for pleasure, rather it indicates that Timothy abstained from alcohol and had to be directed to take some for medicinal purposes. This is consistent with Paul’s earlier statements in the same epistle that elders and deacons should “not to be given to wine” (1 Tim. 3:3, 8), (one quality leaders must exemplify among many listed in 1 Timothy 3 that all Christians should possess).

However, it seems more likely that this remedy for Timothy’s stomach issues was nothing other than unfermented grape juice. While alcohol may have helped if Timothy was in serious pain or had trouble falling asleep at night, it would do nothing good for his stomach. On the medicinal quality of grape sugar, Ernest Gordon concluded “no better medicine for Timothy’s stomach and chronic infirmities could have been recommended by Paul than the juice of the grape,” further noting:

The body maintains the concentration of grape sugar in the blood at a constant low level (from .98 to 1.45). Beyond this point there is no increase even if 50 to 100 grams is taken in through the mouth. For the liver absorbs any excess from the blood and stores it as glycogen, to be released as required by the body.

In our modern times, with the ubiquity of hard liquor, we are all too familiar with what high levels of alcohol in the bloodstream do to the body. The body has no such protective mechanism for the poisonous effects of alcohol; eventually the blood will attain a fatal concentration. This difference is due to the fact that our digestive system is better designed to handle grape sugar than alcohol. Unfermented grape juice would seem to help Timothy’s stomach if he took a little instead of drinking water exclusively, but the potential problems his digestive system would encounter by drinking alcohol would far outweigh any conceivable medical benefits to his stomach.

–Mark Day