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The first drunken act!


"We have two options when we see our dear ones in sin. One is to do nothing about it and give it as much publicity as possible as Ham did. The other is to go and correct so that they may not continue in sin."
It is normal to bungle, especially for the first time. In the first meeting to be chaired, the first speech to be done, it is normal to make mistakes. The very first day of driving, I scratched against a small truck and I learned that truck drivers in my city (Pune) do not pay much attention to the electric signals of other vehicles. However, as the Danish proverb says ("No dog bumps into the same stone again!") mistakes are not to be repeated.
The Bible says Noah was the first to plant a vineyard (Genesis 9:20)!* Thus he must be the first person to make wine and drink it too. He probably did not have anyone to tell him that too much wine intoxicates and you lose control on your thinking and body. There was no one on earth to tell him that so much of wine can make yourself a mockery. This may explain why God did not condemn Noah for drinking wine and become naked before his family though getting drunk is a serious sin and being naked before others is even more serious.
However, the point of the story in Genesis 9:18-28 is not Noah's indecent behaviour but how his sons responded to it. The spiritual lesson is what do you do when you find someone in sin. Two examples are given in that chapter. The first person to spot Noah drunk and naked was his second son Ham who later became to father of Canaan. He did not do about it, but just goes and publicizes it to his two brothers. He could have just covered him; then he did not have to tell his brothers that their father was naked. However, when Ham and Japheth the other sons were told about this disgraceful episode they covered his nakedness making sure that they themselves did not see their father's nakedness. As Noah woke up when the effect of wine wore away he might have noticed the extra garment that was on him and found out what had happened.
We have two options when we see our dear ones in sin. One is to do nothing about it and give it as much publicity as possible as Ham did. The other is to go and correct so that they may not continue in sin. The Bible exhorts us in Luke 17:3, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Correction is a spiritual duty that we have to each other in the Body of Christ.
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* Some versions, for example, NIV translates this verse as "Noah, a man of the soil, proceed to plant a vineyard" instead of " Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard" (NRSV). See the footnote in NIV.

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