What Does The Bible Say?
Question - What Does the Bible Say About Drinking Alcohol?
Answer - 1 Peter 4:2,3- “that you should no longer the rest of your tie in the flesh and lusts of men, but live after the will of God. For the time past of our life may be enough for us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, reveling and banqueting and abominable idolatries. The last section of verse three talks of drunkenness, retellings and banqueting. This covers the drinking of intoxicants in every phase, from the social drink, to becoming drunk. God does not want anyone to be a drinker of intoxicants to any degree. 1 Cor. 6:12 says that we are not to take any substance or allow ourselves to be led away by anything (including substances). Anything that Hinders our total allegiance to God is condemned and a person is in sin when they commit such acts of sin.
Read Prov. 23:30-32 to see the effect alcohol has on a person. “Who has woe? Who has strife? Who has contentions and wounds without cause? Those who tarry at wine; they that go seeking mixed wine. Do not look on the wine when it turns in the cup (fermented), when it moves about sweetly; at the last it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder; your eyes will behold strange things and your mind will utter foolish things.” Prov. 31:4-5 says that wine is not for kings lest they drink and forget the law and pervert justice. Proverbs 20:1 says “wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is a fool.” There are over 75 verses in the bible that speak to the use of alcohol and all of them speak of alcohol use to any degree as sinful and the bible has nothing good to say about using it.
Anytime someone brings up the sin of drinking the one who wants to do it comes back with “everything in moderation.” They are seeking a license to condone that which God condemns. Galatians 5:19-21 condemns drunkenness and things like drunkenness. Psalm, one tells us the first step to getting into sin is the first movement toward sin and away from God. If one takes one drink and it takes him four to be drunk then he is a quarter drunk. There is no other sin in the bible it where it is argued that a person can do just a little bit. Would it be alright for a person to cheat on their spouse just once a week? Would it be alright to be a witch and take drugs just once or twice a day? No one would condone such actions, but somehow when a person wants to drink, they start looking for loopholes. Some will even argue that Jesus was a drinker in John 2 at the wedding feast. A careful study of the passage shows that Jesus never drank anything that he made in that instance. He never touched the water, or the barrels and he never drank anything from them. Also, if Jesus had made intoxicating wine from water, He would have been in violation of the Old Law (Hab. 2:15- “woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pressing him to the bottle even to make him drunk…”). This violation would have meant Jesus did not keep the law and that He sinned. If he sinned, He was not our perfect sacrifice, and we owe Him nothing. If the wine that was made was intoxicating, then Jesus made 187 gallons of intoxicating wine and urged the people to drink it, which would have made Him complicit in enabling the whole crowd to get drunk (they had already consumed all that was previously provided). What Jesus made in John 2 was the best grape juice one could put to their lips. It was the best (first fruit) which was the juice of the grape, not the juice of the juice (which would have started fermenting. There is no justification in the Bible for a person to engage in the use of alcohol to any degree. Socially, we all also see the damage of the brewer’s fruit (broken homes, abused wives and children, drunk drivers, lost lives, murders and the list go on). Stay away from the use of alcohol, it only leads to sadness, depression and grief.
Please address all questions and comments to us at What Does the Bible Say? c/o Maple Street Church of Christ P.O. Box 3086, Liberty, TX 77575 and visit our website at maplestreetliberty.org