Who do you listen to? Part II - drinking

            In the first part I talked about smoking. A friend commented that with New Year’s coming up I should talk about drinking. This is another area where there is a wealth of different opinions. That wine was considered a blessing from God in the Old Testament would be hard for any intelligent person to debate. There are simply too many verses that support it. Wine even comes from God (Genesis 27:28). These days some try to claim it had no alcohol content. This ignores multiple historical and Biblical sources of data.

 First, we’ll look at secular data. Water was often unsafe to drink; and, that’s one reason why beverages were fermented - they were safer to drink. Wine was also a safe way to preserve a crop’s bounty. Grapes don’t last long. Wine lasts a long time in the heat of the desert – grape juice doesn’t. In fact, even if you throw some real, raw, grape juice in the frig, and forget about it long enough, you may get a wine or wine vinegar.

Now, we look at the Biblical data. Priests weren’t to drink wine before going into the temple (Leviticus 10:9); but, they were specifically allowed to after ceremonies (Numbers 6:20). Nazarites weren’t to have it all – in any form (Numbers 6:2 & 3). Why the prohibition if it is just juice? Consider 1 Samuel 1:14, how could wine cause drunkenness if it had no alcohol? The number of verses that support drinking alcoholic wine are just too numerous to list outside a book dedicated to that purpose – over 200 verses in the Bible mention wine. The New Testament says Jesus not only drank wine, but His first miracle was to make wine. Some stubborn folks will try to say that the wine in the time of Jesus was different. Not so, consider Acts 2:13, Ephesians 5:18, etc.

The problem is not alcoholic beverages. There is nothing in the Bible to support the concept that consuming an alcoholic beverage is a sin. It is in the excessive use of it for which the Bible warns us multiple times. No one can argue that overindulging impairs the ability to exercise sound judgment. Commonsense says, and the Bible commands, that we are to not drink to excess. I think excess refers both to consumption in a single sitting as well frequency, but this is just my opinion.

So, if you choose to drink, please do so with discretion. If you don’t drink, please be Biblical in your application of your view and exercise some discretion too. God Bless you and yours. Be safe out there - there will probably be a lot of drunks out driving around!

 

The Path to Light