The Sin of Drinking
Does the Bible only say it’s wrong to get drunk—that it’s not wrong to drink? Many say this. In fact, the idea that “It’s okay to drink in moderation” is almost gospel to some Christians.
In this episode, we will address this burning issue of our time. We will look at the question: Does the word ‘wine’ in the Bible always mean alcoholic wine? And, we will examine the famous story of Jesus turning the water into wine.
Read about this subject
- Scriptures: Proverbs 23:29-35; Habakkuk 2:15; I Peter 4:3; Isaiah 16:10; 65:8
- Chapter 11, “Alcohol” in Pillars of the Faith
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Transcript
Kerry Duke: Hi, I’m Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you’ve learned with others.
One of the worst evils the world has ever known is drinking alcoholic beverages. If you start in the book of Genesis and read through the book of Revelation, you’ll see alcohol associated with all kinds of misery. Noah was a just man, but he made the mistake of experimenting with alcohol in Genesis chapter 9 and exposed himself to the shame of his family. In Genesis 19, the two daughters of Lot used alcohol to conceive by their own father and brought generation after generation of wicked people into this world. In Leviticus chapter ten God sent fire from heaven to consume two priests named Nadab and Abihu who had evidently been drinking before they came into the holy place. In first kings chapter 20, the Bible says the wicked king of Syria named Benhadad was “drinking himself drunk” while his army attacked the people of Israel.
In the time of Isaiah the prophet, drinking was a big problem in Israel. In Isaiah five verse 11, God said, “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!” In Isaiah chapter 28 verse 1 he said “Woe to…the drunkards of Ephraim.” Then he said the religious leaders—the prophets and the priests—were given to drinking. In verse seven he said, “But they also have erred through wine, And through intoxicating drink are out of the way; The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink, They are swallowed up by wine, They are out of the way through intoxicating drink; They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.”
Micah the prophet said the people loved preachers who told them they could drink. In Micah chapter 2 verse 11 he said, “If a man should walk in a false spirit And speak a lie, saying, ‘I will prophesy to you of wine and drink,’ Even he would be the prattler of this people.” The Jewish people wanted to drink and they found preachers who told them that was alright.
In the New Testament the Bible warns about drinking many times. Paul told the church at Corinth “not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person” (First Corinthians 5 verse 11). Is it that serious? Yes! In the next chapter, he said that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God (First Corinthians 6 verse 10). In Galatians 5:19-21, he said, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Paul said people who live this kind of life—one of which is being a drunkard—will not go to heaven! And after he ended this long list of sins that keep one out of heaven, he added “and the like”—in other words, other things that are like these that he didn’t specifically mention.
Alcohol is the oldest drug known to mankind and is, to this day, the most popular and available drug in the world. And, it has brought more suffering to the human race than we can fathom.
Think of all the hurt caused by drinking. I don’t have to explain this to some of you. You know what it does. You grew up in a home with a alcoholic father or mother that was unpredictable and mean. Or, you may have been married to someone who like to drink. Or, you may have drunk alcohol and you know what it does. It numbs your mind and lets you laugh until it wears off. You know what Solomon means when he says “At the last it bites like an serpent and stings like an adder.”
Alcohol wrecks homes. It destroys families. It robs children of a good home. Alcohol has brought adversity to millions of homes for thousands of years. And right now families all over the world are suffering because of it.
And what about the harm alcohol does to a person’s body? There’s no doubt about this. Drinking alcohol contributes to everything from diabetes to cancer to cirrhosis of the liver. At this time, the cost of alcohol-related health issues is estimated be two hundred fifty billion dollars a year. That’s a quarter of a trillion dollars! That includes everything from health care to loss of work. And that’s only in the United Staes!
And then there’s psychological harm alcohol causes. Alcohol is habit forming. Some of you know that from experience or because you have a friend or family member who is addicted. Once alcohol gets a hold on a person, it controls his life or her life. It’s what they think about. It’s what they crave. It’s what they spend their money and their time on. Alcohol is literally at the center of their life like a god they serve.
Are preachers preaching against this? Are you hearing preachers speak out against it? When they do, are they preaching strong against it and telling people it’s a sin that will keep you out of heaven? The truth is, America is becoming more and more a drinking nation. And the tragedy is, a lot of churches are going along with it, or, they won’t make a stand against it.
More and more, preachers are pushing the idea that it’s okay to drink as long as you don’t get drunk. They promote the idea of “social” drinking or drinking in “moderation.” Is this true? Is it okay to have a beer or two or a glass of wine as long as you don’t get drunk?
Here are some Bible reasons why it’s wrong to drink.
Number one: It’s not wise. In Proverbs 20:1 Solomon warned that “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler: and whoever is lead astray by it is not wise.” Drinking causes a person to mock—to mouth off and be disrespectful. It causes raging or brawling—that is, alcohol causes arguments and fights. Why would anyone have anything to do with it? Like Solomon said, it’s just not wise. In other words, it’s foolish.
Number two: The Bible specifically says to stay away from the first drink. In Proverbs 23, Solomon gives a more stern warning. In verse 29 he said, “Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?” What kind of person has all these problems? The answer is in the next verse: “Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine.” Solomon then said if you don’t want that kind of heartache and pain, then don’t go down that road. In verse 31 and 32 he said, “Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly; at the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper.”
Solomon didn’t mince any words about alcohol. HE SAID TO STAY AWAY FROM IT. He said, “Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things.” That means you’ll say things you’ll wish you hadn’t; you’ll say things you wouldn’t say if you were sober. Then he says you’ll not only lose control of your head and your tongue, but you’ll lose control of your body. He said, “Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, or like one who lies at the top of the mast.” When you’re in a boat, the waves move the boat back and forth no matter how big or small it is. That’s what he means when he says being drunk is like lying down in the midst of the sea or at the top of the tall beams that hold the sails of a great ship. They sway back and forth. A dizzy-headed drunk is just like that. And perhaps worst of all is the fact that many times a drunk never learns. Here’s the drunk man talking in verse 35: “They have struck me, but I was not hurt; They have beaten me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?” He knows the bottle is ruining his life, but he goes right back to it. Alcohol is habit forming. Alcohol is addictive.
But verse 31 says not to “look upon” the wine in the cup. He didn’t say a six-pack of a whole bottle of wine or whiskey. He said stay away from a single cup of alcohol. He says don’t even “look upon” it. That doesn’t mean simply to see. It means to look upon with favor, with approval, with interest. In Habakkuk 1:13 the prophet said God cannot “behold evil,” that is, God cannot look at evil with approval or favor.
Since Solomon said we are not to look at wine with approval or interest, then how can anyone say it is right to take that cup and drink it?
Again we hear the objection, “You’re taking that out of context. Read the verses after this. He’s talking about drunkenness.” Solomon does talk about drunkenness in this chapter.
But just because Solomon talks about getting drunk doesn’t mean that it’s alright to drink less. When he says not to look on the wine, he’s saying not to start down that road. He warns where it can lead. But even if it doesn’t end in drunkenness, it is still wrong.
Consider the sin of lust in Proverbs 6. Solomon warns against being seduced by evil women. He said,“Do not lust after her beauty in your heart” in verse 25. Then in the next ten verses he describes what happens when a man commits adultery with a woman. He will pay for his sin. Here is the point. It’s not wrong for a man to lust after a woman only if he then commits adultery with her. That lust is wrong even if he never commits adultery with her. This is what Jesus talked about in Matthew 5:28: “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That “lust” in is not a mere physical desire. It’s a longing a person chooses to feel toward a woman he has no right to be with. Acting on that lust by committing just makes it worse.
The parallel is this. If lust for a woman in Proverbs 6 is wrong even if a man doesn’t commit adultery with her, then taking the first drink in Proverbs 23 is wrong even if a person doesn’t get drunk.
Number three: One of the greatest men in the Bible refused to drink, even when the king expected him to. Daniel was a Jewish young man who was taken captive to Babylon. The king chose him and other captives to be his special servants. So, he sent Daniel and the other young men special food. But what the king wanted them to eat and drink was against Jewish law. The law of Moses, the law of God, told the Jews not to do this. Daniel knew that he might make the king mad if he refused to eat. But he refused anyway. Here is what the Bible says about his courage: “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8). Daniel wouldn’t eat that food or drink that wine because that would have been wrong.
What about today? At this time of the year, some Christians work for bosses who have a party and expect them to be there and pressure them to drink. Daniel was pressured. In fact, he could have lost more than his job. He could have lost his life. But he would not compromise. There are a lot of things more important than a job.
Number four: The Bible says it is not just wrong to drink. It is wrong to give a drink to someone. The prophet said in Habakkuk 2 verse 15, “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!”
Number five: Jesus said it’s wrong “to eat and drink with the drunkards” in Matthew 24:49. He said that as He was talking about His second coming. He said it will be like the master of the house coming back to check up on his servants. He said if one of those servants tells himself that his Lord is not coming anytime soon, and he begins to “beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkard, the master of that servant will come on a day when he’s not looking for him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24 verses 49 through 51). He didn’t say that servant was drunk. He said he was eating and drinking with drunkards. What does that say about about going to a Christmas party today where you know there will be drinking? Families and places where you work have them. What does Jesus say in this verse? He said not to eat and drink with the drunken!
Number six: The Bible does say it is wrong to drink, not just that it’s wrong to get drunk. First Peter chapter 4 verse 3 says, ““For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.” That’s the King James Version. There are three words in this verse that relate to drinking. The first is “excess of wine” or “drunkenness” in many translations. That word stresses the amount of alcohol consumed and the effects that follow. The second word is “reveling” or carousings. This word stresses what people do when they drink: they party and carry on and make fools of themselves. The third word is “banquetings.” The Greek word literally means drinkings. Some translations say “drinking parties” or “drinking bouts,” but those translations leave the impression that those get-togethers were always about getting drunk, and that’s not true. The Greek word means drinkings. That would include drunkenness, but it would also include, as people say today, having one or two. The specific word in this verse for drunkenness is the first word. The word “banquetings” is a general word for drinkings—different kinds of drinkings, like social drinking, toasting, or getting intoxicated. This is a clear verse in the Bible that condemns drinking.
But many people say, “Didn’t Jesus turned water into wine? If drinking is wrong, why would Jesus make wine for people to drink?” The answer to this question is in the word wine. Did you know that the word wine in the Bible is a general word? It can mean alcoholic wine. It can mean simple grape juice or nonalcoholic wine. The word wine in the Bible is a generic word. I realize that most people today don’t use it that way. But that’s today. That’s English. When Christian I was talking to was trying to defend drinking. He asked me, “If you went to a liquor store and asked for a bottle of wine, what would they give you? Grape juice?” I told him I was talking about how the Bible uses this word, not how the owner of a liquor store uses it.
Let’s look at just a few verses in the Bible where the word wine cannot mean alcoholic wine. It must mean unfermented grape juice. In Genesis 49 verse 11 the Bible says, “He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.” “Wine” and “the blood of grapes” are synonymous; thus, this wine was what came out of freshly squeezed grapes—their juice or “blood.”
Isaiah 16 verse 10 says “the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses.” People in Bible times didn’t have machines like we do today to squeeze juice out of grapes. They had a floor where workers called treaders stepped on the grapes. What came out of the grapes when treaders stepped on them? Wine! Isaiah calls this juice “wine.” That has to be unfermented grape juice! But some tell us that Isaiah calls it “wine” because that’s what it will become later. In other words, he’s talking about what they would make out of this juice. But the context of Isaiah 16: verses 9 and 10 won’t allow this interpretation. Isaiah said, “Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water you with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for your summer fruits and for your harvest is fallen. And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting: the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses; I have made their vintage shouting to cease.” Isaiah was talking about harvest time. He warned that Moab would not enjoy a good harvest. The entire setting is about fresh produce: “the vine,” “summer fruits,” “harvest,” “vineyards,” “wine,” and “presses.” He’s talking about fresh grape juice from the vineyards. He calls that juice wine. He’s not talking about wine that’s aged.
Jeremiah 48 verses 32 and 33 is a parallel passage. Notice what he calls wine. He said, “The plunderer has fallen on your summer fruit and your vintage. Joy and gladness are taken from the plentiful field and from the land of Moab; I have caused wine to fail from the winepresses.” That wine is freshly squeezed grape juice.
Here is another clear verse where the word “wine” means grape juice, not alcohol. It’s Isaiah 65 verse 8: “Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster.” What is the cluster? A cluster of grapes. And what is inside this cluster of grapes? Wine! Here the juice is still inside the grapes, and yet it’s called “wine.”
Proverbs 3 verse 10 says, “Your presses shall burst out with new wine.” Here again the freshly pressed grape juice is called “wine.”
Joel 2:24 says, “And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.” Joel is talking about fresh produce: wheat that has been sifted and grape juice and olive oil that have just been pressed out of grapes and olives. In those days they sifted the wheat in what were called threshingfloors, and they squeezed out olive oil from olives and grape juice from grapes in these vats or special floors. And what is that juice called? Wine!
Amos 9 verses 13 and 14 says, “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that the plower shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” Amos said conditions in Israel would be better. Fresh grape juice was one of the benefits of that improved state. The prophet pictures grapes at various stages: planting, plowing, reaping, and treading, the result of which was “wine” dropping from the mountains—a reference to grape juice in its natural, unfermented state (verse 13). Also, he said just as the Israelites would eat the fruit of their gardens, they would also drink the “wine” of their vineyards (verse 14). That has to be a fresh product of the vine.
In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah describes the horrible conditions in Judah after the war. The Jews that were left were starving. Little children were begging for something to eat. Here’s what they said: “the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?” (Lamentations 2 verses 11 and 12). How could think these little children were asking for an alcoholic beverage?
In the New Testament in Revelation 6 verse 6, John wrote about a similar situation: “And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” The three products mentioned here are familiar products of Jewish agriculture: wheat grain, grape juice, and olive oil.
The word “wine,” then, is a generic word for the juice of the grape. It can mean simple grape juice. It can mean alcoholic wine. It depends on how it’s used. If the Bible condemns it, then it must be alcoholic wine. If the Bible approves of it, then it’s grape juice pure and simple. This shouldn’t be hard to see. There are a lot of words that have more than one meaning depending on the context. Take the word “elder” in the Bible as an example. Sometimes it just means an older man. That’s what it means in First Peter chapter 5 verse 5: “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.” These “elders” are older people. But in other verses the word “elder” means an office in the church, a man who has met certain requirements and serves in a special role in the congregation as an overseer. For instance, Paul told Titus to appoint “elders” in every city, and then he called those elders bishops in chapter 1verses 5 and 7.
The word wine is no different. That’s why it is wrong to say that Jesus made alcohol in John chapter two. Let’s look at that passage. The Bible says in John 2 verses 1-3, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have no wine.’” So here we have the word wine. And, by the way, don’t let anybody tell you that the Greek word for wine or the Hebrew word for wine in the Old Testament must mean and only means alcoholic wine. It doesn’t matter what they’ve read or what they’ve been told. It doesn’t matter what supposed Bible authority they cite. The verses we just looked at stand regardless of what those scholars say. Whether you’re reading Hebrew, Greek, or English, the word “wine” can and does mean grape juice as well as a fermented drink.
In John chapter 2 verse 6 we read, “Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.” A lot of people know that Jesus turned the water into wine. But they have no idea how much wine He made. He didn’t just make a few cups of wine. He made a huge amount of what is called wine. The Bible says there were six containers of water. Each one of those containers held 20 or 30 gallons each. Think of it! That’s a total of somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons! Does anybody seriously think our Lord made that much alcohol for people who had already been drinking until they ran out of wine? And remember, a wedding in those days lasted a lot longer than it does in America. Today, a wedding ceremony and the reception might last a couple of hours. A wedding in Bible times lasted for days. The Bible doesn’t say how many people were there. It doesn’t say how long it lasted. But it does tell us how much wine Jesus made. And it was a lot.
After Jesus turned the water to wine, the Bible says the one who was in charge of the ceremony said to Jesus, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” (verse 10). Does this mean the people at the wedding feast where Jesus turned the water to wine were drunk? No! This man didn’t say people usually got drunk. He said they after they have “well drunk” which means they have drunk well. They have drunk what they wanted. This means they drank freely. But it doesn’t mean they got drunk at this feast. Remember this man is just the one who was over the wedding. The Bible doesn’t say he’s a disciple of Jesus. We don’t know whether he was or not. But what I’m saying is that you can’t just quote the words of an uninspired observer and make a case for something based on what he said. Besides, he’s just making an observation. Usually at these feasts, he said they served the best wine first. That doesn’t mean that it was best because it had more alcoholic content. It means that wine or grape juice tasted better. It was fresher. That was the “good wine.”
Think about how ridiculous it is to say that the words “well drunk” mean that the people at this feast were intoxicated because that was the custom. That would mean that Jesus made them drunk and now He’s making them drunker by giving them between 120 and 180 gallons of wine!
Think about the verses we looked at concerning drinking. If Jesus made alcoholic wine in John chapter two, He violated every one of them! Proverbs 20 verse 1 says it is not wise to use wine. But if that’s what Jesus made, then He did something foolish. Proverbs 23 verse 31 says not to look upon the cup of wine with interest and approval. But if Jesus made alcoholic wine, then He approved of it and gave it to others! In Daniel 1 verse 8, Daniel refused to drink the wine the king gave him because it would have defiled him. But if Jesus made alcohol, then helped the people at this wedding defile themselves. Habakkuk 2 verse 15 says not to give others drink. But if Jesus made alcoholic wine in John 2, He violated the Word of God in Habakkuk 2 verse 15! That would mean that Jesus did the very thing Habakkuk said not to do—give others drink! And when you take into consideration how much wine Jesus made in John 2—between 120 and 180 gallons—then He would have contributed to their drunkenness and sinned. But the Bible says He never sinned (First Peter 2 verse 22 and Hebrews 4 verse 15). I realize that Habakkuk 2 verse 15 says, “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!” Some argue that this doesn’t apply to social drinking or drinking in moderation because it says you’re not to give the bottle to him and make him drunk. But it also says you’re not to give the bottle to him and make him drunk so that you can look on their nakedness. That doesn’t mean that it’s alright to give the bottle to others as long as you don’t intend to look on their nakedness! And while we’re talking about drinking alcohol, let’s raise the same point about smoking marijuana. If there’s nothing wrong with drinking a beer or having a glass of wine, then what’s wrong with taking one draw from a marijuana cigarette now and then? This is how absurd it is to argue that drinking is okay as long as you don’t get drunk. And it is an insult to the Lord of glory that He would act like a liquor distributer to all these Jews in John 2. But consider what he said about eating and drinking with the drunken in Matthew 24 verse 49. If He gave that much alcohol to people who were already drinking, then He would have been guilty of the very thing He told us not to do. And He certainly would have violated I Peter 4 verse 3 which condemns drinkings.
This is a timely and serious subject. I’ve never understood why preachers make it their mission to convince people that it’s alright to drink, especially when there are young people looking for an excuse, when alcohol does so much harm to mankind, and when highways are dangerous, especially during the holidays.
I’ve made a special video for the Gospel Broadcasting Network on I Peter 4 verse 3 that looks in depth at the word banquetings or drinkings. Just go to YouTube, type in my name, the word drinking and GBNtv.
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