Alcohol: Sinful or Not? Part One

There are many Christians who believe that consuming alcohol is inherently sinful. However, this cannot be supported by Scripture in any way, shape, or form without twisting Scripture into a convoluted mess. In fact, the opposite is true of what the Bible says in regard to alcohol. There are several verses that not only say that drinking alcohol is ok but go even further to say that God approves of wine.

There are several verses that not only say that drinking alcohol is ok but go even further to say that God approves of wine.

L. J. Anderson

Consider Psalm 104:14-15, “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.” This verse directly says that God causes the food and the vine to grow that allows man to eat and drink wine. We can also look at Proverbs 3:9-10 which says, “Honor Yahweh with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with new wine.” Again, we see that wine is shown as something that God gives and is actually a blessing. Now, there are those who like to focus on the distinction between “wine” and “new wine” here. Basically, the argument is that “new wine” refers to unfermented grape juice. This is accurate. However, it wasn’t until sometime in the 1100’s AD that we see any form of pasteurization. Thus, “new wine” will almost immediately start fermenting. You see, grapes have yeast on them. Yeast is what consumes the sugars in grapes and turns it into ethanol and CO2. If the juice isn’t pasteurized withing the first several hours of the grapes being crushed, then the juice will ferment. Even if they somehow washed off all of the yeast that is on the grapes (this is likely to be an impossible feat), the juice would still ferment. This is because yeast are also airborne, and it only takes a tiny amount of yeast to kick off a fermentation. So, unless the vats that are “bursting with new wine” are drunk within a few hours (highly unlikely), then there will be alcohol present.

Alcohol in the New Testament

While there are many more verses that can be looked at regarding alcohol in both the Old and New Testaments, there are two instances in particular that I want to talk about. The first is Jesus commanding the use of wine. At the last supper, Jesus commanded the disciples to divide a cup of “the fruit of the vine” (see Luke 22:17-18) amongst themselves. Again, the only way to argue against this being true wine would be to claim that it is unfermented grape juice. Unfortunately, this claim cannot stand for a very simple reason. The last supper was during the Passover celebration which generally falls in March or April on our calendars. Grapes, on the other hand, ripen and are picked around July and August. Remember how pasteurization wasn’t invented until the 1100’s AD? This comes into play here. There is absolutely no way, apart from a miracle (which there is zero evidence for), for them to have been drinking unfermented grape juice. This is because unpasteurized grape juice will typically start fermenting within a couple of hours and will usually finish fermenting within a week or two (a month is pretty much the longest it will go before fermentation is complete). Therefore, wine, not grape juice, was almost certainly the drink that was used at the first supper.

Paul talking to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23 is the second instance that I want to discuss. Here Paul tells Timothy to use a little wine, instead of exclusively water, due to his stomach. Now, the context of this passage is talking about Timothy rather than the church as a whole, but that actually doesn’t matter for our purposes here. What does matter is that Paul commanded Timothy to drink wine. The question that must be asked is this: Did Paul command Timothy to sin and, if so, why isn’t there any mention of Paul being rebuked by any of the other Apostles? After all, Paul rebuked Peter for something as simple as not hanging out with the gentile believers. The simplest answer to this question is that Paul did not, in fact, tell Timothy to sin by drinking wine. Thus, it cannot be sinful to drink wine.

Part Two

Part two of this blog will deal with when alcohol becomes sinful. Just because it isn’t inherently sinful to drink alcohol doesn’t mean that it is always a good thing. There are instances where it is sinful to drink. Also, in an effort to keep this blog relatively short, I did not discuss everything there is to know about alcohol and the Bible, so if you have questions, please feel free to contact me at ljandersonbooks@outlook.com and I will do my best to answer your questions.