I Love Beer: One Christian’s Take on Alcohol Part I
I really do. Good beer. I’m not talking about Budweiser or Coors, but the stuff from Europe: Guiness, Paulaner, Corsendonk– dark, thick, smooth. Delicious. In the summertime I also really enjoy a Corona with lime. Sitting on the beach, getting burnt by the sun, and drinking a corona with my Dad and brother are some of my favorite memories. Of course I also grew up in the heart of the Bible Belt in South Georgia, so my enjoyment of this particular beverage has not come without a few odd looks or discouraging glances.
As a Christian, I take seriously the Bible’s view of alcohol (commonly called wine). Now let me just say this first. I heard as a young boy and teenager that the wine in the bible was not fermented; it was more like grape juice. While I think that was a pretty creative ploy (and I know/hope that it wasn’t intentional), it is simply not true.
A couple examples should suffice: Jesus turned the water into the “best” wine at the wedding right? It was common at weddings to serve out the best or strongest wine at the very beginning of wedding reception. Why would they do this? Well, if you’ve have stronger wine in the beginning, you will be intoxicated enough to not notice the not so good wine served at the end. You won’t care that the wine is not good, because you will have already been partying with the good stuff! So when Jesus turns the water into wine, the host of the wedding comments on how “good” this wine served at the end is. He couldn’t believe that they would save the best (a.k.a. the stuff that can get you drunk) until the end of the party. Also note that the wine was in danger of being gone. Now, I’m pretty sure that we’re not talking about one bottle of sipping wine disappearing here, but more likely gallons upon gallons. And Jesus refilled them! Isn’t it interesting that Jesus would do this? I wonder if He would have made such “good” wine if he thought that in it of itself it was morally “evil.”
Secondly, throughout Paul’s letters, he warns people to not “be drunk with wine.” I will talk more about this in Part II, but isn’t it kind of odd that he would give that warning if you couldn’t in fact get drunk with wine? To get drunk with unfermented grape juice, you would have to drink yourself unconscious by consuming too much liquid. It’s not likely that’s what he was referring to.
But the Bible has a lot to say about alchohol, and as I said, I take it seriously. There are around 247 references in the Bible concerning wine and strong drink in the Bible. That’s a lot of talk about drinking in our inspired scriptures! Did you know that of all the references to alchohol in the bible, just 40 references are negative? That’s only 16%. On the flip side, there are 145 references in the Bible that put alcohol in a positive light– that’s 59% with the rest being nuetral. So the Bible has an overwhelmingly positive affirmation for alchoholic beverages!
Let me give a few examples.
Psalm 104:14-15 “He [God] causes grass to grow for the livestock, and provides crops for man to cultivate, producing food from the earth, wine that makes man’s heart glad…”
Here David gives credit to God for the wine that makes our heart’s glad.
In Isaiah 25, we have a prophetic word of the Restoration when God will consummate His kingdom and finalize His reign upon the earth. It sounds very similar to Revelation as in verse 8 Isaiah says that God would “destroy death forever…and wipe the tears from every face” (sound familiar?). But in verse 6 Isaiah states:
“The Lord of hosts will prepare a feast for all the peoples on this mountain [Zion], a feast of aged wine, choice meat, finely aged wine.” (!!)
Now whatever symbolism we apply to these verses, it can’t be said that Isaiah [and God] view finely aged wine in a negative light. It’s used to explain how wonderful salvation will be!
One more: when Solomon attempts to explain the the love of the Beloved from the Shulamite (may we compare this to the unfathomable love of Christ?), what does he compare it to??
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— For your love is better than wine.” (Song of Solomon 1:2)
We may go too far in assuming that this is related to God’s love, but in any case, the writer chooses to compare love with wine!
These are simply a few examples among many that show that alchohol itself, far from being morally repugnant, is a blessing and gift from God, a symbol of salvation and restoration, and a qualitative measure of a devoted love.
However, as with many of the beautiful, wonderful blessings of God, the things that God gives as a blessing can be distorted and used as a source of destruction when placed in the wrong hands. It is this idea that prompted my rant on alchohol in the first place, and because of the length of this post, must wait for Part II.
Because of the provacativeness of this topic, would you please withold criticism until I’ve posted my complete thoughts on it? You might be surprised what I have to say in Part II.
Oh yeah, and if you happen to stumble onto this post and are struggling with alchohol or looking for a good excuse to go drink (especially you teenagers! 
) would you wait a day or two and read my next post? There’s a balance to all of this.
And no, I’m not drinking a beer as I write this!
Until then, blessings.
Great post, man! That’s so interesting about the percentage of scriptures in favor of legitimate alcohol consumption. Can’t wait to hear the other side of your argument…
Sam
Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan…………You sound so much like me!
Listen my friend, all Alcohol contains enough strength/power to hit your health BAD !
My late husband & I were NOT binge drinkers nor drunks, never unemployed or even any sick days off work. Very health, happy, hard working, and loved to drink with friends, family, work associates & each other.
After nearly 30 yrs of that, it hit our health bad. And yet some people have done & are doing the same until 95 yrs of age!
There is NO ryme or reason to it at all !!
And, yes, that was one of my favourite lines, ‘Christ turned the water into wine’………..
Well, he did, yes, but it was of such a LOW amount of actual toxic alcohol in it, that it really cannot compare to what we have now a days !
If you would like to know the full story, just let me know & I’ll send it to you.
JUST BE CAREFUL, please…………….
It destroyed not only our health but our lives ! And I would not want anyone else to have this same wretched problem !! Or any other, either !
/sjg
Hey Sheila,
Thanks for commenting and for your concern. It’s obvious from your post that this has been a tough issue in your life, and for that reason alone, I would not dare to offer a rebuttal for the sake of winning an argument.
And you’re right, we have more “toxic” today than back then (but their’s would not have been non-alcoholic…it would have had a 10-14% like any fermented wine today)if you’re referring to hard liquors.
I would love to hear your story. You can email me at jbgroover@hotmail.com. I would also appreciate it if you would stick around for my next post or two. My only desire in this post is to paint what our scriptures say positively about alchohol and the way we may view it in a right context.
That would never negate the inherent dangers in the abuse of alcohol. But neither does the abuse negate the goodness that God might have intended it to have.
Blessings.
Jonathan
I’m proud of you for not drinking as you said in part I and in part II, too.
You’re the man!
your buddy,
Sam
Thanks for the encouragement and the email!!
I was rolling!
my sister to dring is a sin jesus did not make wine with alcohol the wine he made it was just sweat juce read habakuka2:15that miracle was only made4 to make person happy but i dont thing people use to be happy when they are drunk becouse they stsrt to do what they are not suppose to do when they are sobber and its clear in revelation that out side will be drankard if you are a drunk the sprit of God is not in you.
I too have questions about Christianity and drinking. Much of the religious crowd that is against drinking are probably secret imbibers. Smoking is the same, they probably wouldn’t do it on church grounds but thats another subject. I personally go along with the Apostle Paul when he said let no man judge you in what you eat or drink. Paul also said if eating meat would cause a weaker brother to stumble, he would no longer eat meat. I disagree with Paul on this, I would prefer to educate my weaker brother than to miss out on a good steak now and then. Physical life is to short to be under the judgment of another human being, yet we judge each other all the time.
Hi
I heard that all the wine back in jesus’s time was fermited. It was not untill Welches as in grape juice figured out how to keep it from fermitting that we had “grape juice”.It was just as strong as it is today . It fermits naturally as do several other things also.
Sincerely
Tom
Hey Tom,
Thanks for stopping by. You’re right. The above two examples I hope made it clear that there was no way the wine could have been alcoholic. Otherwise people couldn’t have gotten drunk! Thanks for the info.
Thanks for writing this great blog I really enjoyed.