Christian Views On Alcohol - Alcohol in The Bible

Alcohol in The Bible

Alcoholic beverages appear in the Bible, both in usage and in poetic expression. The Bible is ambivalent toward alcohol, considering it both a blessing from God that brings merriment and a potential danger that can be unwisely and sinfully abused. Christian views on alcohol come from what the Bible says about it, along with Jewish and Christian traditions. The biblical languages have several words for alcoholic beverages, and though prohibitionists and some abstentionists dissent, there is a broad consensus that the words did ordinarily refer to intoxicating drinks.

The commonness and centrality of wine in daily life in biblical times is apparent from its many positive and negative metaphorical uses throughout the Bible. Positively, wine is used as a symbol of abundance and physical blessing, for example. Negatively, wine is personified as a mocker and beer a brawler, and drinking a cup of strong wine to the dregs and getting drunk are sometimes presented as a symbol of God's judgment and wrath.

The Bible also speaks of wine in general terms as a bringer and concomitant of joy, particularly in the context of nourishment and feasting. Wine was commonly drunk at meals, and the Old Testament prescribed it for use in sacrificial rituals and festal celebrations. The Gospels record that Jesus's first miracle was making copious amounts of wine at the wedding feast at Cana, and when he instituted the ritual of the Eucharist at the Last Supper during a Passover celebration, he says that the wine is a "New Covenant in blood," though Christians have differed on the implications of this statement (see Eucharistic theologies contrasted). Alcohol was also used for medicinal purposes in biblical times, and it appears in that context in several passages—as an oral anesthetic, a topical cleanser and soother, and a digestive aid.

Kings and priests in the Old Testament were forbidden to partake of wine at various times, and certain optional vows excluded as part of their ascetic regimen not only wine, but also vinegar, grapes, and raisins (unlike John the Baptist, Jesus evidently did not take such a vow during the three years of ministry depicted in the gospels). St. Paul further instructs Christians regarding their duty toward immature Christians: "It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall."

Virtually all Christian denominations hold that the Bible condemns ordinary drunkenness in many passages, and Easton's Bible Dictionary says, "The sin of drunkenness ... must have been not uncommon in the olden times, for it is mentioned either metaphorically or literally more than seventy times in the Bible." Additionally, the consequences of the drunkenness of Noah and Lot "were intended to serve as examples of the dangers and repulsiveness of intemperance," and St. Paul later chides the Corinthians for becoming drunk on wine served at their attempted celebrations of the Eucharist. For nearly all Christians, drunkenness "is not merely a disgusting personal habit and social vice, but a sin which bars the gates of Heaven, desecrates the body, which is now in a special sense the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, and stains the mystical body of Christ, the Church."