Many use the instance of Jesus turning water into wine to attempt to justify Christians recreationally drinking alcohol.  It is interesting how people who obviously don’t care about what the Bible says are so quick to point to the Bible in the place where they think they can use it to defend their regard for sin.  If they really lived by authority of the Bible, they would both know and bring up the Bible passages commanding sobriety and forbidding drunkenness (such Jesus’ words  in Luke 21:33-36).  Instead, they are false witnesses which are tampered with their own bias. They don’t even receive what the Bible teaches regarding how walking in a living faith in Jesus demands living soberly and shunning having companions that are not sober (see also Matthew 24:45-51, Acts 24:24-25, and Titus 2:11-14).
Since Jesus never sinned, the Bible never testifies against any of His deeds.  Whatever He served at that wedding then did not have the alcoholic content to make anyone drunk- at least considering the overall moderation of the environment and the guests at the wedding.  He knew the environment and He knew the crowd there well enough to know that He was not in danger of making anyone drunk by doing what He did there (His own Word already testified of the sins of being drunk and making others drunk- for examples see Isaiah 28:7-8 and Habakkuk 2:15).

Just because the Bible doesn’t always condemn all drinking of wine doesn’t mean that it was considered okay in the Bible to drink the fruit of the vine when it had fermented much beyond the point of what we would consider grape juice or where it was not mixed considerably with water.  Yet the Bible does testify that wine which is stronger should indeed be shunned (see Proverbs 20:1).

The mindset of the inspired writers of Scripture is indisputably that it is ungodly to drink to the point of drunkenness; and that everyone who gets drunk or high sinfully risks doing and saying disgraceful things which they would rightfully be ashamed to say or to do if they were sober.

Those who try to use the Bible to defend recreational drinking might point to 1 Timothy 5:23: “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.”
The very context of this verse actually demonstrates that drinking wine of any significant strength, other than using a little to treat an evident medical condition, should be considered out of bounds.   Timothy had to be reassured that he was not making himself impure by using a little wine with water for his stomach’s sake and his frequent illnesses- because Paul knew Timothy was of the mindset that drinking alcohol recreationally, let alone drinking it to the point of intoxication, isn’t fitting for one who would be faithful to the true God.  His scruple regarding this was not a product of superstition but rather based upon established principles already laid down in the Old Testament.  As the Word made flesh, Jesus surely lived by those principles in His incarnation and never did anything to promote anyone else violating them either.

Aaron’s email is: [email protected]

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