A Wisdom Case for Total Abstinence from Alcohol in Modern Times
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In my view, the Bible is just ambiguous enough on the topic of beverage alcohol to put the question in the category of matters of conscience. But matters of conscience are not matters to “leave alone;” they’re not excluded from the call to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).
These issues call for respectful challenging of one another’s assumptions — and for pondering the path of our feet (Prov. 4:26).
So, I offer here a few thoughts, mainly with two groups of people in mind: those who are trying to decide what sort of stand they ought to make in their own lives, and those who are looking for ways to communicate a no-drinking position to others they care about.
I’m aware that most of the moderate-consumption advocates I know won’t find this at all persuasive, so in that sense, it’s not an entry in “the debate.” But in another sense, it is: some of the undecided and open minded may find something here that bears fruit later on.
Some framing
A strong wisdom case begins by pointing out a few facts and dismissing some distractions. For brevity’s sake here, just the facts.
- Relative to today, people in Bible times had fewer beverage options; it was harder (maybe impossible) to avoid fermented beverages entirely, even if you wanted to.
- In ancient times, wine was not normally fortified with alcohol as it often is today (more on this practice at winespectator.om, and winecoolerdirect.com, eater.com and of course Wikipedia).
- If not before, certainly after the rise of Greek culture, wine was routinely diluted with water (NY Times, Wikipedia), often to the point that the mix was more water than wine (winespectator.com, “Wine and Rome.”)
Along with these background facts, a few logically obvious points are often lost in the fray in discussions on this topic.
- Not everyone who ever got drunk started out with the intention of getting drunk.
- Nobody ever got drunk without a first drink.
- Nobody ever got chemically addicted to alcohol with the intention of getting addicted to alcohol.
- More than 10,000 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in the U.S. in 2016 (“It’s Not an ‘Accident,’ It’s a Crime.” Sheriff & Deputy, March/April 2018). Nobody who ever drove drunk and killed someone had their first drink that night with a DUI crash fatality as their goal.
I could go on like this for some time, talking about cheating lovers, domestic violence, and all sorts of other alcohol induced or aggravated crimes. To many of us, these facts alone point to some obvious conclusions. But they’re just background lighting for a biblical wisdom case against beverage alcohol.
The argument from wisdom
For various reasons, a “wisdom case” against beverage alcohol consumption tries to avoid the argument that Scripture directly forbids beverage alcohol or that Jesus and the apostles drank only non-alcoholic wine.
The wisdom case I’ve taught in various venues goes like this:
1 Believers must be wise stewards.
A few passages help bring well-known principle into fresh focus.
Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (ESV, Matthew 10:16)
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. (1 Cor. 4:2)
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. (Prov. 4:7)
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. (Rom. 14:12)
The “so what” of this principle is that if a course of action is dumb, we shouldn’t do it. If there’s a smarter option, we should do that instead. It’s good stewardship.
2 We are called to keep our minds sharp.
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, (Titus 2:1-2)
For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober … (1 Thess. 5:5–8)
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8)
These passages add up to strong direction to avoid anything that is likely to compromise our ability to stay sharp in tempting times.
3 Beverage alcohol poses dangers to both wise stewardship and sharp-mindedness.
The Bible’s warning passages in reference to “wine” and “strong drink” are well known, and it’s commonly claimed that they refer only to drunkenness and not to having the occasional drink. But as noted above, it’s really not rational to propose a complete non-relationship between drunkenness and “one drink.” You can’t have the former without the latter. They’re connected.
Since many get drunk without starting out with that goal, it’s absurd to claim that a single drink poses no risk at all of leading to drunkenness.
The likelihood may be low, but the stakes are high.
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? 30 Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine. 31 Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. 32 In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. 33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. 34 You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. 35 “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink.” (Prov. 23:29–35)
To this and similar passages, we should add the humiliation of Noah (Gen. 9:20-26) and the degradation of Lot (Gen. 19:30-38). It’s significant that the first occurrence of “wine” in the Bible is a story of tragic family consequences. Did either of these men sit down with a mug that day thinking, “I believe I’ll get drunk now and do something ruinous”?
4 Avoiding pointless hazards is wise.
There is no risk-free living. Driving to work every day is a risky activity — but so is farming the back forty. We take these risks because they’re unavoidable and because the potential gain is worth the degree of risk involved. But acts with a high risk and low potential are just stupid, and recklessness is not a fruit of the Spirit!
The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. (Prov. 22:3)
Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead. (Prov. 15:21)
When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord. (Prov. 19:3)
In our culture, we’d say the fool “gets it.” You have to enjoy life. Cut loose and have a good time … and it’s God’s fault when things go horribly wrong.
5 We should seek every advantage for successful competition.
Olympic athletes have a distinctive way of arranging their lives in pursuit of success. Their personal discipline amazes. They take advantage of every tiny detail of posture, clothing, or gear that might gain them a performance edge. Mostly, we respect that. They’re competing at the highest level.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Cor. 9:24–27)
Every Christian is called to Olympic-level godliness –- elite uprightness of character. Few can claim to have achieved that, but the pursuit is supposed to be where we live every day.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Heb. 12:1)
If there is spiritual advantage in total abstinence, shouldn’t we be eager to seize that advantage?
Avoiding fermented beverages wasn’t easy in ancient times. There is little evidence that most bothered to even try. But in our times, tee-totaling is easy. Alcohol is a much-to-risk and almost nothing to gain scenario, and abstaining is a negligible sacrifice with a significant benefit. Wasting that opportunity is simply not wise.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
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Feel free to be horrified by someone quoting a non-Fundamentalist. I have long believed it is acceptable to quote someone when they are right, even when I disagree with them on other issues.
Matter of fact, I imagine you two (John, Bert) have also done so in the past. The Bible, preachers, theologians down through history have quoted unbelievers when they got something right. I will continue to do so.
By the way, I hope all the links Bert has provided up till now are from Bible-believing, Fundamentalists; otherwise…
To further concern you, another quote:
“Not drinking is no easy passport to happiness, no automatic assurance of a good and happy life. What it does is to increase the odds enormously.” -Upton Sinclair, Cup of Fury
When Sinclair is right, he’s right!
David R. Brumbelow
Back to Aaron’s point about dangers and risks. I know a situation where a young man had been an alcoholic, then got help and recovery, got off the addition and started leading a normal life with family, faith, church, and so forth. But at some point he and his family began attending a pro-drinking church, you know, the kind that thinks drinking booze is almost a third ordinance. So they encouraged the man to start drinking again. I don’t have to write the rest of the story as you know what happened. And of course the blame for the man’s ruin was placed solely on him for not obeying the command to avoid becoming drunk.
Darrell,
I personally know of another story very similar to the one you just related. Very sad.
David R. Brumbelow
Aaron, if you look at the hazards—quite frankly you see them every week during the “organ recital” for church prayer meeting—you see the relative risk. According to the CDC, it’s about 8:1 on the side of food/sloth overall, and if you factor out intentional drunkenness, you’re probably at 100:1 or more. Yes, it’s an unbalanced comparison, but in the opposite way from what you were asserting, and the zero sermons I’ve heard on gluttony in the 30 years I’ve been in Christ just ain’t cutting it when 600,000 Americans are dying each year from it.
Moreover, let’s consider what drunkenness is; it’s gluttony for the food called wine. 7kcal/gram of alcohol, vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, yes, it is a food like any other as well as a drug. Preaching against gluttony is ipso facto preaching against drunkenness. When a pastor tells the congregation that their spare tires, discomfort after eating, joint pain, bad lipid panels, and the like are in part evidence of sin, and then gives hints on how to remedy that—sip your drinks, ease up on the sugary drinks, chew your food, don’t swallow foods or drinks with an off taste you don’t understand—he’s preparing people to have the same habits regarding the bowl of punch with an unknown strength of Everclear.
In other words, he’s doing a lot more to prevent drunkenness than the well-meaning pastor who simply tries to teach total abstinence.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry]Preaching against gluttony is ipso facto preaching against drunkenness.
Does a preacher need to preach against specific sins? Any time a Christian sins a particular sin it is because he is not walking in the Spirit - and failing to walk in the Spirit, itself, is sin. When preaching focuses on what we are commanded to do instead of focusing on what God commands us not to do, I believe it is far more profitable in helping people overcome those specific sins that the Bible clearly expresses.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
[JNoël]
Does a preacher need to preach against specific sins? Any time a Christian sins a particular sin it is because he is not walking in the Spirit - and failing to walk in the Spirit, itself, is sin. When preaching focuses on what we are commanded to do instead of focusing on what God commands us not to do, I believe it is far more profitable in helping people overcome those specific sins that the Bible clearly expresses.
Well, I’d have thought that a good pastor, confronted with the fact that 600,000 Americans every year are dying of the aftereffects of gluttony, and aware that it’s most likely the #1 killer of people in his congregation, might address the Biblical testimony on the matter, but maybe that’s insufficient. You need, per Aaron’s comments, to have something more spectacular and gory—maybe if gluttons exploded or something—it would be worth a sermon. “If it bleeds, it leads” is apparently not just a tenet of journalism, but of homiletics today.
And let’s be honest here. Part of the reason you don’t hear much on gluttony is because it’s the prevalent sin in our churches, and the pastor would hear it from the congregation if he did. He might even get fired. So he’ll ignore the fact that gluttony and drunkenness are linked and preach only on the latter, violating every principle of sound exegesis and hermeneutics in the process, and then proceed to pray for their heart disease and diabetes each Wednesday, go to their bedside when they get open heart surgery, joint replacement, and dialysis, and finally preach their funerals. It’s much safer that way. Preach about the sins that only a few commit, not against the besetting sins of most of the congregation.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry]And let’s be honest here. Part of the reason you don’t hear much on gluttony is because it’s the prevalent sin in our churches
Opinion.
In my opinion, laziness, materialism, pride, and division trump gluttony. And, actually, let’s just toss porneia into the mix, too.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
I actually taught on materialism/greed once at church. I caught it but good. :^) Both materialism and gluttony (linked concepts, no?) seem to be represented by fairly strong majorities in most American churches.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Bert, it sounds like you have thought a lot about the gluttony issue. I would love to read a well thought out article with scripture and other sources that we could all use as a reference. I am not suggesting this to pick on you, I am simply urging you on to good works since it seems that this is something you have been thinking a lot about. I would not be suggesting it if I did not think you were up to the task. I do not expect a copy in my inbox tomorrow or anything, but I think such an article would be a great addition to our Sharper Iron posts over the next year.
P.S. If you already have something and I missed it, then please link to it.
The fuss about “gluttony” is a. not well informed, b. mostly an evasive maneuver to avoid facing facts about alcohol — as this thread demonstrates.
On what gluttony actually is, this article is a start. I may do some more debunking on that in the near future.
https://sharperiron.org/article/sin-of-gluttony-neglected-our-pulpits
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Not everyone who appears to be overweight is guilty of the sin of gluttony. I know some who have medical problems that result in excessive weight gain. I also know of some who literally can eat huge portions of food and desserts and never put on any weight. Its not as easy to decipher as getting someone’s body mass index number and then declaring them being in ‘sin’ if the number is too high.
Darrel wrote:
I also know of some who literally can eat huge portions of food and desserts and never put on any weight.
Darrel, that is me. I am a bi-vocational pastor and am a self employed contractor with no employees, so I do the work myself. That means I am very active. I am in my mid 40’s and have never felt healthier. I attribute a lot of that to the exercise I get and the fact that physical labor has always been a big stress reducer for me. Having said that, I often look at the calorie count at McDonald’s and try to order the stuff with the most calories just so I do not loose any more weight (my ribs already show). Thus I am hungry (pardon the pun) for a good explanation of the theology of gluttony and how it applies to someone like me as well.
In 2013-2014 I lost 20 lbs and reached my ideal weight for the first time in many years. But I was less healthy than before or now. The weight loss was the result of loss of appetite from an extended period of very high stress. I didn’t even notice I was eating less. (That period is another reason I’m glad to have a lifelong habit of not drinking alcohol!).
Now it’s very hard work to keep the pounds from accumulating. You can gain weight while never eating as much as you would like, and still being hungry nearly all the time. I have to think that gluttony would more fun than this! But am I too heavy? My joints are eloquent in telling me that I am!
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Darrell Post]Yep. Put me in the category of those that have health issues that cause excess weight. (Actually water weight but I won’t go into tons of detail here) At the worst of my health issues I was easily 40+ lbs “overweight”…. Once we figured out what was wrong I dropped dramatically in a ridiculously short amount of time.Not everyone who appears to be overweight is guilty of the sin of gluttony. I know some who have medical problems that result in excessive weight gain. I also know of some who literally can eat huge portions of food and desserts and never put on any weight. Its not as easy to decipher as getting someone’s body mass index number and then declaring them being in ‘sin’ if the number is too high.
Folks, the simple fact of the matter is that the words for gluttony and drunkenness are used together at least seven times in Scripture. If one tries to preach against one without preaching against the other, one is simply violating basic rules of exegesis and homiletics. Preach what’s in the Word, not what’s on your soapbox.
And let’s define it properly; it’s eating, at various times or consistently, more than your body needs to operate. The construction worker or distance runner who needs 5000 calories per day (used to be me) is not a glutton. He is eating what he needs. The glutton is the person who eats at one sitting a lot more than he needs (think Thanksgiving or a Super Bowl Party), or who consistently eats more than he needs.
As such, ample stores of fat are as much a sign of gluttony as bloating and nausea. You only get those stores of fat by eating more calories over time than you burn; there is no other way.
And, like problem drinking, the glutton has a series of habits that lead to problems. The Mayo Clinic Diet actually starts with a requirement to “detox” by putting off certain behaviors (eating in front of the TV, soda) and putting on others (mild exercise, etc..). It’s a different list than you’d use with a problem drinker, but it’s really the same premise.
But if you want to keep whistling past the graveyard, going to the homes and hospital beds of people getting joint replacements, dialysis, stents, open heart surgery, and the like as you wait to preach their funerals, be my guest. Ignore the stats because a heart attack isn’t as shocking as a DUI-induced car crash, and because the funeral is open casket instead of closed casket. Keep preaching instead about a problem most of the congregation doesn’t have, and dutifully ignore a problem that most of them obviously do.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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