Social Drinking Q & A

Social Drinking Q & A

Question: Doesn't the word wine in the Bible always refer to alcoholic wine?

Answer: No. The word wine translates about five words in Hebrew and Greek, all of which refer to grape juice as well as fermented wine, as in the following verses: chemer (Isaiah 27:2), yayin (Isaiah 20:10), tirosh (Proverbs 3:10), and finally, gleukos and oinos (both of which translate the three Hebrew words which are often used of grape juice).

Question: Didn't Jesus make fermented wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2)? Didn't the ruler say it was the "best wine"?

Answer: Albert Barnes observes that the ancients considered the "best wine" that which was harmless. We could give quotes from Pliny, Plutarch and Horace to prove that. The fact is the ancients PREFERRED GRAPE JUICE.

Question: Doesn't 1 Timothy 3:3, 8 say the elder cannot be given to wine, while the deacon needs only not to be given to MUCH wine?

Answer: The Greek words used as synonyms: paroinon and prosecho. Both mean "to be addicted to." Would you argue that the elder is not to be addicted to wine, but the deacon may be addicted a little?

Question: Since the ancients could not preserve grape juice, was not all they drank really fermented?

Answer: The ancients had four ways of preserving grape juice. (1) Boiling. This left too much sugar to ferment. (2) Filtration. This got rid of the yeast. (3) Subsidence. This allowed yeast to settle at the bottom and the grape juice was then skimmed off. (4) Fumigation. Here sulphur was used to absorb the oxygen.

Question: On the day of Pentecost the apostle were accused of being drunk. Would they be accused if all Jews didn't drink?

Answer: The word used is gleukos. Authorities and lexicons which think gleukos was unfermented are: Connegan, Green, Robinson, Kitto, Thayer and Arndt and Gingrich. Notice also the text says they were "mocking" the apostles, evidently saying they were drunk on grape juice.

Question: Didn't Paul tell Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach's sake?

Answer: Grape juice worked well to replace bad water, Pliny (1st century Roman) said the wine used for the sick was that which had "its forces broken by the strainer."

Question: Didn't Jesus show they used alcoholic wine when He said new wine would if fermented, rend old bottles made from skins?

Answer: No, they used new skins to keep it from fermenting. Old skins would, a short while after being emptied develop yeast on the sides. Having absorbed oxygen the fermented matter would be communicated to the entire mass and eventually rend the skin. So they put it in clean bottles to keep it from fermenting.*

The truth is, there is no passage in the Bible which shows saints approved while drinking fermented wine. Social drinking is not sustained Biblically!

*Editor's note: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." (Mat 9:17 KJV)

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