"Should Christians Drink Alcohol?"
Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls. Those led astray by drink cannot be wise. (Proverbs 20:1 NLT)
Alcohol is a touchy subject, especially in the church. Not only in the church, but it's an even bigger subject in SBC churches. There are many godly people on differing spectrums of this issue. There are those that say the Bible strictly prohibits the use of alcohol & those that say Christians are biblically free to enjoy intoxicating beverages. Both use the Bible in defense. Some quote Galatians, "Do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit." Others say, "Well, Jesus turned water into wine."
This blog post is not going to solve that issue in any way. We don't have the time or finger strength to type enough words!
So, we have a warning for us in Proverbs 20 about the consumption of alcohol. It doesn't prohibit its use but does give a strong warning about using it. Like all of God's gifts, we have a tendency of abusing them. God gave us sex in the context of marriage & yet we abuse this gift in many ways. Adultery, pornography, affairs, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, & couples living together outside of marriage are just some examples of how we have taken something good & royally jacked it up. Similarly, God's people in the Old Testament received wine as God's blessing. The harvest was a picture of God blessing to his people. Jesus himself made wine & it was really good wine according to the head of the party!
But the abuse of alcohol is not only spiritually irresponsible, biblically condemned, & very unwise but it is also potentially deadly. So we would do well to consider this warning & do what it says. Be wise & do not allow alcohol to control us or lead us to places we should not go.
You really could say the same thing for many things, politics, food, television, entertainment, technology, fill in the blank, paul's admonition to be "led by the spirit" is fitting here, many things are fit to be enjoyed and the SBC is often so tight lipped on alcohol that it thinks nothing of it's waist-line, it's profanity, hypocricy in "praying a prayer" or in many other areas, this is merely a golden calf
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