Spirit and Truth Discernment: Does God's Word Forbid Drinking Any Alcohol?

Does God's Word Forbid Drinking Any Alcohol?

We once in central Wisconsin which is the the heart of a massive alcohol drinking culture. In fact that state sadly ranks as one of the TOP states for beer consumption nationally. Due to this fact, for the believer it is always a topic of debate or concern and so it must be addressed biblically and not from opinions or traditions of men. We are thankful God delivered us from a life of drunken ways! Today we drink very little alcohol (wine is all, at times) but we find no command against it in scripture.

What we find is that the Baptist religious places are among the harshest critics of a NO alcohol consumption policy and they say it is per God's Word that they claim this truth. Recently we had a "so called believer" tell us they believe that any alcohol for ANYONE is a sin and not allowed for any believer per God's Word. While we agree that anyone can choose to NOT drink any alcohol, we would totally disagree with that stance biblically for all people as God's Word does not teach that. We offered this man clear biblical proof of that but he chose to stay in his own error filled theology. We thought it would be wise to offer that case here so others can see the biblical truth and not be fooled by such man's error filled ways. We will walk you through his claims for no alcohol, then give you our rebuttal per the Holy Word of God.

Please note: we are not social drinkers nor do we support any Christian who imbibes on a regular basis either. What we will show you here is truth and that God's Word forbids ALL drunkenness but it does also teach some alcohol for medicinal purposes is allowed as well.

Here are the following claims this "NO alcohol for anyone" man made with our rebuttal back to him from the Word. Let this be as a training exercise on how to discern truth from error on a topic:

1) He argued for NO alcohol and said that the bible talked of ONLY new wine that had no alcohol to it.

Genesis 27:28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine

Proverbs 3:10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.

The Hebrew word for wine here is tiyrowsh (tee-roshe')

and it means wine, fresh or new wine, must, freshly pressed wine

*We would agree in these verses that is new wine but as anyone who knows about wine also knows you have to have NEW wine before you can ever have fermented wine. It is not true they only drank new wine at all! Let's take more of the scriptures in to see what we find about wine in the Old Testament.

It also talks about wine that could and did get men drunk as well. We see this with Noah in Genesis 9:21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

The Hebrew word for wine here is:

yayin {yah'-yin}

effervesce; banqueting, winebibbers

Clearly we showed him by this that Noah had to drink wine with alcohol to get drunk on it.

NOTE: He refused that truth of God's Word and could not refute it!

2) Next he tried to use this verse to say that the bible says 'do not drink ANY wine'.

Judges 13:4

Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:

*We refuted that by showing him in context this is a instruction to a specific woman who will bear a son. Also the Hebrew word for wine here is yayin and it means: wine, fermented, intoxication
This again shows some of the wine even in the OT was fermented wine indeed.