To Wine or Not to Wine
Old Testament Theology
By: Bruce Landry
I. What was common use of wine in the Ancient Near East Page 1
II. Some Questions concerning Wine Page 3
III. Is Wine the best choice today? Page 6
IV. Old Testament Considerations Page 8
V. Conclusion Page 11
To Wine or not to Wine
By: Bruce Landry
I. Should we as Christians be drinking Wine?
This was something that Professor Gore suggested someone should do a paper on and I felt that this was a good subject to delve into. Should Christians who are to be holy and set apart drink wine? Is there anything in the scripture that prohibits the use of wine? Is it a good idea? I hope to look into the historical use of wine, the amounts of comparative alcohol of the wine in the Ancient Near East and compare that to the types and uses ascribed to today.
There are several mainline Evangelical denominations that hold to the usage of wine within their respective Churches and there are several others that use grape juice to signify the blood of Christ, which was shed for all, for the remission of sin. Are these practices right, wrong, or does it really even matter?
We do know that Scripture always condemns drunkenness. In the Scripture all pictures of drunkenness are not pretty. When people drink, they often get intoxicated and we see sin and disaster.
Noah became drunk and acted shamelessly.
Lot’s daughters caused Lot to become drunk to commit incest with him. Belshazzer held a drunken feast and praised idols of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. And in this drunken stupor he lost his kingdom.
We also know that the Bible seems in places to commend the drinking of wine.
Drink offerings of wine accompany many of the sacrifices in the Old Testament (Ex. 29:40; Num. 15:15).
Proverbs 31:6 Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to him whose life is bitter.
Like many other things in our current age, the kind of wine that the Scriptures refer to has both abilities for good and evil. Wine is made through a process called fermentation--a form of decay as a result of the curse of sin. I will leave it to you to decide whether or not alcohol should be used?
II. Some Questions concerning Wine
Is it the same? Is today’s wine the same as Bible wine?
a. One kind of Old Testament wine is called shekar in the Hebrew. This is usually translated as strong drink because of its high alcoholic content and is referenced in Proverbs 20:1 and Isaiah 5:1.
b. A second type of wine was called gluekos. We get our English word glucose from this root word. This was new wine--and especially sweet. This corresponds with the Hebrew word tirosh and is referenced in Proverbs 3:10, Hosea 9:2, and Joel 1:10. This was usually mixed with water before drinking.
c. The most referred to wine in both the Old and New Testaments is oinos (Gk) yayin (Hebrew). Yayin has the root meaning bubble up-- not because of the fermentation, but because of the process used to reduce it to a thick paste. Boiling kills bacteria, and the concentrate could be stored without worry of loss. It required less storage space as it was added to water for flavor. Even when the remixed content was allowed to ferment-- it had a lower alcohol content than that of wine naturally fermented. Possibly from fermentation as well as spillage. This practice of boiling grape juice down to pasty syrup was common throughout the ancient world and still exists in Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon today.
Aristotle described the wines of Arcadia as being so thick that it had to scraped from the skins it was stored in and the scrapings needed to be diluted with water in order to make a drink.
Horace wrote in 35bc of a non-intoxicating wine, Pliny referred to this non-intoxicating wine. In the 9th book of his Odyssey Homer told of Ullyses putting in his boat a goatskin of sweet black wine that was diluted 20 to 1 before consumption.
Many wine-drinking Christians today mistakenly assume that what the New Testament meant by wine is identical to wine used today. This, however, is false. In fact today’s wine is by biblical definitions “strong drink,” and hence is forbidden in the Bible! What the Bible frequently meant by wine was basically purified water.
Stein researched wine-drinking in the ancient world, in Jewish sources, and in the Bible. He pointed out that wine in Homer’s day was twenty parts water and one part wine (Odyssey 9.208–9). Pliny referred to wine as eight parts water and one part wine (Natural History 14.6–54). According to Aristophanes, it was stronger: three parts water and two parts wine. Other classical Greek writers spoke of other mixtures: Euenos—three parts water, one part wine; Hesiod—three to one, water to wine; Alexis—four to one: Diocles and Anacreon—two to one: and Ion—three to one. The average was about three or four parts of water to one part of wine.
Sometimes in the ancient world one part water would be mixed with one part wine; this was considered strong wine. And anyone who drank wine unmixed was looked on as a Scythian, a barbarian. That means the Greeks would say today, “You Americans are barbarians—drinking straight wine.”
For example, Athenaeus quoted Mnesitheus of Athens as saying, “in daily intercourse, to those who drink it moderately it gives good cheer; but if you overstep the bounds it brings violence. Mix it half and half and you get madness; unmixed—bodily collapse.” Here is a pagan saying, “Half and half is madness, and unmixed wine brings death.”
Stein also observes that “in several instances in the Old Testament a distinction is made between ‘wine’ and ‘strong drink’“ (e.g., Lev 10:8–9). Strong drink is one thing, wine is another thing. The same distinction is made in Deuteronomy 14:26; 29:6 ; Judges 13:4; and elsewhere. According to the Talmud the “wine” used in the Passover meal was three parts water and one part wine (cf. 2 Macc 15:39).
It may also be that the wine Jesus miraculously provided at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11) was a similar drink, that is, wine mixed with water. The word oi\no" (“wine”) refers sometimes to fermented grape juice (e.g., Eph 5:18) and sometimes to fresh, not fully fermented grape juice (e.g., Rev 19:15).
Furthermore, in ancient times not many beverages were safe to drink. Stein indicates that in the ancient world water could be made safe in one of several ways. It could be boiled, but this was tedious and costly. Or it could be filtered, but this was not a safe method. Or some wine could be put in the water to kill the germs—one part wine with three or four parts water.
One writer for Christianity Today explains that the ancient Greeks kept their un-boiled undiluted wine in large jugs (called amphorae). Before drinking they would pour it into smaller vessels called kraters and dilute it with water as much as 20-1. Unmixed wine, even among pagans, was considered irresponse.
Naturally fermented wine has from 9-11 percent alcoholic content. The ancient world therefore had at most an 11% alcohol content in their wine. Mixed half-and-half (madness) we are arrive at a 5% alcohol content. Most wines were mixed at least 3-1 so what the ancients drank would not even be considered alcoholic by today’s 3.2 % requirement.
It is clear that the yayin/oinos mentioned in Scripture is a thick syrup, which was added to a mixture of water and had a minimal, low or non-alcoholic content.
This obviously is not the wine that we buy today, or what one of our Christian brothers or sisters thinks of when we say wine today.
This surely indicates that we could safely say that that even the pagans would consider our wines today too strong to drink.
In Biblical times as in a number of places in our world today, good drinking water is hard to come by. There are times and places where it is unable to be found. In fact sometimes the safest drink was wine with an alcoholic content, this could be used as an antiseptic for purifying the water.
The fact that Jesus turned the water into oinos-- the preferred wine of the day (normally made from the boiled paste) shows that He served at best a low to no level alcoholic beverage--and as it was made by the Son of the God—it was right, pure and good.
III. Is Wine the best choice today?
Is it necessary for us today to drink alcohol? First, let me say if I was dying of thirst I would probably drink wine-- but unlike the ancient world we have many alternatives today. We have purified water in our homes, the ability to get filtered water in most communities and other good options available to us. Coke, tea, Cool aid, juices and many other choices await us today that will not allow me to cease being vigilant, as you and I are called to be.
Drinking an alcoholic beverage would be in this day and age an extremely rare necessity. Nor can it be said that to drink might keep you from offending someone. You will not embarrass a friend, relative, acquaintance or a foreign neighbor, if you respectfully decline an offer of an alcoholic beverage out of honest conviction instead of self-righteous judgmental motives.
Let’s consider the following statistics:
Before a person decides to drink or to continue drinking, he should be fully aware of the following facts about alcoholic beverages and their effects today.
1. An estimated ten million problem drinkers or alcoholics are in the United States adult population.
2. Of adults who drink, 36 percent can be classed as problem drinkers.
3. In addition, an estimated 3.3 million young people ages 14–17 are problem drinkers.
4. Alcohol-related deaths may run as high as 200,000 per year. In two years’ time there are as many alcoholic-related deaths as there were in the entire Vietnam War!
5. Alcohol abuse and alcoholism cost the United States about $50 billion in 1975. That figure has risen considerably since then.
6. Between 1966 and 1975 the percent of high school students who said they had been drunk increased from 19 percent to 45 percent.
7. Alcohol is one cause of cancer.
8. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the third greatest cause of birth defects. It is the highest cause of birth defects in some areas.
9. Evidence exists that social drinking impairs one’s social and intellectual capacities. Rather than getting sharper, people who drink get duller (not sober).
10. Half of all traffic fatalities and one-third of all traffic injuries are alcohol-related. Whereas a person has the legal right to drink, he does not have the right to endanger the lives of others on the highway by his drinking.
11. A high percentage of child-abusing parents have drinking problems.
12. A relatively high correlation exists between alcohol consumption and robbery, rape, assault, homicide; and more than one-third of suicides involve alcohol.
13. Taxpayers pay $11 to offset each $1 paid in liquor revenue.
I understand that a number of congregations that use wine for service have allowed the use of grape juice for congregants that would prefer not to participate in that custom.
Additionally, because the drinking of wine is not totally and specifically forbidden in the Scriptures-- and because it is not a necessity for most people-- it falls into the realm of choice or preference today. But are we called to a higher standard?
IV. Old Testament Considerations
We know as God’s people we have always been called to a higher standard. The more responsibility God placed on someone the greater God’s accountability was.
Examples: in Leviticus 4-5 the ordinary person was able to give a female goat or a lamb as a sin offering-- or even 2 pigeons or two doves and if they were very poor grain would do. But the ruler could not give pigeons-- but a male goat and the high priest was to offer a bull.
We know that priest were not to drink strong drink as attested to by the following:
Leviticus 10:9 "Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you…
In addition, rulers where not to drink strong drink during there reign. Remember that strong drink would apply to anything purchased as alcohol today. Proverbs 31:4-5 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, It is not for kings to drink wine, --yayin Or for rulers to desire strong drink,--sheckar 5 Lest they drink and forget what is decreed, And pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
We also know that if someone was called of God to special service or chose to set themselves apart, then they would be called to live up to a higher standard.
There was the Nazirite vow-- from the word nazir--separate. The people who took this vow where not to touch any wine or strong drink. In the Scriptures we see three life long Nazirite’s--Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. The mothers of Samson and Samuel abstained from wine as well.
Lam. 4:7 and Amos 2:11 teach that there were others who took the vow-- at least short term, but were corrupted in the area of abstinence by "fellow Israelites" (Lam. 4:8 and Amos 2:12).
In the book of Jeremiah 35:1-19 an entire group of Rechabites were commended for righteous living-- and they had vowed abstinence.
VI. Conclusion
From the foregoing research, we see that the Old Testament did not restrict the use of wine other than to a specified people are groups. We also see that what is referred to in the Old Testament and indeed in the New Testament is nothing even remotely resembling what our Christian brothers and sisters drink today. There is a large majority of the Proverbs, which indicate that drinking is not the best thing for our bodies or our minds. It clearly states that for stomach problems, one must conclude from the very bad water supplies of that time to drink a glass of wine a day.
What are we called to do? This is largely a matter of conviction. What does the Holy Spirit call you to do? What are you and I called to do?
If I am called to bring praise, glory, and honor to my God, how am I able to do this when consuming wine that is normally thirty percent of greater alcohol by volume.
It is undeniable that alcohol is highly addictive. Is this something that our Churches want to be condemned with the world for?
Do we have liberty? Yes, but not to be bound. If anyone has ever seen the life of the one enslaved to alcohol, the utter hopelessness, you will understand the very real horrible danger that faces 1/3 of all who drink-- the potential to become addicted. This could be a very grave thing to bear when God has put us here to be a light, as Jesus was a light to offer hope to a lost and dying world. You see, even if we say that we are not one who is easily addicted, we may be a stumbling block for others to follow who may be weaker in this area.
My bi-vocational job is as a Juvenile Probation Officer for the State of Alaska. I serve in the Bristol Bay, Aleutians, and Pribolof Islands area of Alaska. Approximately sixty percent of my caseload consists of youth affected by Fetal Alcohol Exposure and suffer from an Alcohol Related Neurological Disability. A number of the people feel that their churches bear responsibility for this, as they were some of the first institutions to come into the Alaska Native areas. I for one do not see where this is able to bring glory and honor to our heavenly Father.
Is it wise for the Christian to be involved with something that has such a great potential for destruction? Alcohol has an incredible ability to destroy.
1 Corinthians 8:4,7-9,11 -- 4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.7 However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.8 But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.9 But take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.11 For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.
Romans 14:15 For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.
Romans 14:21 It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.
Romans 14:19 So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.
We can easily declare “I” have a right to this or “I” have a right to that, but we must also realize that I is in the center of pride and beware of this. Our goal is to edify one another in Christ-- not exercise our liberty and offend a brother!
1 Corinthians 10:31-33 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God;33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved.
1 Corinthians 10:27-29 If one of the unbelievers invites you, and you wish to go, eat anything that is set before you, without asking questions for conscience’ sake.28 But if anyone should say to you, "This is meat sacrificed to idols," do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for conscience‘ sake;29 I mean not your own conscience, but the other man’s; for why is my freedom judged by another’s conscience?
In reviewing the foregoing, you should by now have a clear understanding of what God calls us to be.
We are to be a lamp unto the hopeless.
We are to separate ourselves from the world.
For me it was a very easy choice, which I am so very thankful to my Lord and Savior and Holy Spirit for guidance in my decision.
I pray that you will be led by the Spirit of truth in order that in whatever choice you make, glory and honor my be given to God.
