Should Christians Drink Alcohol?

"Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now." (John 2:10)

Few questions stir up a Baptist church faster than this one. Some of us grew up in homes where a bottle in the fridge meant trouble. Others watched a parent drink himself into the grave. And some sat in a Bible study last month and heard a friend say, "Jesus turned water into wine, so where does the problem come in?"

So what does the Bible actually say? And why does this question stir such strong feelings among Baptists in particular? The answer to the second question tells us something important about the first.

The Short Answer

Scripture condemns drunkenness, not every drink. God gives His people freedom, but love and wisdom set the limits on that freedom. And many faithful believers choose not to drink at all. That choice honors God too.

What the Bible Says Plainly

Drunkenness stands condemned.

The Bible leaves no gray area here.

"And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." (Ephesians 5:18)

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise." (Proverbs 20:1)

Paul lists drunkenness among the sins that mark a life outside the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21). Getting drunk means handing control of your mind to something other than the Holy Spirit.

Wine itself appears as a gift.

At the same time, Scripture never calls wine evil in itself. The psalmist praises God for giving "wine to gladden the heart of man" (Psalm 104:15). Jesus chose a wedding feast in Cana for His first miracle, and He made the good wine (John 2:1–11). His enemies even accused Him of drinking too much:

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'" (Matthew 11:19)

That charge did not stick, because Jesus never sinned. But it shows that He did not abstain.

Three Views Among Bible-Believing Christians

Kenneth Gentry's book God Gave Wine lays out three positions held by Christians who love the Bible.

Prohibition teaches that all drinking counts as sin. This view struggles with the texts above. If wine itself carried sin, then God sinned by giving it, and Jesus sinned by drinking it. Scripture will not let us say that.

Abstinence teaches that drinking does not count as sin, but that believers should still avoid it out of love for others and to guard against danger. This view takes seriously Paul's warning: "It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble" (Romans 14:21).

Moderation teaches that a believer may drink in moderation as conscience allows, without judging those who choose otherwise. I believe this view best fits the whole of Scripture. But I also believe moderation demands more wisdom, not less.

How Did Baptists Get Here?

Many Christians assume the church has always taught total abstinence. It has not. For eighteen centuries, believers drank wine at the Lord's Table. Then in 1869, a Methodist dentist in New Jersey named Thomas Welch found a way to keep grape juice from fermenting, so churches could serve communion without alcohol. Within a few generations, many American churches, Baptists among them, made the switch.

What changed? Several streams flowed together in nineteenth-century America. Three deserve a closer look.

1. Revival shifted from God's work to human methods.

The Great Awakening under men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield treated revival as a gracious, sovereign work of God. Charles Finney taught something different. In his Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), he argued that revival comes as the result of using the right means, not as a miracle. That marked a real departure from the Reformed understanding of God's sovereign work in salvation. Not every revivalist followed Finney, but the shift ran deep. Preachers who believed the right method could produce a conversion soon believed the right method could produce a righteous nation.

2. Some voices in the women's movement put Scripture under their own judgment.

Alcohol did real damage to real families, and women and children often bore the worst of it. Many women stepped into public life to fight it. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, grew into one of the largest women's organizations in the country.

Some of those women drew their convictions straight from the Bible. Others moved in a different direction. Elizabeth Cady Stanton published The Woman's Bible between 1895 and 1898. Rather than submit her convictions to Scripture, she criticized the passages that clashed with her vision of women's liberation. The question shifted from "What does God say?" to "Does God agree with me?"

3. Temperance confused moral reform with spiritual regeneration.

Christians had good reason to oppose drunkenness. It wrecked homes, emptied paychecks, and left wives and children in danger. But over time, the movement moved from preaching against drunkenness to demanding a national ban on all alcohol. In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment made Prohibition the law of the land. Thirteen years later, the nation repealed it.

A law can restrain a hand. It cannot change a heart. Prohibition sometimes treated legislation as though it could accomplish what only the gospel accomplishes.

The Deeper Issue: Who Rules Whom?

Underneath all three streams lies one question: Does Scripture rule our movements, or do our movements rule Scripture?

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

Whenever a movement, whether revivalist, feminist, political, or religious, demands that the Bible bend to fit its goals, that movement has flipped the proper order. God's Word judges our causes. Our causes never judge God's Word.

At the same time, fairness keeps us from painting with too broad a brush. Revivalism and the women's movement did not necessarily begin as enemies of biblical truth. Their histories hold competing convictions, and many who joined them pursued reform out of sincere biblical faith.

But here lies the question I find most compelling: Did nineteenth-century American evangelicalism gradually trade the biblical doctrine of regeneration, the new birth only God can give, for the belief that society could make itself righteous through moral activism?

That question reaches far beyond a glass of wine. It touches the roots of the Social Gospel, of progressive Christianity, and even of some evangelical political movements today. Any time we expect a law, a program, or a campaign to do what only the new birth can do, we repeat the same mistake.

Two Ditches and One Road

The gospel keeps us out of two ditches.

On one side runs moralism: "If I keep the rules, God will accept me." The person in that ditch may never touch a drop, yet his heart swells with pride, and he looks down on the brother who drinks.

On the other side runs license: "Grace means I can do as I please." The person in that ditch waves his freedom like a flag and never asks who he might wound.

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." (Galatians 5:13)

The gospel runs straight down the middle. We do not obey to earn God's acceptance. We obey because Christ already won it for us. That truth humbles the abstainer and restrains the drinker. It frees both to love each other.

"Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him." (Romans 14:3)

Freedom Comes with Questions

Paul put it this way:

"'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful for me,' but I will not be dominated by anything." (1 Corinthians 6:12)

A permitted thing may still prove unwise for you. Before you pour a glass, ask yourself:

• Does the law allow it? If you have not reached the legal age, the answer settles itself (Romans 13:1).

• Does addiction run in my family? If so, you may carry a weakness you cannot see yet.

• Who sits at the table with me? If a brother or sister fights a battle with alcohol, love sets your glass aside.

• Could I stop tomorrow? If the thought of giving it up stirs anger or fear, it already has a grip on you.

• Do I drink to escape? God offers you a better refuge than a bottle.

• Did I make a promise? If your church covenant asks members to abstain, keep your word.

• Can I thank God for it? "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

The question never stops at "Can I?" It moves on to "Should I, here, now, with these people?"

The Cup Jesus Drank for You

On the night before He died, Jesus took a cup of wine and told His disciples it stood for His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:27–28). Hours later in Gethsemane, He prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39).

That cup held the wrath of God against sin. My sin. Your sin. Jesus drank it to the last drop so that we could drink from a different well:

"But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again." (John 4:14)

Whatever you decide about a glass of wine, do not miss the deeper thirst. Only Christ satisfies it.

If alcohol already has a hold on you, please do not hide it. Tell your pastor or a trusted believer this week. Jesus came to set captives free, and His church stands ready to walk with you.

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