Blood In My Alcohol Stream

Well, alcohol! Strong drink can arouse strong passions! From CAMRA to (not) drinking and driving campaigns to general health, all sorts of people have all sorts of opinions about what is good or (generally) bad about alcohol.

And just as much strength of opinion in Christian circles. Mainly in America, it seems, but in other places too strong opinions can be found on the subject. A lot of them insisting that Christians should be teetotal, even to the extent of arguing that Jesus didn't create wine at the wedding in Cana. Which seems ridiculous, because it actually says that the steward called the bridegroom over and said 'everyone else serves the best wine first, and when the guests have had a lot to drink, bring out the cheaper wine; but you have saved the best for last', so, clearly, he knew that it was wine and good wine at that. Guests who had been drinking and had every expectation of continuing to do so would not have been happy to have grape juice.

So, what does the Bible actually say about drinking? Quite a lot, actually - there are over 200 references to wine in the NIV, for instance. A lot of them are actually about offering wine as sacrifices; so, the one thing you can take away from that is that God was quite happy to accept wine. There are also some commands not to drink when the Israelites are in the Tent of Meeting, and the description of the Nazirite vows - which did demand total abstention. Which clearly implies that, in general, the Israelites were allowed to drink. Sounds good to me.

It has been pointed out that there are stories of unsavoury behaviour connected to wine, usually involving nudity; but, in all these cases, it is actually due to drunkenness. One of the most striking stories involving wine is of a king who gets given some wine that hasn't matured properly, which tastes awful; so he has the containers marked 'poison'. And leaves them alone. A few years later, he gets bored with one of his wives, so she decides to commit suicide and finds the 'poison'. Which obviously doesn't kill her, but the wine has matured by now, and she regains her joie de vivre and he decides he likes her again. One of those stories that really makes you wonder why it's in the Bible; but the thing that stood out to me was that God seems to like wine more than some people do.

I'll just finish by pointing out that Ps 104, which is basically one of thanks and praise acknowledges God giving 'wine that gladdens the heart' (v15) among other things that He is worth being thanked and praised for. He made it, He likes it, so let's raise a glass.