a view of the fruit of the vine

over time we have been asked to share our understanding of drinking alcohol.  we have spent the past few months researching and praying over the issue and have come to the following conclusion; scripture does not forbid the drinking of alcohol.  the following is based on our research and interaction with different people.

churches that have historically opposed the consumption of alcohol are "main-line american [1]" churches.  while "old-line [2]" churches have historically maintained a "moderation" approach to drinking.  while our desire is not to be swayed by the historical or the social, the fact of the history involved in the consumption of alcohol can not be ignored.   we do understand, but do not agree with the stance of making drinking intoxicating drink a sin.  in this paper was to approach scripture to find the truth.  we have prayed, discussed and debated over all we read and, as mentioned above, we came to the conclusion that drinking is no a violation of God's word.  in fact, we have found that most arguments against drinking are a misinterpretation of the scriptures, or a misdirection of what the scripture means.  we will examine each point and share with you our findings:

a)  some say, "drinking alcohol is a sin."  this is usually stated without scripture support, mainly because there is none.  if it were the case, jesus himself would have caused people to sin when he turned water into wine as his first miracle in john.  in fact, if drinking was sinful, then jesus himself sinned, because he drank wine

b)  others say, "the "wine" in scripture was "new wine" which was really only "grape juice" and had no alcoholic content."  the greek work for "new wine" is gleukos and appears in the nt only once in acts 2:13.  the problem with saying that new wine was actually grape juice and had no alcoholic content it found in that very same scripture.  if people could not get drunk drinking new wine, why did those present accuse them of being drunk because of drinking new wine?

c)  others claim, "use of alcoholic drink shows weakness in our christian witness."  this one is the weakest for us, because we do not believe drinking alcohol is "wrong," so it can not show weakness.  this argument assumes that the person it is being used on agrees that the action is "wrong."  the scripture used to support this is from romans (14:21).  but this is a misreading, and misuse, of the scripture.  if we take the scripture to mean drinking is wrong and will cause others to violate God's word and sin, we are misreading the intent and the words in that scripture.  because we can also say the same about eating meat, driving a car, dancing, music style, watching sports, going to church and many other things and activities.  yet we need to examine the scripture and know that the scripture deals with pulling people away from worshiping God, not drinking.

d)  others have claimed, "jesus was a nazarene and as such took the nazarene oath."  this one is the one that gets the cake because there is absolutely no proof that jesus took such an oath.  in fact all sights point the other direction.  to take such an oath (found in numbers 6:1-15 and judges 13:5) meant that jesus could not eat anything that had any trace of grapes, or any part of the vine in it - no leaves, no seeds, no vinegar, no part of the vine at all - so, he could have not even had "grape-juice" for his last supper.  another important part of the oath is the inability to touch anything dead or unclean, meaning no raising the dead and no talking to women.  the vow was so special that if jesus truly took such a vow it would be in scripture - it was for samson.

so, it after these key point we do not believe drinking wine or beer is against scriptural teachings or against christian living.  we understand that this stance is not popular and is not what people expect, but we can not disregard the truth in the scripture for popular christian stance on the subject.  we firmly believe that the teachings from scripture are more important then any traditional stance the church may have made over the past. 

[1] we define main-line american churches as any church having it's roots in the american traditions and being founded between 1800 and 1950, with a great many forming during the temperance movement of 1800-1930.

[2] we define old-line churches as churches have an historical europe root.  these churches date back before 1800 and the founders are not american.  

john o'keefe