What Does the Bible Say About Drinking Alcohol?
Wine that maketh glad, and wine that is a mocker — Scripture's double witness on drink, drunkenness, and wisdom.
The Bible permits wine and warns about it in the same breath: it “maketh glad the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15), and Jesus made wine at Cana — yet “wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging” (Proverbs 20:1), and drunkenness is flatly forbidden: “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
A good gift, honestly praised
Scripture does not pretend wine is nothing: it lists it among God’s provisions that gladden the heart, Jesus’ first miracle supplied it at a wedding, and Paul prescribed a little for Timothy’s ailing stomach. The Bible’s baseline is neither prohibition nor indulgence but received-with-thanksgiving moderation — the same posture it takes toward food, wealth, and every other good that can be misused.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.
The warnings are just as loud
Proverbs stares longest into the cup: who hath woe, sorrow, contentions, wounds without cause? “They that tarry long at the wine.” Drunkenness in the New Testament is excluded from the kingdom’s inheritance lists and contrasted directly with the Spirit’s filling — two competing controls, only one of which you’re commanded to be under. Scripture takes addiction’s power seriously: “at the last it biteth like a serpent.”
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
Liberty governed by love
Romans 14 sets drink inside neighbour-love: it is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine if it makes a brother stumble. Some believers abstain entirely — for conscience, for a struggling friend, for their own history — and Scripture honours that as fully as moderate use. The governing question is never merely “may I?” but “what does love for God and my neighbour make of this?”
It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Quick answers
- Is drinking alcohol a sin?
- Drinking is not forbidden in Scripture; drunkenness is (Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:21). Between them lies the territory of wisdom, conscience, and love of neighbour (Romans 14).
- Did Jesus drink wine?
- He made it at Cana (John 2), shared the Passover cup, and was slandered as “a winebibber” (Matthew 11:19) — an accusation that only sticks to someone who drank. The Gospels record no drunkenness, and his life defines moderation.
- Should some people abstain completely?
- Scripture commends abstinence where drink has mastery (1 Corinthians 6:12 — “I will not be brought under the power of any”), where a brother might stumble (Romans 14:21), and wherever conscience says no (Romans 14:23).
