Should Christians drink alcohol — or is the church afraid to admit Jesus made wine at a party?

• O

  Omar1w ago

  The word 'oinos' in Greek just means wine. Fermented. Alcoholic. The same word used throughout the New Testament. If people want to argue Jesus made grape juice at Cana, they need to explain why the host was shocked that the GOOD wine came last — because grape juice doesn't get better or worse based on when you serve it. Nobody gets accused of being too full to taste grape juice. The abstinence crowd is not reading their Bibles. They're reading the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

  187Reply
• K9

  Kofi 925d ago

  Bottom line for me: drunkenness is sin, Scripture is clear. Moderate, thankful enjoyment of alcohol is not sin, Scripture is equally clear. Abstinence as a personal commitment for conscience or pastoral reasons is honorable. Abstinence as enforced doctrine or grounds for judging other believers is Pharisaism, full stop. Any church that can't hold all three of those simultaneously has a discipleship problem.

  183Reply
• KK

  Kofi K.1w ago

  Here's what I can't get past: Jesus' first miracle — FIRST — was making roughly 150 gallons of high-quality wine for a party that was already in progress. If God wanted us to be teetotal He picked the absolute worst opening act for His Son's public ministry. I don't know what else to tell you.

  174Reply
• TS

  Taylor S.1w ago

  Genuinely asking — if Jesus is your example and Jesus drank wine, and your church says Christians shouldn't drink wine, aren't you saying your church is holier than Jesus? That's a serious question and I'd like someone who holds the abstinence position to answer it directly instead of pivoting to Romans 14 every single time.

  166Reply
• EK

  Elena K.6d ago

  I'm a pastor who doesn't drink. Not because I think it's sin. Because I'm a pastor in a context where several of my congregants are in recovery and I decided long ago that my personal freedom is less important than their dignity and comfort. I don't preach against alcohol. I don't make others feel judged. I just made a personal call. I think that's what Christian maturity actually looks like — knowing the difference between 'this is a sin' and 'this is my sacrifice for the sake of others.'

  162Reply
• I

  Iris1w ago

  Thomas Welch was a dentist and a Methodist who literally invented commercial grape juice specifically to replace communion wine. He is not a neutral scholarly source. He had a product to sell and a theology to support. Please.

  158Reply
• JT

  Jordan T.6d ago

  Every time I see Christians arguing about whether Jesus made grape juice I feel my IQ drop three points. He made wine. Move on. Love God. Be kind. Don't get hammered. This isn't complicated.

  148Reply
• Z2

  Zara 211w ago

  I grew up Southern Baptist and we were taught that even one sip was sin. Got to seminary and discovered that position has almost zero textual support. It was embarrassing honestly. The entire argument rests on a translation choice that scholars almost universally reject. I still choose not to drink personally, but I stopped pretending it's the biblical position. It's not.

  143Reply
• A

  Alex1w ago

  The deeper issue nobody wants to say out loud: abstinence culture in American evangelical churches is NOT primarily biblical. It traces directly to the 19th-century temperance movement, which was tied up with women's suffrage, nativist sentiment against Catholic immigrants who drank wine and beer, and eventually Prohibition itself. We took a cultural-political movement, gave it a proof text or two, and called it Christian ethics. That history is embarrassing and we should own it.

  141Reply
• O2

  Omar 216d ago

  I grew up in a tradition that treated alcohol like the worst possible sin. Became an atheist partly because the legalism was so exhausting and so disconnected from what the Bible actually said. Came back to faith after reading the text myself. The grape juice crowd almost cost me my faith entirely. I don't say that to be dramatic. I say it because the stakes of bad exegesis aren't just academic.

  137Reply
• R

  Reese1w ago

  If you're reinterpreting an obvious miracle about wine into a lesson about abstract abundance specifically to avoid the alcohol implication... that's eisegesis. You're starting with your conclusion and working backward through the text.

  133Reply
• DM

  Diego M.6d ago

  what gets me is how many churches that forbid a glass of wine will serve absolutely ENORMOUS quantities of sugar and processed food at every potluck without a second thought. gluttony is listed right next to drunkenness in the Bible but somehow one is a boundary issue and the other is just being Southern. pick a lane.

  129Reply
• J

  Jordan6d ago

  Honestly the thing that convicted me was realizing I had stronger feelings about alcohol in the pew than I did about pride, greed, or slander in my own heart. I was straining at a gnat. That was a me problem, not a theology problem.

  121Reply
• R

  Ravi1w ago

  Nobody is saying get hammered. The question is whether moderate, responsible drinking is sinful. And the answer from Scripture is obviously no. The same Proverbs that warns about drunkenness literally says God gives wine that gladdens the heart of man — Psalm 104:15. The Bible is not anti-alcohol. It's anti-drunkenness. That distinction matters enormously.

  119Reply
• K

  Kofi1w ago

  My dad was an alcoholic. Destroyed our family. Lost our house, my mom left, my sister stopped speaking to him. I don't think every Christian needs to be teetotal but I do think the church is way too cavalier about this. You don't know who is sitting next to you in that small group when you crack open that craft beer and act like it's totally fine. Somebody might be white-knuckling sobriety and you just made it harder. That's the Romans 14 argument and it's real.

  112Reply
• N

  Noah1w ago

  Nobody NEEDS it. That's kind of the whole point of it being a gift and not a requirement. Do you need cheese? Do you need music? 'You don't need it' is not a moral argument.

  107Reply
• RL

  Ravi L.6d ago

  If you genuinely believe abstinence is the more sanctified choice, fine. Live it. But the moment you start treating other believers who drink responsibly as less holy, less committed, or spiritually compromised, you have added to the gospel. That is not a small thing. Paul calls that kind of person a weak brother — and not in the complimentary sense.

  104Reply
• TR

  Taylor R.1w ago

  Nobody said the church has to be a bar. We said it doesn't have to be a prohibition society either. Christians can hold both: it is not sinful to drink, AND we should be sensitive to those who struggle with addiction. Both of those are true simultaneously and acting like you have to choose one is a false dilemma.

  98Reply
• P

  Priya6d ago

  This. The selective application of bodily ethics in evangelical culture is something I cannot get anyone to take seriously and it drives me absolutely crazy. But bring a beer to the church picnic and you're basically Beelzebub.

  97Reply
• DB

  Drew B.1w ago

  okay but can we talk about how weird it is that churches who serve grape juice at communion are literally not doing what Jesus did at the Last Supper. like they are CHANGING the sacrament because of their tradition and then acting like THEY are the faithful ones. that's wild to me

  94Reply
• A

  Alex1w ago

  I converted from Catholicism to a Baptist church about ten years ago and the culture shock around alcohol was real. At every family gathering growing up, wine was on the table, nobody thought twice about it, nobody got drunk, it was totally normal and even kind of reverent — like bread and butter it was just part of the meal. Then I joined this Baptist church and suddenly I'm being looked at sideways for having a glass of red with dinner. Like I had been secretly sinning for thirty years without knowing it. It took me a while to figure out the Baptists were the ones with the tradition problem, not me.

  88Reply
• K

  Kofi1w ago

  Paul is not saying drinking a glass of wine means you're not Spirit-filled. He's contrasting debauchery with Spirit-led living. 'Don't get drunk' implies that the problem is excess, not use. If drinking one glass made you unspiritual then Timothy shouldn't have had his stomach wine either. Read the whole corpus, not just the one verse that supports your prior conclusion.

  88Reply
• T

  Taylor6d ago

  I have watched people use 'Christian liberty' as a cover for full-blown alcoholism more than once. Someone drinks every night, can't go without it, and when anyone raises a concern they pull out Cana and call you a legalist. The 'liberty' language can be real spiritual cover for a real problem. I'm not saying that's most drinkers. I'm saying it happens and the church needs language for it.

  84Reply
• T

  Theo6d ago

  The AR-15 comparison doesn't work because the Bible doesn't show Jesus positively modeling gun ownership the way it does positively modeling drinking wine. You have to ignore or reinterpret the Cana miracle to hold the abstinence position. You don't have to do anything with a passage to justify not owning a gun.

  77Reply
• R

  Riley1w ago

  Romans 14 is about not rubbing it in someone's face. It's not about pretending alcohol doesn't exist or building a theology around someone else's weakness. If that logic held you couldn't eat meat either.

  76Reply
• Q

  Quinn6d ago

  That's a problem with abusing the liberty argument, not with moderate drinking itself. You don't ban cars because some people drive drunk.

  63Reply
• Q

  Quinn1w ago

  i just want to know why this is even a debate in 2025 lol. my church has a friday night fellowship with craft beers and nobody dies. we talk about Jesus. we have good conversations. some of the best discipleship i have ever experienced happened at a brewery. the pearl clutching is exhausting

  61Reply
• O9

  Omar 926d ago

  This is the most honest take in this whole thread and I appreciate it. That kind of pastoral humility is rare.

  58Reply
• J

  Jamie1w ago

  Even if you're right about the history, does that automatically make abstinence wrong? Maybe the temperance movement landed on a good conclusion for imperfect reasons. Ad fontem fallacies cut both ways.

  53Reply
• Q

  Quinn1w ago

  Because approximately 14 million Americans have alcohol use disorder and the church is supposed to be a refuge not a bar. Context matters. Not every church community is the same and not every 'I turned out fine' story represents everyone's situation.

  49Reply
• QR

  Quinn R.1w ago

  Proverbs 23:31 says 'Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.' Proverbs 20:1 says 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.' You can cherry-pick the wine-positive verses all you want but the wisdom literature has a LOT of warnings that people who want to drink conveniently skip.

  44Reply
• TR

  Theo R.1w ago

  We don't say holier than Jesus. We say different cultural context and different calling for the believer in 2025 America where alcohol addiction ruins tens of millions of lives. Jesus also didn't own an AR-15 but that doesn't mean it's automatically fine for a Christian to own one just because He didn't speak against it directly. Context and wisdom matter.

  41Reply
• TB

  Theo B.1w ago

  The steward said 'you have kept the good wine until now.' He was comparing it to what had already been consumed. Commentators have noted this implies quality, not necessarily alcohol content. I think this miracle is about Jesus' abundance and generosity, not a divine stamp of approval on drinking.

  37Reply
• J

  Jordan1w ago

  The fermented vs. unfermented wine debate is not as settled as some people here are acting. There is a legitimate scholarly tradition going back to Thomas Welch and before him to earlier commentators who argued that ancient preservation methods included boiling the juice and that not all 'oinos' references imply intoxicating content. I'm not saying I'm convinced but let's not pretend this is a slam dunk.

  31Reply
• H

  Hana1w ago

  Be filled with the Spirit, not with wine. Ephesians 5:18. That pretty much does it for me. The contrast is deliberate. You are supposed to be intoxicated by the Holy Spirit not by fermented grapes. I think Paul is drawing a hard line there.

  29Reply
• R

  Ravi1w ago

  If you need alcohol to enjoy a social event maybe the problem isn't abstinence culture. Just saying.

  22Reply

More debates people can't stop arguing about