Is it a sin for a Christian to drink alcohol?

"A Christian." Scripture uses this name for the disciples of Jesus:

The name appears in two other places. One is about suffering as a disciple:

The other comes in King Agrippa's reply to Paul, and gives no rule about drinking:

Those three are the only places where the original Greek word for "Christian" appears, and all three were read. So the question is about how a disciple lives. It is not a test of whether someone who drinks is really a Christian. Nothing here judges anyone's standing before God.

"Sin." Scripture explains sin as breaking God's law. It is wrongdoing before God, not just a personal dislike of a drink:

Two other passages show that the question cannot be settled just by what is in the cup. Something that is otherwise allowed becomes sin when a person does it in doubt, against their own faith (Romans 14:23). It also becomes sin when it wounds another believer's weak conscience (1 Corinthians 8:12). Both verses are quoted below. The Greek word for "sin" in 1 John 3:4 is the same word used in Romans 14:23. That shared word only shows where the term appears. The sentences themselves make the moral link.

"Alcohol." The English word "alcohol" is not in the King James Bible. A search for it found nothing. That is a fact about one English word, and it does not mean Scripture is silent on the subject. Scripture speaks of wine and strong drink, and the passages read here tie those drinks directly to drunkenness, to clouded judgment, to drinking that is permitted, and to self-restraint. Those are the drinks this answer is about.

Modern alcohol percentages, brewing methods and medical findings have not been read into the text. This answer is about drinking a drink that can make a person drunk. It does not claim that every use of the word "wine" means the same finished drink, because Scripture also uses the word for new wine that is still in the grape cluster (see below).

Drunkenness

Ephesians 5:18, quoted above, is a direct command not to be drunk with wine. The verse sets being filled with the Spirit against it, and Paul goes on to describe that life:

The verse commands no one to drink. It cannot honestly be turned into permission to get drunk.

Paul lists drunkenness among the works of the flesh and adds a warning about God's kingdom:

He tells Christians to leave drunkenness behind, and not to make room for it in their plans:

Peter describes the life believers have left:

Being a Christian does not cancel any of these commands.

How serious this is

This is a severe warning, not a matter of taste. Paul names drunkards among the unrighteous, and then sets the Corinthians' old life apart from what God has done for them:

He also speaks of someone who is called a brother and is a drunkard. Being called a brother does not excuse it:

These are Scripture's own warnings and instructions, and they stand at full strength. They are not a verdict on whether any living person is saved, including the person asking.

Jesus links drunkenness with failing to watch for His return:

Luke 12:45-46 is a warning in "if" form. It says what follows if a servant acts this way. It is not a prediction about whoever is asking. Matthew 24:42-51, read with it, gives the same warning about an unfaithful servant and drunkenness.

What drink does

Proverbs names the danger plainly:

Proverbs 23 warns about the company a person keeps and the harm that follows:

Then it gives a vivid picture:

The picture shows sorrow, quarrels, wounds, twisted speech, unsteadiness, not feeling the blows, and going back for more. The command in verse 31 warns against being drawn in by the drink's appeal, while it still looks attractive and before the final harm comes. So this passage cannot be read as approving everything short of the final collapse. What it does and does not forbid is worked through under "Readings that do not stand" below.

Timothy's little wine

1 Timothy 5:23, quoted at the top, directly tells Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach and his frequent illnesses. The small amount and the reason both belong to that instruction. This one verse is enough to show that it is false to say every use of wine by a Christian is a sin. On its own, though, the verse does not set up an unlimited rule for social drinking, and it does not tell anyone to start drinking. It also comes right after a call to purity, and neither verse may be dropped:

The link from Timothy's wine to alcohol today does not rest on knowing what was in Timothy's cup. It rests on the combined evidence about wine and strong drink set out further below.

Romans 14

Romans 14 is the wider setting for Christians. Paul separates what is unclean in itself from what is unclean to a person who sees it that way:

He says all things are pure, and also that a person who causes offence does evil:

He names wine directly:

He separates doing a thing in faith, with a clear conscience, from doing it in doubt:

He forbids both looking down on those who abstain and judging those who eat:

And he names what matters most:

The chapter's thread is faith, love, peace and building one another up. It does not call wine itself a sin for everyone. It actually states that things are pure, it names wine, and it calls abstaining for a brother's sake good. So this is real, conditional liberty that the text states outright. It is not a guess drawn from the lack of a ban.

Other passages that permit drinking

The fact that a drink can be abused does not mean every use of it is banned. Other passages show this.

God's law let Israel spend their tithe money on wine and strong drink and rejoice before Him with their household:

This was a command about Israel's tithe and place of worship. It does not command Christians to repeat that ceremony. But it does disprove the claim that God treats the drink itself as evil in every setting.

The Nazarite, who gave up wine during the vow, was explicitly allowed to drink wine after it ended:

Ecclesiastes counsels joyful drinking with food, in the life and work the book is discussing:

A psalm praising God's provision places wine beside food, oil and bread:

At a wedding in Cana, Jesus provided wine, and John calls this a showing of His glory:

Jesus set John the Baptist's abstaining beside His own eating and drinking:

The charge of gluttony and winebibbing is reported as His hearers' accusation: Jesus introduces it as what they say. It is not the narrator's own verdict. Reading it as true would break both the contrast Jesus is drawing and Scripture's plain statement that Christ had no sin:

Matthew 11:19 reports the same accusation.

Taken together, these passages show that ordinary hospitality and celebration are real settings where Scripture speaks of wine. The permission is not limited to medicine or to ceremony. These passages are counsel or accounts of events in their own settings. None of them is an unlimited instruction to drink.

This section shows why Scripture's words reach drinks that can make a person drunk, and why the answer still makes no claim about what was in any particular cup. The numbers given are the standard index numbers for the original Hebrew and Greek words. A shared number shows where to look. It is never a definition on its own.

The New Testament word for wine (G3631) appears 25 times, and all 25 were read in their passages. They include John 2:3, 9-10; Luke 7:33; Romans 14:21; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Timothy 3:8 and 5:23; and Titus 2:3. In Ephesians 5:18 this wine can make a person drunk. In 1 Timothy 5:23 it is to be used in a small amount for a named bodily need. In Romans 14 it is drunk, with purity set against offence. A shared word does not prove that every cup was equally strong. The contrast the texts draw is between uses, amounts, faith and effects. None of the passages read introduces a different, non-intoxicating kind of wine as a condition attached to the positive instructions. (The word is translated "wine" every time except Revelation 19:15, where it is "winepress".)

The main Old Testament word for wine (H3196) is the wine that made Noah drunk:

That verse records what happened. It does not tell anyone to copy it. The same word is used for the wine warned against in Proverbs 20:1 and 23:31, the wine bought in Deuteronomy 14:26, and the wine permitted after the vow in Numbers 6:20. Its English renderings include "wine", "vine", "winebibbers" and "banqueting". Numbers 6:3-4 ties it directly to grapes and the vine. Proverbs 23:20-21 ties the winebibbers to riotous eating and explains the harm. The word also appears in a love poem:

That is affectionate poetry. It is not used to define the different Greek word Peter uses for "banquetings".

The word for strong drink (H7941) appears 20 times, and all were read. It is "strong drink" in Deuteronomy 14:26, Proverbs 20:1 and here:

It is "strong wine" here:

That is an offering poured out, not a command to drink. And it is "drunkards" here, in the mouths of hostile drinkers:

So the same named drink that Deuteronomy permits at the tithe meal is the one Proverbs warns rages and Isaiah shows leading people into error and stumbling. To say that every favourable mention must mean a drink that could not make anyone drunk finds no support in those passages, and it does not fit this combined evidence. Going the other way, it would go beyond the evidence to assign a brewing process, an alcohol percentage or an intoxicating dose to any particular cup. The general answer does not need that. Scripture permits the very kind of drink it also warns can make people drunk, and it tells Christians to use wine while forbidding drunkenness.

New wine (H8492) shows why not every "wine" verse means the same finished drink. Isaiah speaks of new wine still in the cluster:

Proverbs links new wine with honouring God from one's increase:

Hosea calls wine God's gift, which Israel misused, and which is later taken away in judgment:

Joel promises corn, wine and oil again when the people return to God:

New wine is also included in Hosea's warning about what takes away the heart (Hosea 4:11, quoted below). These passages correct any claim that every wine verse describes the same alcoholic drink. They do not remove the separately named strong drink permitted in Deuteronomy 14:26, or the effects of that drink shown in Isaiah 28:7. That is why the answer does not go straight from Timothy's wine to modern alcohol. The combined evidence carries it: the strong-drink passages, together with Romans 14's teaching on purity and use. A guess about what was in a cup does not.

"Liquor" and "mixed wine." "Liquor" appears in Numbers 6:3, where it means grape products under the Nazarite vow (quoted below), and here, in a poetic picture of the body:

Neither verse classifies modern spirits. "Mixed wine" appears only in Proverbs 23:30. The fact that an English word looks similar cannot decide what a modern drink is.

The words for being drunk (G3182, G3184) link Ephesians 5:18, Luke 12:45, 1 Thessalonians 5:7, Matthew 24:49, Revelation 17:2, and three passages that need care. The first is the remark of the master of ceremonies at Cana:

The second is Peter at Pentecost, answering mockers who said the disciples were drunk:

Peter denies their explanation and points instead to the Spirit's work that God had promised:

Nothing there suggests the disciples had actually drunk the mockers' wine. The third is 1 Corinthians 11:21, quoted below, where Paul condemns drunkenness at the church's meal. None of these passages becomes a command to get drunk, and the master of ceremonies' general remark cannot override Paul's command.

The permission is real, and it is not unlimited. A Christian's drinking is governed by much more than "don't get drunk".

Sober and watchful

Being sober is a positive duty. It is more than avoiding visible collapse:

The Greek word behind "be sober" in these verses (G3525) is also "watch" here:

A related word (G4993) describes the man Jesus healed, now in his right mind:

The same word is used for sober self-assessment:

And for a sober mind, set against being beside oneself:

Two more related words (G3524, G4998) appear in the qualities expected of believers:

These uses call for a clear, watchful, disciplined life. They give no number for how much alcohol is allowed. They also do not show that every sip is the drunkenness Ephesians 5:18 forbids. Turning them into a ban on all drinking would make Paul's own little-wine instruction to Timothy a sin.

Not ruled by anything

Paul refuses to be mastered by anything:

In that passage he is speaking about the body, food and sexual sin. It is not a diagnosis about alcohol. But the principle reaches a drink whenever the drink rules the person, because it covers anything at all, and because the body belongs to God:

Paul compares this self-control to an athlete's training, and explains it himself:

The word for "temperate" there (G1467) is also used for sexual self-control, so it is about governing the body in general. It is not a ban specific to drink:

The related word "temperance" stands beside righteousness, judgment, knowledge and patience:

These are positive grounds against being mastered by drink. They do not assume that anyone has lost control.

Faith and conscience

Romans 14:22-23, quoted above, makes faith essential. A person who drinks while doubting that it is right sins, because whatever is not done in faith is sin.

Other people

Liberty must protect other believers:

Romans 14:21, quoted above, names wine directly among the things it is good to give up for a brother's sake. Paul goes on:

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul explains how one person's freedom can push another person to do what their own conscience still says is wrong:

That chapter is about food offered to idols, not wine. The two are not the same thing. The chapter shows the same pattern of liberty harming a weaker brother, and wine itself is already named in Romans 14:21. The words carry the link. The word for "stumblingblock" is "stumblingblock" in Romans 14:13 and 1 Corinthians 8:9 and "offence" in Romans 14:20. The word for "offend" is "offended" in Romans 14:21 and "offend" in 1 Corinthians 8:13. 1 Corinthians 8:10-12 explains that the harm here is moral injury. Romans 14:15 keeps real grief in view, and the concern reaches beyond fellow Christians:

So a narrow reply that asks only "is the drinker drunk?" leaves out these verses. A broad reply that says any objection from anyone forbids all drinking everywhere leaves out Romans 14:3, 14 and 22. The question as asked gives no facts that would show either an injured conscience, or freedom from that concern, in any particular situation.

Freedom is meant for love:

Lawful is not the same as good, and all for God's glory

Paul also forbids any share in idol worship:

Because Scripture requires attention to harm and to neglected duties (Romans 13:10, and the warning about forgetting the law in Proverbs 31:5, quoted below), this answer cannot promise that a small amount is always right. The reading established neither a universal measure nor a safe amount for any particular person.

Why a person drinks, and with whom

Some accounts in Scripture show drink being used to harm or exploit people. Lot's daughters used wine to make their father unaware:

David got Uriah drunk while carrying out the plan that the chapter says displeased the LORD:

Absalom planned a killing for the moment his brother was merry with wine:

These are records of what people did, not instructions to repeat it. They strengthen the warning against using drink to impair or exploit another person. They do not show that every drink leads to such crimes. They also rule out promising that something is harmless just because an occasion is described as merry.

In 1 Samuel 25, Nabal's drunken feast left him unable to be told anything until morning:

In the same chapter, Abigail brought wine among her gifts, and David accepted them:

So the chapter cannot be flattened into approval of Nabal's drunkenness, or into condemnation of everything involving wine. No medical diagnosis is drawn from what it says about Nabal's heart.

Proverbs forbids the path of the wicked, whose bread and wine both belong to a life of mischief:

To call all wine the wine of violence would mean calling all bread the bread of wickedness as well. The passage is naming a way of life to avoid.

In Isaiah 22, God called His people to mourning, and they answered with defiant feasting:

The difference from Ecclesiastes 9:7 lies in how the people responded to God, not in whether joy or wine was present. Paul uses matching words when he discusses those who deny the resurrection, and he warns about bad company:

The wording matches Isaiah 22:13, but Paul does not introduce it as a written quotation, so the answer does not claim he is formally quoting Isaiah. The waking he calls for is waking to righteousness. It is not a measured amount of drink.

Two more sayings point the same way. Purpose and timing matter, and love of pleasure is costly:

So a Christian's reasons and the company they keep matter, not only whether drunkenness has already set in. The general permission stands. But it gives no cover for defying God, for preying on others, or for walking the path of the wicked. Those passages' own words rule that out.

Promises already made

General permission to drink does not cancel a real promise or duty. Scripture separates not making a vow from breaking one that was made:

Numbers 30 also sets out its own conditions and exceptions for vows made within a household. Those are not set aside here. A verse found while searching for "vowest" sets the place for tithes and vowed offerings. It is not a ban on wine everywhere:

Jesus and James also restrict swearing and call for a plain, faithful yes and no:

The older teaching on oaths behind Matthew 5:33 was checked in Numbers 30:2, Deuteronomy 23:21-23 and Leviticus 19:12. The point here is narrow. Freedom to drink does not by itself cancel a real duty, or make a promise meaningless. Nothing in these passages tells anyone to take a new oath not to drink. No vow was mentioned in the question, so none is judged here.

Choosing not to drink

Not drinking can be the good course, and sometimes the required one, when the reasons above call for it. Romans 14:21 calls it good to give up wine for a brother's sake. Romans 14:3 forbids looking down on someone who does not drink. No one should be pressured to drink to prove their freedom or their faith. And no one who drinks should be condemned just for using wine.

People take the hard verses in several ways. Each reading below was tested to see whether it would make another verse false. Where it would, it falls, and the verse it would break is named.

1. "Any Christian who drinks any alcohol sins." This would make 1 Timothy 5:23 an instruction to sin. It would also erase the distinction Romans 14:14 and 20-23 draw between purity and offence, and between faith and doubt. Deuteronomy 14:26 and Numbers 6:20 also stand against the claim that the drink is evil in itself. The wider claim about every alcoholic drink is rejected on the combined evidence about strong drink and Christian liberty shown above, not by guessing what was in one cup. What remains, with positive support, is permitted use within moral limits. Medicinal use is one stated example, and that does not justify every possible use.

2. "Proverbs 20:1 alone proves no one should ever drink." The verse calls wine a mocker and strong drink raging, and it condemns being deceived by them. The danger is real. But the verse does not say that everyone who drinks any of it has been deceived. Adding that would clash with Deuteronomy 14:26 and 1 Timothy 5:23. The verse warns against the drink's power to deceive and against being drawn in by it.

3. "Proverbs 23:31 forbids ever looking at any wine, anywhere." Read that broadly, it would make the purchase and meal in Deuteronomy 14:26 and Timothy's use in 1 Timothy 5:23 into sins. The passage itself opens the scene with people who linger long at the wine and go looking for mixed wine (verses 29-30), and closes with the injured drinker going back for more (verse 35). The command forbids being pulled into that course by the cup's appeal. It reaches the temptation itself, not only the final drunken state. Some say the colour red is what makes one kind of wine sinful and all others safe. The passage gives no such rule, and Proverbs 20:1 warns about strong drink in general. So no attractive intoxicant of another colour is made safe.

4. "Every Christian is a king and priest, so every Christian must never drink." The commands behind this reading each name who they are for and when they apply. To Aaron and his sons:

To the priests of Zadok's line, entering the inner court:

To King Lemuel, through his mother's teaching, to protect a king's judgment. The same passage then names a different use of the very same drinks:

Both sides of her instruction stand. The words about relief in verses 6-7 are not a general instruction to seek drunkenness.

Believers truly are called priests and kings:

But Peter names what this priesthood does: it offers spiritual sacrifices and shows God's praises. He does not describe entering an inner court as Aaron's sons. And Israel already bore the same title:

Yet Israel was given the permission in Deuteronomy 14:26. So the title alone does not create a ban on every drink, and the reading also clashes with Timothy's instruction. The title is real. The duties of holiness and sound judgment remain. But a shared title does not erase whom those older commands were spoken to, or when they applied.

5. "The Nazarites, Samson's mother, John the Baptist, the Rechabites and Daniel set the rule for all Christians." Each case is a real abstention in its own setting.

The Nazarite vow was a specific vow of separation. It even covered fresh and dried grapes, and it ended with permission to drink wine (Numbers 6:20, quoted above):

The angel's command to Samson's mother was given because of the Nazarite child she would bear (the command is repeated in Judges 13:14):

The angel announced how John would live, and Luke 7:33-34 later sets John's way beside Jesus' own:

The Rechabites kept their father's whole command, which covered houses, sowing and tents as well as wine. God praised their obedience and used it to expose Judah's refusal to listen:

Daniel refused the king's particular food and wine so as not to defile himself. Later he went without wine, meat and pleasant bread during three weeks of mourning:

Daniel 1 does not say exactly what about the king's provision would have defiled him, and nothing may be added to it. Neither of the Daniel passages states a ban on drinking for everyone.

All of these abstentions are real, and their obedience and purpose deserve respect. Making them a rule for everyone would make Numbers 6:20 and 1 Timothy 5:23 false. Treating abstaining as sinful or faithless also fails, because Scripture approves these cases outright, and Romans 14:3 forbids looking down on those who abstain.

6. "Every wine Scripture permits must have been unable to make anyone drunk, so the positive passages say nothing about alcohol." A shared word cannot by itself rule out a different preparation in a particular cup. But this sweeping limit has nothing in the positive commands to mark it. It cannot explain how Deuteronomy 14:26 permits strong drink while Isaiah 28:7 and Proverbs 20:1 show what that same drink does. And Romans 14 does not base its permission on a special kind of drink. It bases purity and right conduct on faith, conscience and care for others. The distinction that has support is drinking versus drunkenness, and right use versus sinful use. This answer makes no claim to have measured what was in the cups at Cana or in Timothy's.

7. "Wine is allowed only as medicine, because that was Timothy's reason." The reason in 1 Timothy 5:23 is given for Timothy. The verse does not say only people with that complaint may drink wine. The limit has no stated basis, and it does not fit the non-medical meal in Deuteronomy 14:26, the joyful counsel in Ecclesiastes 9:7, Jesus' gift at a wedding in John 2:9-11, or Romans 14's treatment of wine in everyday life together. The other side holds too: treating Timothy's little amount as optional drops a real limit in his instruction.

8. "Christian liberty makes any drinking right, at least until someone is visibly drunk." This would make Romans 14:20-23 and 1 Corinthians 8:12 false. Purity does not cancel offence, and liberty does not cancel doubt or sin against Christ. The reading also drops the warning in Proverbs 23:31 at the point of temptation, the refusal to be mastered in 1 Corinthians 6:12, and the call to God's glory in 1 Corinthians 10:31. Sobriety, self-control, conscience, love and faithful duty are real requirements, not decorations.

9. "Jesus' wine, or a religious gathering, makes drunkenness acceptable." The remark at Cana (John 2:10) is the master of ceremonies' general comment about how wine is usually served. It is not Jesus commanding anyone to get drunk, and it is not a report that every guest was drunk. Ephesians 5:18 forbids drunkenness, and Paul rebukes it directly at the church's own meal:

A sacred setting gives no exemption.

10. "The prophets' warnings make every use of wine evil." The prophets condemn real things, and each passage names its reasons. Isaiah condemns chasing drink from morning to night, ignoring God's work, boasting about how much one can drink, and corrupt judgment:

Isaiah 28:7, quoted above, names error in vision and stumbling in judgment. Hosea joins heart-stealing wine with sexual sin and with no longer heeding the LORD:

Hosea speaks of a king made sick by his princes:

Amos condemns luxury with no grief for others' suffering, and giving wine to Nazarites, whose vow is set out in Numbers 6:

Habakkuk, in a wider condemnation of violent oppression, condemns making a neighbour drunk in order to look on their nakedness:

Isaiah and Micah condemn the watchmen's boast and the false prophet who promises drink:

These are real condemnations of drink's entanglements and effects, and they are firm limits against careless permission. Stripping out their reasons to make them total bans would break the permissions already shown. Ignoring their reasons to approve careless drinking is just as false. They do not turn all bread, oil, feasts or wine into the particular conduct they condemn.

Some passages describe drink being taken away as judgment, which is not a new command never to drink:

And Isaiah says plainly when the drunkenness he means is not from wine:

11. "The cup of judgment in the prophets gives permission, or sets a rule, about drinking." Several prophets picture God's judgment as a cup that makes nations drunk. In Jeremiah, the prophet compares himself to a drunk man. That is a comparison, not a confession that he had been drinking:

The cup stands for God's fury, and the sword explains its effect:

Ezekiel identifies the two sisters as Samaria and Jerusalem, and the cup as astonishment and desolation:

Nahum pictures Nineveh as helpless under judgment:

Isaiah openly uses comparison, and says plainly when the drunkenness is not from wine:

These passages keep the horror of what they picture, but they are pictures of judgment. They are not food-and-drink laws for everyone. Their commands to drink judgment cannot be turned into an exemption from Ephesians 5:18. Not every comparison involving wine is an instruction about an actual drink.

Revelation does the same thing. Wine appears as a picture of fornication and of God's wrath. The text itself explains its images:

None of this links every real drink with those sins.

Belshazzar's feast in Daniel 5 is judged, and Daniel names what was wrong: pride, using the vessels of God's house, praising idols, and not glorifying God:

That is an account of judgment, not a general law about alcohol.

12. "Peter's word banquetings forbids every meal where wine is served." Peter's original words for banquetings (G4224) and for excess of wine (G3632) each appear only once, in 1 Peter 4:3. So no separate dictionary definition can be built from other places they occur. Peter's own words govern them. He contrasts that former life with God's will (verse 2), and calls its shared course excess of riot (verse 4). A ban on every meal with wine would leave Jesus' sign at the wedding in John 2, and the contrast in Luke 7, unexplained. On the other side, joining in what Peter lists would make 1 Peter 4:2-4 false. This does not leave the matter open as a licence to join a drinking party. The character of the gathering, and how a person takes part in it, matter. Peter's list cannot be set aside just because someone at a riotous gathering says they are not drunk.

13. "'Abstain from all appearance of evil' proves every drink is sinful."

These verses command testing things, holding on to what is good, and staying away from evil. They do not say that the use Paul directs in 1 Timothy 5:23 is evil. Calling it evil in order to reach the conclusion assumes the very point in dispute. The command to abstain from evil stands at full strength.

14. "Giving thanks makes any drinking right." Paul does warn against banning what God created to be received with thanks:

But verse 5 ties thanksgiving to God's word, and 1 Corinthians 10:21, quoted above, forbids sharing in the cup of devils no matter what. Thanks cannot turn idolatry or forbidden conduct into lawful use. In other places where Scripture says "abstain", it names what to abstain from. Examples are the Jerusalem letter in Acts 15:20 and 29, and the command to abstain from fornication in 1 Thessalonians 4:3. Acts 15 is not treated as a complete list of every Christian duty, so the fact that it does not ban wine would not settle this question either way.

15. "General permission cancels any promise not to drink," or "a Christian should swear an oath never to drink." Neither is supported. The passages on vows and oaths above keep both faithful speech and the restriction on swearing. No real promise was mentioned in the question.

16. Church leaders. Paul sets qualifications for church leaders:

The original word behind the bishop's qualification (G3943) appears only in these two places, so its roots and exact technical meaning cannot be settled from other uses. For deacons and older women, Paul adds the word much. In Titus 2:3, the word translated "given" is the word for being a servant or in bondage elsewhere:

These uses support a warning against being in bondage to wine. A shared word does not, on its own, fix the exact reach of the bishop's qualification. At the very least, a bishop must not be given to wine, and that requirement is never optional. It stands whole, together with being sober, blameless and able to teach. It cannot be shrunk to permission to build a drinking habit as long as some number is not passed. Turning it into a command that no Christian may ever drink would break 1 Timothy 5:23. Reading it as permission to be addicted for anyone who holds no office would break Ephesians 5:18 and the commands to be sober. A separate rule of no wine at all for every officeholder was not established, and it is not added here. No particular leader's drinking is approved either. The question mentions no office.

Several more passages were read in their settings. None of them changes the answer, and each is listed here so it can be checked.

• 1 Samuel 1:1-20. Eli wrongly accused Hannah of being drunk, and she corrected him. It is an account of a mistaken accusation, not an instruction against every drink.
• Deuteronomy 29:1-21. Moses recalls that Israel had no wine or strong drink in the wilderness (verse 6), and warns against rebellion that blesses itself. Not drinking there is not a ban for everyone.
• Deuteronomy 21:18-23. A law about a rebellious son who is a drunkard, brought by his parents before the city's elders. It is a specific case, not a ruling on everyone who drinks wine.
• Proverbs 9 and 26:1-12. Wisdom's banquet is a picture. The drunkard simile in 26:9 sets no rule about amounts.
• Ecclesiastes 2:1-11. The writer's experiment with pleasure, including wine, ends in vanity.
• Luke 5:33-39, Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22. Jesus answers questions about fasting with comparisons of wine and wineskins. They are neither a command to drink nor proof of what the wine contained.
• Luke 10:34, Mark 15:23, John 4:46. The Samaritan uses wine in caring for a wounded man. Jesus refuses wine mixed with myrrh at the cross. John later recalls Cana. Treating a wound, or refusing a drink, does not set a drinking rule for everyone. Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the source of the words about being numbered with transgressors in Mark 15:28, was read. It does not explain why Jesus refused that wine.
• Judges 9:7-21. In Jotham's parable of the trees, cheering wine is part of the imagery. It is not a command about drinking.
• The sources of quotations. Where a New Testament passage quotes earlier Scripture, the earlier passage was read in its own setting to make sure it was being used rightly: - Romans 14:11 quotes Isaiah. Isaiah places universal homage to the LORD within His being the only God and His call to be saved. Romans uses that accountability to forbid judging a brother:

  Romans 14:11 Isaiah 45:23

  "For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." (Romans 14:11)

  "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." (Isaiah 45:23)

  - Romans 15:3 quotes a psalm about suffering reproach for God's sake. That supplies Paul's example of not pleasing oneself:

  Psalms 69:9

  "For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." (Psalms 69:9)

  - Luke 7:27 (and Matthew 11:10) quotes Malachi about the messenger who prepares the way. That explains who John was. It is not a call for everyone to adopt his diet:

  Malachi 3:1

  "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 3:1)

  - 1 Peter 1:16 quotes God's call to be holy because He is holy (the call is also in Leviticus 20:7). God's holiness grounds obedience to what He commands. It does not add a ban on wine for everyone:

  Leviticus 11:44

  "For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Leviticus 11:44)

  - 1 Peter 1:24-25 quotes Isaiah's contrast between fading flesh and God's lasting word. No rule about alcohol is drawn from it:

  Isaiah 40:8

  "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." (Isaiah 40:8)

  - 1 Corinthians 10:26 and 28 quote this psalm. In the psalm, God's ownership of all things stands beside the call for clean hands and a pure heart, so ownership cannot excuse sharing in the cup of devils:

  Psalms 24:1

  "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." (Psalms 24:1)

  - 1 Corinthians 10:7 recalls the meal held in the worship of the golden calf. It explains the warning against idolatry. It does not condemn all eating and drinking:

  Exodus 32:6

  "And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:6)

  - Galatians 5:14 and Romans 13:9 quote the command to love one's neighbour. In Leviticus it stands among concrete laws against exploiting or harming a neighbour:

  Leviticus 19:18

  "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD." (Leviticus 19:18)

  - 1 Corinthians 6:16 and Ephesians 5:31 quote Genesis on "one flesh". That concerns bodily union and marriage, not what wine is made of:

  Genesis 2:24

  "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

  - Acts 2 quotes Joel 2:28, quoted above. Acts 15:16 quotes Amos 9, a passage of judgment and restoration that includes the nations and newly planted vineyards. - The "stone" quotations around 1 Peter 2:5-9 were checked in Isaiah 28:14-22, Psalms 118:19-29 and Isaiah 8:11-18. They explain Peter's picture of living stones, and of faith and unbelief. The point about the royal priesthood rests on Peter's own words about spiritual sacrifices, not on these quotations.

Drinking alcohol is not, in itself, a sin for a Christian. Scripture directs a Christian to use a little wine (1 Timothy 5:23). It declares things pure in themselves, and names wine as something a person may drink in faith or give up for a brother's sake (Romans 14:14, 20-23). It permits the very kind of drink it warns can make people drunk (Deuteronomy 14:26, beside Isaiah 28:7). Scripture teaches this.

Drunkenness is forbidden (Ephesians 5:18), and Scripture warns about it in the gravest terms (Galatians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:10). The permission to drink does not excuse:

• joining in riotous gatherings;
• being ruled by drink;
• drinking against one's own faith or conscience;
• wounding another person's conscience;
• neglecting love or one's duties;
• using drink to impair or exploit someone;
• breaking a real promise;
• anything that fails to glorify God.

Not drinking can be the good course, and sometimes the needed one, when those requirements call for it, and it must never be looked down on. Scripture teaches this.

To the claim that any Christian who drinks any alcohol sins: This is not what Scripture teaches. To the claim that any drinking is fine as long as a person is not visibly drunk: This is not what Scripture teaches.

This answer does not tell anyone to start drinking. It also does not say that any particular person's own drinking is right, because nothing about that was shared. For a personal situation: It depends on something we don't know yet. That means what the drinking does, why it is done, whether the person can do it in faith and with self-control, and who it affects.

None of these points changes the general answer above.

• No amount. No daily allowance or safe amount for any person was established. Nothing here says a small amount is always right.
• Cana's wine. What was in the wine at Cana was not established. If it could make people drunk, the wedding sign is one more direct example of such a drink given at a celebration. If it could not, Cana still records a good gift called wine, while Deuteronomy's permission of strong drink and Romans 14's teaching on purity and use carry the answer on their own. Either way, drunkenness stays forbidden. John 2:9-11 names the wine and the sign without measuring anything, and Isaiah 65:8 shows why every use of "wine" cannot be assumed to mean the same drink. So the detail stays open, with no contradiction implied and no alcohol level supplied. The same goes for Timothy's cup. No brewing method or medical prescription for anyone today was established.
• Daniel's concern. Daniel 1:8 does not say exactly why the king's provision would defile him. Nothing is added to it. The answer is the same whether his concern involved that drink or something else about the royal provision. The chapter states no ban for everyone, and the permission texts remain true.
• Church leaders in borderline cases. Exactly how far the bishop's qualification about wine reaches in every borderline case was not established from its two occurrences. The qualification is not optional. It must not be turned into an unsupported rule of no wine at all, or into an exemption from sobriety.
• The source of Ephesians 5:14. The earlier passage behind this verse was not identified:

  Ephesians 5:14

  "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Ephesians 5:14)

  Isaiah 60:1-5 was read only as a similar picture of light and rising, and it is not claimed as the source:

  Isaiah 60:1

  "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee." (Isaiah 60:1)

  Nothing about alcohol rests on this. It is a limit of the source check, not an open question about drinking.

• The reach of the search. The whole Bible was not opened verse by verse. The searches were shown in the record, and 321 different references that turned up in 83 searches were not opened. Nothing is claimed about what those verses say, and no claim is made that Scripture is silent on anything. Some broad searches, such as the one for "sin", were not read through to the end. The answer rests on the direct commands and the distinctions their own passages draw.
• How this reading was done. Scripture was taken only from the King James text, through the reading tool. No commentator, tradition or other outside source was used. Every quotation in the record was checked against the fetched text: 232 quotations at 231 references. One copying error, at Luke 8:35, was found and corrected, and no conclusion changed. The fingerprints (hashes) of the instruction files the reading followed were not independently checked.

No answer is needed for the general question, which is answered above. If the question is about a particular habit or plan, this is the one thing worth asking:

What drinking is being considered, and would it involve drunkenness or loss of control, a troubled conscience, neglected responsibilities, harm to someone else, or a promise that bears on it?

This is an invitation to share the facts. It does not assume any of those things is true. The verses that would then be applied are Romans 14:21 and 23, 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:31, and the passages on keeping one's word.