To Drink or Not to Drink

There are many, many articles, posts, sermons, and what-have-you's concerning the morality of drinking alcohol. This isn't so much about the rightness or wrongness of drinking alcohol, but the wisdom involved in it.

That being said, I will start with a brief synopsis of my view that drinking alcohol is a matter of conscience, a disputable matter, if you will.

In John 2, we have the wedding at Cana.

In this well-known narrative, Jesus goes to a wedding. In Cana. The wedding planners obviously didn't expect such a large turnout (it probably didn't help that Jesus brought 12 extra guests with him), and they ran out of wine. At the request of his mother, Jesus turns some water in wine and gives it to the guests. The point here is, if alcohol was wholesale evil, Jesus wouldn't have made some.

In contrast, one can go too far with the bottle.
"And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." (Ephesians 5:18)
"Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy." (Romans 13:13)

Even though drinking in moderation is not sinful in itself, it is still a "debatable issue." Romans 14 outlines how one might eat or abstain from certain foods, but does so to the Lord. Verse 14 says, "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean." Alcohol isn't wrong in and of itself, but as the rest of Romans 14 goes on to say, if it grieves a brother then the "stronger" Christians has a responsibility to abstain on behalf of his "weaker" brother.

"Brief" synopsis aside, where is the wisdom in drinking alcohol?

Proverbs 23 has much to say about alcohol. Verse 21 tells us that the drunkard comes to poverty. Likewise, in verses 29-35, "those who tarry long over wine" know all kinds of sorrow and strife. In Proverbs 31:1-9, King Lemuel's mother teaches him that wine is not for kings, lest they pervert justice, but that it should be given those who are perishing and in bitter distress so that they forget their misery.

Sometimes, wisdom can come from some pretty unassuming places. Last week I was helping with a camp, and one of my students shared about some of interactions he had with his friends at school. They started to do some things (as teenagers do) that he did not want to participate in, saying there was "nothing wrong with it." I don't know what "it" was, but my student questioned this mentality, saying, "There may be nothing wrong with it, but there isn't anything right with it either."

My mind was blown by a freshman in high school.

I was amazed to find that he had thought about doing (or not doing, as the case may be) not because he could, but on the basis on whether it was good or not. Since I was thinking about this post throughout the week, his statement immediately clicked with what the Proverbs were saying about alcohol. There may not be anything wrong with it, but is there anything right about it? Does it lead to a life honoring and pleasing to the Lord?

Maybe. Just maybe. It might be best to avoid alcohol.

Contemporary Wisdom

I was having dinner with a veteran friend of mine and he eventually got started on war stories. He had spent some time on the North/South Korean border, and he told me how the people there really respected their elders. It wasn't even a "we should be nice to old people" kind of respect either. It was out of recognition that their elders had real life experience, real wisdom they could share with those just starting out with life.

Then my friend pointed out that we just don't have the same respect for our elders here in America. We put them in homes so we don't have to deal with them, or consider euthanizing them since they no longer "contribute to society." What does that leave us with? A bunch of young people barely out on their own trying to come up with their own brand of wisdom.

Where has this brought us?

YOLO. That is where this has brought us.

For those who don't know, YOLO means "You Only Live Once." While technically this generation's "Carpe Diem," it's usually an excuse to do stupid things. This can range from running a red light to parachuting without the proper training or equipment.

This makes me think of a certain Proverb:
Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
    in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
    and fools hate knowledge?
If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
    I will make my words known to you.
Because I have called and you refused to listen,
    have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel
    and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
    I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm
    and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
    when distress and anguish come upon you.
-Proverbs 1:20-27

"Simpletons love not committing themselves to wisdom but remaining in an open state of seduction. Their moral posture becomes ever more in tension and conflict with the inevitable disaster approaching them. The inexorable plight is urgent and acute. Death is at hand. The rhetorical question implicitly contains an admonition: respond quickly, or you will soon perish in the way" (Waltke qtd in Zuck, 197).

Waltke was right on in saying, "Simpletons love not committing themselves to wisdom." Therein lies the problem, both today and when Proverbs was originally written. Most people would just rather live in their folly than turn to wisdom and live with discipline.

While I don't see YOLO-induced deaths cropping up everywhere, we are losing our moral and wise foundation that is taking our nation down the path of folly. Hopefully, we can listen to Wisdom before it is too late.



Bibliography
Zuck, Roy B. Learning from the Sages: Selected Studies on the Book of Proverbs. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995.