Paul told a young pastor named Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake. (1 Timothy 5:23)
People have been using that verse to justify a lot of happy hours ever since.
But read it again slowly.
Paul had to tell him. Timothy wasn’t drinking. He was apparently abstaining altogether — so strictly that he wouldn’t even use it when he was sick. Paul had to give him permission. Had to give him a reason. Had to practically prescribe it like a doctor writing a note.
You don’t tell a drinker to drink a little. You tell that to someone who won’t touch it.
Now here’s the second thing people leave out.
The wine Paul was talking about wasn’t what’s sitting on the shelf at your local liquor store. Scholars estimate the undiluted wine of the ancient world carried somewhere between 5 and 10 percent alcohol — and it was commonly diluted further with water, bringing it down to roughly 3 percent or less. Distillation hadn’t been invented yet. The high-octane wines we know today were simply impossible to produce in the first century.
Today’s wine averages 12 to 14 percent alcohol. Red wines run as high as 15. Fortified wines like Port average around 18. That’s anywhere from two to six times stronger than what Paul prescribed.
That’s not a small difference. That’s a different drink.
The Bible didn’t stutter on this. Both the Old and New Testaments warn against drunkenness. Proverbs calls it a mocker. Paul told the Ephesians not to be drunk with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit. The line was never drawn at the drink itself — it was drawn at losing control.
But here’s the plain pastoral truth: it’s a whole lot easier to cross that line at 13 percent than at 3.
Now I’ll tell you where I stand.
I have never taken so much as one drink of an alcoholic beverage. I never will. My parents didn’t drink. My children don’t drink. I believe that is the best practice, and I’d recommend it to you without apology.
And I’ll be honest with you — I don’t entirely trust myself. I’m an impulsive personality. I’m pretty sure if I started, I wouldn’t stop at a little wine. I’d overdo it. I know me.
But the deepest reason goes back to my mother, and something she told me a long time ago.
Her father — my grandfather — played music in bars when he was young. He drank. One night, drunk, he went looking for his pistol because he wanted to kill his brother. He didn’t find it.
That experience scared him sober for the rest of his life.
And my mother passed his lesson down to me in one sentence:
“If you don’t take the first drink, you will never become an alcoholic.”
I took her advice.
Timothy wasn’t drinking wine either. Paul gave him permission to use a little — medicinally — for a stomach condition.
That’s the verse. That’s the whole verse.
t was a doctor’s note. Not a toast.
As founding Pastor of The Bridge Community Church and Executive Director of Mo Hodge Ministries, Mo resources Pastors and Leaders in the area of leadership development. He enables Pastors and leaders in the following areas: Developing Teams, Church Growth, Church Planting, Discipleship Multiplication, Nonprofit Organizational Management, Multi-site Church Development, Public Speaking, Capital Campaigns, and Sr. Pastor Succession. … Mo and his wife, Nancy, live in Anderson, IN with their children and grandchildren. Though retired, Mo is still active in ministry, preaching, teaching, and planting new churches wherever the Lord leads. You can follow him on LinkedIn or through his Newsletter.
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