Over my 13 years in ministry I have heard considerable defense of Christians engaging in "social drinking" or "moderate drinking" of alcohol as based on the Bible. One of the most important texts used is John 2 where Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana. This appears to be irrefutable proof of the propriety of drinking alcohol based on Jesus' own practice and recommendation.
There is at least one significant problem with this conclusion from the text of John 2. The problem is that the text does not only support "moderate drinking" but supports abundant, even extravagant, drinking. Jesus creates the wine AFTER the guests have already "drunk freely" and are well drunk, according to the report of the master of the feast. On top of that Jesus created about 150 gallons of wine. Now we don't know how many people were at the wedding, but it seems the whole point of John telling us how much water was turned to wine was to tell us it was a lot. We might wonder if the wedding was spread out over a number of days, but the text itself tells us it was "on the third day."
It seems that we are left with either the belief that Jesus encouraged drunkenness (which would conflict with other Scripture prohibiting drunkenness and call the character of Jesus into question) or perhaps we have a mistaken view about wine and alcohol. Perhaps "good wine" does not refer to the quality of alcohol and intoxicating value but to its refreshing and tasteful quality.
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