Is Drinking Alcohol a Sin? No, but Drunkenness Is

No. The Bible never calls drinking alcohol a sin in itself, but it calls drunkenness a sin many times. Wine is praised as God’s gift, and Jesus made it at a wedding. Churches differ: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and United Methodist teaching allows moderate drinking, while Southern Baptists, the Assemblies of God, Adventists and Latter-day Saints ask members to abstain.

The same Bible holds both truths in a single line of thought. The psalm thanks God for “wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). Paul writes, “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Wine can gladden us. It cannot fill us. The question underneath every rule about drinking is what we let fill us, and Scripture’s answer is the Spirit of God.

It does not. Wine runs through the Bible’s feasts and blessings. “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart,” says the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 9:7). When an Israelite lived too far from the sanctuary to carry his tithe there, the Law let him turn it into money and spend it “for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth,” and eat “before the Lord thy God” and rejoice with his household (Deuteronomy 14:26). Isaiah pictures the feast God will make for all peoples as “a feast of wines on the lees” (Isaiah 25:6).

Jesus’ first sign was at a wedding in Cana, where the wine ran out. He had six stone jars filled with water, and the steward who tasted what came out told the bridegroom, “thou hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10). At the Last Supper he gave his disciples the cup and said, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). His enemies even used it against him: “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34). The charge was false, but it shows that he ate and drank at ordinary tables. Whether he himself drank wine is taken up in Did Jesus drink wine?

Paul’s advice to a young pastor with a weak stomach is plain: “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Timothy 5:23). No apostle would prescribe a little of something sinful.

Yes. On this every church agrees, and Scripture speaks with one voice. Drunkenness stands in Paul’s list of “the works of the flesh,” with envy, wrath and murders, and he warns “that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19–21). He asks us to “walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness” (Romans 13:13).

The Bible also shows what drink does to a person. Noah planted a vineyard after the flood, and he “drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent” (Genesis 9:21). Proverbs describes the drinker honestly: “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine” (Proverbs 23:29–30). It ends with the drinker waking up: “They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again” (Proverbs 23:35). That last line is the voice of someone who cannot stop.

Yet the hardest verse holds the kindest word. Paul lists the “drunkards” among those who will not inherit the kingdom, and then he turns to the church in Corinth: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:10–11). Some of the first Christians were drunkards. Christ washed them.

Then you are not the first, and you do not have to carry it alone. If you live in the United States, SAMHSA’s National Helpline answers at 1-800-662-HELP (4357), day and night, every day of the year, in English and Spanish. It is free and confidential, and the people who answer will not ask for your personal information. They point callers to treatment, support groups and community services near them. The TTY line is 1-800-487-4889, and you can also text your ZIP code to 435748 to find help nearby. Outside the US, a doctor or your local health service is the place to start.

Tell your pastor or priest as well, and someone you trust at home. Asking for help is part of faith, the same faith that says, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Sometimes the way of escape is a phone number. There are words to pray in prayers for alcoholics and for staying sober, for yourself or for someone you love.

Christians who ask believers to abstain often point here. The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal fellowship, says in its 2016 position paper that “Wine of the biblical era generally had lower alcohol content” and that “Ancient wine was commonly diluted before consumption.” It adds, fairly, that the old references “do show it was a common practice” without proving “that everyone always diluted their wine.” The paper also notes that spirits of 40 per cent or more came only with distillation, which it dates to the Middle Ages. On Cana it admits, “The text is silent on the meaning of oinos in the John 2 passage,” oinos being the Greek word for wine, and it draws its own conclusion: “Jesus would not have made a product that would be detrimental to the wedding guests.”

Others answer that biblical wine was still wine. It made Noah drunk, and Paul’s warning in Ephesians would mean little if it could not intoxicate. An Orthodox priest, Father Paul O’Callaghan, wrote in the Antiochian archdiocese’s magazine in 1992 that the Bible “allows a moderate use of alcoholic beverages,” and that “Nowhere in the Bible do we find that wine or any other alcoholic drink is forbidden.” Whichever way we read Cana, a modern bottle of spirits is far stronger than anything the Bible’s writers knew.

Church	May members drink?	In its own words
Catholic	Yes, with temperance	“avoid every kind of excess”
Orthodox (Russian Orthodox Church)	Yes, in moderation	“it is good… if it be drunk moderately”
Lutheran (Missouri Synod)	Yes, responsibly	“nowhere condemns the proper and responsible use”
Episcopal (Anglican)	Yes, with care	“permit a limited use”
United Methodist	Yes, in moderation	“wisely and in moderation”
Southern Baptist (2006)	Urges abstinence	“total opposition”
Assemblies of God (Pentecostal)	Asks abstinence	“a choice, not a commandment”
Seventh-day Adventist	No	“we are to abstain”
Latter-day Saints	No	“Alcoholic drinks” are “harmful”

Churches that allow drinking

The Catholic Church uses wine at every Mass; its Code of Canon Law requires that “The wine must be natural from the fruit of the vine and not spoiled” (canon 924). Its Catechism places drink under the virtue of temperance, which “disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine,” and it names the grave guilt of those who “by drunkenness” endanger others on the road (paragraph 2290). No single text speaks for every Orthodox church. The Russian Orthodox Church, in its Basis of the Social Concept, quotes the psalm, “wine maketh glad the heart of man,” and the Book of Sirach, “it is good… if it be drunk moderately.” In the same paragraph it denounces “the vice of drinking, which, beginning unnoticeably, leads to many other ruinous sins.” Father O’Callaghan, writing for Antiochian Orthodox readers, said that alcohol is often served when Orthodox Christians gather, and that drunkenness is “seriously sinful.”

The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod answers in two sentences: “The Bible nowhere condemns the proper and responsible use (consumption) of alcoholic beverages, and neither does The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Scripture does warn strongly and repeatedly against the abuse, misuse or excessive use of alcoholic beverages.” The Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the United States, consecrates wine at the Eucharist and permits it at church events. In 2015 its General Convention admitted the church’s “long-standing tolerance for the use of alcohol which, in some cases, has contributed to its misuse,” and set rules for gatherings. Among them, “Some dioceses and congregations may decide not to serve alcohol at events or gatherings. Others may decide to permit a limited use,” and wherever alcohol is served, non-alcoholic drinks must be offered “with equal prominence.”

The United Methodist Church long asked its members to abstain, and it still honours that witness. Its Social Principles, in the 2020/2024 Book of Discipline, “acknowledge the historic United Methodist stance on abstinence” and “urge those who choose to consume alcoholic beverages, including wine and beer, to do so wisely and in moderation,” mindful of “those struggling to recover from alcohol use and abuse.”

Churches that ask members not to drink

The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in 2006, voted for “total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and consuming of alcoholic beverages.” Not every Baptist church follows that resolution, and the differences are set out in Can Baptists drink alcohol?

The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal fellowship, has been “unequivocally committed to abstinence from alcoholic beverages” from its beginning, and its paper is careful to call abstinence “a choice, not a commandment,” grounded “in the highest moral attribute of love.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church writes it into its beliefs: “Since alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and the irresponsible use of drugs and narcotics are harmful to our bodies, we are to abstain from them as well.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints keeps the Word of Wisdom, a revelation Joseph Smith received in 1833, as “a commandment.” Its current teaching, in Topics and Questions (2023), names “Alcoholic drinks” first among the substances that “are harmful.”

Many do it for someone else. Paul wrote, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” (Romans 14:21). A Christian who has watched drink ruin a parent, or who sits at table with a friend in recovery, may choose not to drink at all, out of love. That is freedom used well: “take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9).

Scripture honours that choice in other places too. Those who took the Nazirite vow gave up wine and even “vinegar of wine” for the length of their vow (Numbers 6:3). Priests were told, “Do not drink wine nor strong drink… when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation” (Leviticus 10:9). Kings were warned against it “Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted” (Proverbs 31:5), and Paul asked that a bishop be “Not given to wine” (1 Timothy 3:3). Some believers take on the same discipline for a season, or for life.

Paul gives us three questions to carry. Does it master me? “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Can I do it in faith, with a clear conscience? “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). And does it give glory to God? “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). A glass of wine at a family meal can pass all three. So can a glass of water poured for a friend who must not drink.

The world has always mistaken one kind of fullness for another. On the morning of Pentecost, the crowd heard the disciples speak of “the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11). Some mocked, “These men are full of new wine,” and Peter answered, “these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day” (Acts 2:13–15). They were full of the Spirit. That is the gladness no cup can give, and the psalmist knew it long before: “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased” (Psalm 4:7).

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• Wine in the Bible: what does wine represent?
• God and grapes: the Bible’s teachings on wine
• Did Jesus drink wine?
• Can Baptists drink alcohol?
• 22 Bible verses about alcohol and drunkenness
• Prayers for alcoholics and for staying sober