Question #3

"Should Christians drink Wine Coolers?"


Answer #3

Perhaps some of you were hoping that this question didn't come up.  "Should 
Christians drink Wine Coolers?  Let me give you just a brief response to 
that.

A Wine Cooler is an alcoholic beverage.  It is my own personal conviction 
that I do not drink alcoholic beverages, of any kind, at any time.  And there 
are several reasons why.  And they are not in a particular spiritual order.

Reason number one is the fact that, I believe the Bible warns very, very 
strongly about drunkenness, and very, very strongly about losing control and 
dissipation, Ephesians 5:18, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, 
but be filled with the Spirit."  If I am going to be under the control of 
something, I want it to be the Holy Spirit, not some substance.

Beyond that, I am convinced after studying the Word of God and studying the 
backgrounds around the Word of God, that the wine which was imbibed in the 
time of the New Testament, and even in the Old Testament, was highly diluted 
with water, 5 to 1, 6 to 1, 7 to 1, 8 to 1.  They really drank water if you 
want to see the true picture, and they simply purified the water, by putting 
a little bit of fermented wine in it, because it killed whatever else would 
be in the wine, that might cause them some physical problems.

It was not the normal drink of the time of our Lord, for people to drink 
unmixed wine.  You read in the Bible about two kinds of drink, wine and 
"strong drink."  "Strong drink" was unmixed, and those who drank "strong 
drink" drank it for the purpose of drowning their problems.  The wine that 
was consumed in the Bible was very definitely mixed with water extensively.  
Because you lived in a warm climate, the Land of Palestine was hot, the very 
fact of thirst could contribute to a high consumption of wine.  In order to 
prevent drunkenness, they mixed it with water, so that your body could not 
hold the amount that it would take to inebriate you.

So that is simply to point out to you, that I don't think you can advocate 
wine drinking from the Bible, unless you have diluted it sufficiently with 
water, as they did in Biblical times.  

The other reason, that I will give to you, as to why I don't believe that 
Christians should drink wine, is simply because of what the Apostle Paul 
says, "The Kingdom of God is not food and drink," Romans Chapter 14.  And he 
says, "If anything that I eat and drink offends my brother, I won't do it."  
Now I have lived long enough, to have dragged enough people out of saloons;
to have tried to "patch up" enough shattered devastated lives; to have tried 
to put together families and marriages that have been devastated by alcohol, 
to have a healthy hatred for it.

And since we live in a culture where alcohol is only an option and not an 
necessity, it seems to me, without particular constraint, for us to consume 
that kind of beverage.  I certainly would not want to be responsible for 
giving someone else the idea that it was ok to drink alcoholic beverages and 
then watch them, in an out of control way, be destroyed by what they saw me 
do.

And so in deference to a weaker brother, and in deference to not making 
someone stumble, I choose not to do that.  And since there is no compelling 
reason to do it, because there are so many other things to drink, it has no 
place in my life.