What Does the Bible Say About Wine?

Scripture treats wine with remarkable balance, neither condemning it outright nor encouraging its excess. On the one hand, the psalmist praises God for the bounty of creation in Psalm 104:15, declaring that He gives 'wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.' Wine appears at the first miracle of Christ in Cana, at the institution of the Lord's Supper, and throughout the Old Testament as a symbol of divine blessing and covenantal joy. The land flowing with milk and honey was also a land of vineyards. Yet Scripture is equally clear about wine's dangers. The book of Proverbs issues a solemn caution in Proverbs 20:1: 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.' The fool who mistakes wine for a friend will find it a ruthless enemy, mocking his dignity and raging against his self-control. The New Testament provides the governing principle for the Christian's relationship with all such gifts: 'And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit,' as Paul instructs in Ephesians 5:18. The contrast is deliberate — the filling of the Spirit produces the true joy, courage, and fellowship that people wrongly seek in intoxication. The believer who understands this will receive wine, where appropriate, as a good gift from a generous God, always wary of its power to deceive and always choosing the superior joy of communion with the Holy Spirit over any earthly substitute.