Better Drinking

There is a tendency to categorize the alcoholic beverage into its own "class" of material good, rather than simply another type of food and drink. This is especially true of Evangelical Christians. Reasons for this are legion, but I’m going to narrow it to two.

First off, alcohol is often the cause of many social ills and most would not want to be associated with such an instigator. However, the abuse of a thing is not the same as the use of a thing. The fact that alcoholic beverages do cause real pain and grief in people’s lives does not prohibit its Biblically lawful use, any more than gluttony should prohibit us from eating. Food and drink, all kinds, are held out to us as a good thing, to be received with thanksgiving, a testimony of God’s goodness to all creation. But rather than set the pace with a good example before the world, saints have shunned alcohol for fear of being associated with winebibbers and the resultant social problems associated with drunkenness have become epidemic. We should be leading the charge, rather than a retreat. If people of the Word, who have access to God’s specific instruction in all areas of life, do not teach by example, who will?

A second reason, related to the first, is a misunderstanding of the Christian’s use of the natural world. We read early on in Genesis that God created all things good and that man’s task was to take dominion (subdue, make it fruitful) of all things, for the purpose of displaying His glory. Man’s fall into sin hindered our duties, but did not take away our responsibility. In I Corinthians 3:21-22, Paul tells us that the world belongs to us, meaning that everything that God intends for the world through Christ (which is the salvation of men and the end of the power of sin) is ours for use. In other words, we are free to use all of creation so far as we obey Christ and His Law-Word, as He now reigns over all things as King.

To be sure, redemption is spiritual, as it impossible to bring about by human means, originates from God, and it is not "visible" in a way that can be quantified materially. But the material world is also being redeemed. Our spiritual life affects the whole man, not just something inside of us. Yet we think we’re more "spiritual" when we avoid alcohol or certain types of food. But as we’re reminded in I Corinthians 8:8, we are no better if we eat than if we don’t. In short, abstaining from alcohol does not make one more sanctified or holy. Sanctified drinking and eating is done with restraint and sobriety, not with abstinence.

And amidst all this, remember fermentation is a “natural” process that must be “unnaturally” suppressed under normal circumstances. The exercise of dominion is that power to control those processes to a specific end, namely the making of beer. The wild yeast in the Senne Valley (near Brussels, Belgium) may produce some exquisite lambics, but most of the time such organisms do not produce such consistency and must be tamed to bring about a certain result. Man’s obedience to the dominion mandate is seen very clearly in the production of beer. Check out this list of products from White Labs; each strain brings out a variety of flavor and aroma characteristics that would be impossible to produce without purposeful design. In the old days of beer making, brewers did not understand how yeast worked but knew that it did and called it “godisgood”. Today we know how yeast works and have made it do better things.

God is indeed good to us; let us not separate good things out from that which is declared good, but separate ourselves unto real righteousness as we drink unto the Maker.