Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. (Proverbs 20:1)
Notice 'whoever is deceived by it'... a person who is deceived by wine or strong drink is one who becomes a slave to it.
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. (Proverbs 4:17)
This text has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with wicked people who harm others. The wine of violence and bread of wickedness are metaphors. This passage speaks of both wine and bread as evil- if it were a literal description of both it would mean that God demands His followers to also not eat bread!
God is not talking about wine and bread in this verse. Here it is in some context:
Proverbs 4:14-19
[SUP]14 [/SUP]Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not walk in the way of the evil.
[SUP]15 [/SUP]Avoid it; do not go on it;
turn away from it and pass on.
[SUP]16 [/SUP]For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong;
they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.
[SUP]17 [/SUP]For they eat the bread of wickedness
and drink the wine of violence.
[SUP]18 [/SUP]But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
[SUP]19 [/SUP]The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink;they err in vision, they stumble [in] judgment. (Isaiah 28:7)
This verse is about the priests and prophets, who were supposed to not drink, but did so anyways.
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. (Joel 1:5)
This comes from the Book of Joel, which describes God's judgement that is coming to the nation of Judah, and orders its peoples to repent. It does not condemn the drinkers of wine for drinking, it tells them...and the whole nation... to repent. Here is Joel 1:1-12. Among the people told to be afraid and be ashamed are also 'tillers of the soil' (farmers) and vinedressers. Is farming forbidden by God? Or growing grapes? No! The warning is for everyone in Judah to repent before God.
[h=3]An Invasion of Locusts[/h][SUP]2 [/SUP]Hear this, you elders;
give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
Has such a thing happened in your days,
or in the days of your fathers?
[SUP]3 [/SUP]Tell your children of it,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children to another generation.
[SUP]4 [/SUP]What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
[SUP]5 [/SUP]Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
and wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
[SUP]6 [/SUP]For a nation has come up against my land,
powerful and beyond number;
its teeth are lions' teeth,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.
[SUP]7 [/SUP]It has laid waste my vine
and splintered my fig tree;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
their branches are made white.
[SUP]8 [/SUP]Lament like a virgin[SUP][
a][/SUP] wearing sackcloth
for the bridegroom of her youth.
[SUP]9 [/SUP]The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
from the house of the Lord.
The priests mourn,
the ministers of the Lord.
[SUP]10 [/SUP]The fields are destroyed,
the ground mourns,
because the grain is destroyed,
the wine dries up,
the oil languishes.
[SUP]11 [/SUP]Be ashamed,[SUP][
b][/SUP]
O tillers of the soil;
wail, O
vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
[SUP]12 [/SUP]The vine dries up;
the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
from the children of man.
*****dom and wine and new wine
take away the heart. (Hosea 4:11)
Hosea 4 is another warning to Israel. It refers to people who have forsaken God and turned away from Him to drink and sleep around. The people "cherish" the wine, notice that word. If you "cherish" something, you make it into something important. That is what an alcoholic does with his or her booze- cherishes it. Lets it become important to him/her. Lets it become his/her god, in place of God. The problem is not with having wine, the problem is with turning away from God and towards wine, and letting alcohol rule your life.
Hosea 4:4-11
[SUP]6 [/SUP]My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children. [SUP]7 [/SUP]The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
I will change their glory into shame.
[SUP]8 [/SUP]They feed on the sin[SUP][
b][/SUP] of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
[SUP]9 [/SUP]And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.
[SUP]10 [/SUP]They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
they shall play the *****, but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
to cherish [SUP]11 [/SUP]*****dom, wine, and new wine,
which take away the understanding.
According to the Bible, the Prophet Noah got drunk! (God forbid)
And Noah began [to be] an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father,and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid [it] upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces [were] backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. (Genesis 9:20-25)
He certainly did. He had too much wine, and got drunk. The Bible condemns drunkenness.
Prophet Lot commits incest from wine (God forbid)
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, [and] lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. (Genesis 19:33-26)
Yes, this is another example of drunkenness.
Although these stories are false because they teaches blasphemy against the holy Prophets Noah and Lot, they still convey a moral lesson for mankind that alcohol (wine) is the most dangerous substance that should be rejected by the true followers of Jesus.
The moral lesson isn't that wine is the most dangerous substance that should be rejected by true followers of Jesus, since He Himself made water into wine and they drank together. The moral lesson is that drunkenness is an evil and a sin, and some of God's greatest prophets have fallen for it as well.
As an aside, I find it interesting that you consider the accounts of Noah and Lot getting drunk to be blasphemy.
[h=2]blas·phe·my[/h] [blas-fuh-mee] Show IPA
noun, plural blas·phe·mies. 1.
impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things.
2.
Judaism . a.
an act of cursing or reviling God.
b.
pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton
(YHVH) in the original,
now forbidden manner instead
of using a substitute
pronunciation such as Adonai.
3. Theology . the crime of
assuming to oneself
the rights or qualities of God.
4. irreverent behavior toward anything
held sacred, priceless, etc.: He uttered blasphemies against life itself.
Are you suggesting that Lot or Noah were sacred, or that they are God? To me, they were just human beings.
That the Bible discusses God's prophets getting drunk and doing stupid things is one proof of it being written by God and not by man. People have a habit of trying to portray their leaders as flawless, heroic, always right. The Bible shows the quarrels, sins, disagreements, major mistakes that Jewish kings and religious leaders, and later people in the early church, committed. God in His greatness was able to use even such people to do great things for Him. The Bible does not glorify men. It glorifies God alone.
