Is Drinking Wrong?
For years people
have asked, "Where does the Bible say social drinking is
wrong?" Some ask not knowing any better; others argue to
justify their way of living. One answer to their question is 1
Peter 4:3 where Peter condems "banquetings." Peter said
that his readers, prior to being converted, had "walked in
lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings,
and abominable idolatries" (1 Peter 4:3)
Let us begin with the King James
translators' use of the word "banquetings." Obviously,
this word cannot mean that a banquet in the sense of a mere
gathering for a meal is wrong. What kind of banquet is this, and
why is it sinful? The answer is not that people present were
gluttons, since the word translated "banquetings" is
from the word potos, which
denotes drinking, not eating. So this type of banquet was not
wrong because of gluttony. It was wrong because of the drinking
involved. Why did the King James translators use this word?
" In the seventeenth century and earlier, banquet frequently
signified, not the general feast, but the wine that came after;
not the eating and drinking, but drinking only."1
Shakespeare and another writer in that age used the word banquet
to refer to drinking after a meal or simply drinking itself.
The amount of alcohol consumed by those
gathered at such a banquet is unspecified. Some may have drunk to
the point of intoxication, while others may have drunk a cup or
two. The essential idea is that the were drinking.
The Greek word potos means
"the drinking bout the banquet, the symposium not of
necessity excessive. . . but giving opportunity for excess."2
The word refers to drinking in general at such gatherings. Barnes
is right in saying that the word
Means properly drinking an act of
drinking; then a drinking bout; drinking together. the thing
forbidden by it is an assembling together for the purpose of
drinking. There is nothing in this word referring to eating, or
to banqueting, as the term is now commomly employed. The idea in
the passage is, that it is improper for Christians to meet
together for the purpose of drinking - as wine, toasts, etc. 3
Peter used three descriptions in this
passage to denote different types of drinking. The first is
"excess of wine." this expression has led some to ask,
"Since Peter condems excess of wine, then is the moderate,
occasional use of wine justified?" The answer is "no."
Notice the next verse (1 Peter 4:4), where Peter mentions "excess
of riot." Does this expression mean that moderate,
occasional rioting is legitimate as long as we do not carry it to
"excess"? "Excess of wine " is from oinophlugia,
which means drunkness.
But the verse does not end at this point Peter uses other words
to describe different types of drinking that are sinful.
The second word is "revellings."
This word is from komos,
and refers to "feasts and drinking parties protracted till
late night and induldge in reverly."4
This word overlaps with the first word because drunkeness occurs
with companions and involves partying and carousing.
The next word is "banquetings."
We have already seen that this word denotes drinking alcohol.
Could these banquets be sinful because of drunkeness and not
"social drinking"? Does Peter condemm them because
people were getting drunk there - nothing more, nothing less? But
he has already covered drunkeness in the first word. So, we can
rightly conclude that the word "banquetings" involves a
different idea, a different aspect of drinking than simple
drunkeness. Could these banquets have been wrong because of
carousing that took place at them? But Peter has already dealt
with the aspect of drinking as well in the word "revellings."
Thus Peter is not emphasizing carousing at the banquets.
Could these banquets have involved some type of idolatrous
worship? Is this what made them wrong? The answer again is "no"
because Peter list "abominable idolatries" after "banquetings."
Notice that "banquetings" does not necessarily exclude
these activities. But this word does not necessarly involve them,
and its point of emphasis as far as drinking is concerned is a
gathering where drinking in general occurs. Thus "banquetings"
(potos) is distinguished
from "excess of wine " or "drunkenness" (oinophlugia),
and that distinction is that these banquetings were drinking
gatherings in general wheras "excess of wine" was
drunkenness in particular. A similar relationship between the
words "lasciviousness" and "lusts" in this
verse These words obviously share common ground in meaning, since
both are sins that are sexual in nature. But lasciviousness is
the more specific term, referring to indecent bodily movements
and impure handling between males and females. Lust, on the other
hand, is the more general term for impure desires. Thus if "banquetings"
refers to a type of drinking, and that drinking is different from
mere drunkeness, then this word must include drinking that stops
short of drunkeness. Therefore "social" drinking is
"banqueting" and is sinful
Some Greek authorities have not
give due attention to this distinction.5
They usually begin giving potos
the general meaning of drinking, but they add the idea of
carousing or a drinking bout. They apparently do so either
because some extra-bibical uses of this word connect it with such
behavior (and potos only
occurs one time in the New Testament) or because the other words
in 1 Peter 4:3 refer to wild, carousing parties. But, as we have
already seen, through carousing and drinking bouts may have been
a part of these banquetings, they were not the focus of the word.
The emphasis of potos is
simply drinking in general. In fact, this idea is particularly
clear when we consider that potos
is part of a family of words dealing with drinking.6
The word "banqueting," when
understood in the sense mentioned earlier, is a good translation
of the word potos. The
most literal translation of this word is drinkings.
The New King James Version uses the expression"drinking
parties" while the American Standard Version uses "carousings."
But neither of these two translations emphasize the essential
meaning of the word which is drinking in general.
" I know that drinking is
wrong, but where does the Bible teach that drinking is wrong?"
there are many Bible answers to this question. One is "banquetings"
or "drinkings" in 1 Peter 4:3
Kerry
1 James hastings, "Banquet," in A
Dictionary of the Bible, James Hastings ed.(Peabody, MA:Hendrickson
Publishers, 1988 reprint). vol. 1, p. 238.
2 Richard C. trench, Synonyms of the New
Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company 1953), P. 225.
3 Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: James, Peter, John
and Jude(Grand rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1949), p. 188.
4 Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 367.
5 These definitions from the lexicographers include "drinking,
esp a drinking party, carousal" (Arndt and Gingrich, p. 696);
"A drinking bout, corousal" (Liddell-Scott, p. 1456);
" a drinking, signifies not simply a banquet but a drinking
bout, a carousal" (Vine, p. 170). Moulton-Milligan define it
as "a drinking bout" but add that it can be used "in
a more general sense." This work cities a first-century B.C.
source in which a woman is promised not "to put anything
hurtful neither in drinks (potois)) nor eatables" and second-century
A.D. record of one who wrote "of what was stored I found of
the first vat drinkable (poten)" (p.531)
6 "Pino(drink); potidzo (water,give to drink); poterion(cup);
poma(a drink); posos(drinkong, a drink); potos (drinking, i.e.
reverly)" - Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of
the New Testament Theology, vol. 2, p. 274.