Transcript
Ben Fallon: Paul, Lee emailed in and asked, “I've been challenged by your series, The gospel in Your Neighborhood, about evangelism and being a light. I need your advice. Our neighbor, next door, has invited us over for supper twice; they've provided beer and wine. They know we don't drink, but no one seems offended. I want to have them over to our place. So, do I buy beer and wine for them? Do I ask them to bring their own as we normally do with company, or do we abstain from beer and wine altogether? So, how would you answer this question in light of, or applying 1 Corinthians 8:13, ‘Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.’ What are your thoughts on having alcohol in any type of social gathering, regardless of whether it's with Christian or non-Christian or maybe mixed?”
Paul Tripp: And so, let me speak to the larger issue, give some principles here, and then speak to the specific. It's tempting, in our fear of allowing ourselves to be enslaved to something, to set boundaries that God didn't set. And that actually means we add to his law by making our own laws. That's part of the function of legalism. And so, I have to say this, that there is no clear biblical prohibition when it comes to alcohol. You know, sort of humorously, Christ's first miracle is making barrels of wine that were better than the wine that was served; and contrary to what people try to say, that was fermented wine, it was wine.
What the Bible does prohibit, very clearly, is drunkenness. It is clear that God calls us not to be mastered by anything but him. And so, we need to avoid that thing that God says is wrong. Now, avoiding drunkenness doesn't mean you never touch alcohol. It means you are moderate and disciplined in your use of this thing. And it goes back to the larger principle that God, in his goodness, has placed us in a pleasurable world. This world is beautiful and it's full of sight and sound and taste and touch pleasures, and he's given us all these pleasure gates on our bodies so we can enjoy those pleasures. But it's very, very important to understand that pleasure needs boundaries. Boundaryless pleasure is going to destroy you. You can't eat whatever you want to eat, and as much as you want to eat, or it will destroy your health. And you can't have sex whenever you want to have sex. You can't use money however you want to use money. The list could just go on and on. Every pleasure that God has given us requires boundaries, and alcohol is surely one of those.
There's a second principle here; it is that I don't want to be in any situation where I cause another person to cross the boundaries of pleasure that God has set. I would not want to serve alcohol to someone that I thought is not able to handle alcohol, maybe is a recovering alcoholic. So, I want to be very careful.
Now this is where you have to exercise individual, situational kinds of wisdom. If you're not a drinking family, I wouldn't go out and buy beer and wine. First of all, you have no idea what to buy and it's just not necessary. Be who you are and be hospitable as you normally would with anyone else. If it's a situation where you do have beer or wine in your house, and you're inviting somebody, and you don't know how they handle those things, you may choose not serve them because you just don't know and it's not necessary.
If I'm with a group of friends, and I know the people in the room, and I know the lives that they live, wine is wonderful with a meal, and I would have no problem serving wine. So, we don't want to set boundaries that God doesn't set, but we also don't want to cause another person to stumble. And in there is where the choices you need to make are to be made.
BF: “Thank you, Paul.” If you've been blessed by “Ask Paul Tripp,” we would invite you to prayerfully consider a donation to Paul Tripp Ministries. We are 89% donor-funded as a not-for-profit organization, and our goal is to make as much of Paul's content completely free as possible; but that can only be done with the generous support from our community. You can learn more about partnering financially with Paul Tripp Ministries at paultripp.com/give. Thank you for your generosity!”
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