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IVP - Hard Saying of the Day
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1 Timothy 5:23: Wine for the Stomach? In the context of a society in which the abuse of alcohol is such a serious problem, this piece of personal advice from Paul to Timothy raises for many the question of the legitimacy of the use of alcohol. Since alcohol is so easily abused, and since its abuse leads to the enslavement of people to addiction, should not Christians be encouraged to abstain from any use of it? This latter, prohibitionist view is expressed in a somewhat humorous anecdote from a discussion of this issue among a group of deacons. To the factual affirmation by one deacon that Jesus had turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana (Jn 2), another deacon replied, "Yes, he did, but he shouldn't have!" When the basic premise is the conviction that any use of alcohol is wrong, then Jesus' action and Paul's admonition become problematic.
Paul's word must be understood in the context of other advice in the correspondence with Timothy and Titus. It also must be seen as a sound piece of advice in the cultural context and as an expression of a central biblical principle for Christian living.
Earlier in 1 Timothy, Paul had listed among the characteristics of those who would be leaders in the church that they be "not given to drunkenness" (1 Tim 3:3) or "not indulging in much wine" (1 Tim 3:8). In advice to Titus, elders need to be examples who are "not given to drunkenness" (Tit 1:7), and the elder women in the church are to be taught not to be "addicted to much wine" (literally, "slaves to wine," Tit 2:3). In all these injunctions, the emphasis is clearly on moderation; namely, a responsible use of alcohol that does not lead to its control of one's life. This is in keeping with a central principle of Christian life stated by Paul in Ephesians 5:18: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." The only legitimate controlling reality in the believer's life is to be God's Spirit. All other controlling realities are, in fact, idolatrous.
In light of these prohibitions against the excessive use of alcohol, Paul's advice to Timothy, "Stop drinking only water and use a little wine" (emphasis mine), implies that Timothy may have concluded, from the warnings against excessive use, that total abstinence was called for. It may even be that the false teachers, in their prohibition against certain foods (1 Tim 4:3), had argued for total abstinence.
In any case, Timothy's total rejection of alcohol seems to have had harmful consequences for his health. So Paul, in keeping with his warnings against abu-sive use, counsels for the use of "a little wine." In this, he is simply reflecting the common use of wine, especially for medicinal purposes, in the ancient world. Its beneficial effects "against dyspeptic complaints, as a tonic, and as counteracting the effects of impure water, were widely recognized in antiquity" and are confirmed by modern medicine. Paul's view on this matter may have been backed by the advice of his fellow worker Luke, the beloved physician.
.........
Gordon Fee understands these warnings as "negative reflections on first-century culture itself, which often admired heavy drinkers" (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Good News Commentary [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984], p. 140).
Whether these teachings were grounded in Jewish regulations regarding clean and unclean foods, we do not know. But in the advocacy of an ascetic style of life, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus ( A.D. 55-135) taught that one should "drink water only." (Cited by A. J. Hultgren, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984], p. 93.)
J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (New York: Harper, 1964), p. 129, cites several Jewish and Hellenistic sources, including Hippocrates, who recommended moderate amounts of wine for a patient for whose stomach water alone is dangerous.
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