Don’t Get Drunk—Sing!

Scripture — Ephesians 5:15-20 (NRSV)

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Devotion

I have been a whole bunch of things in my life: student, graduate school teaching assistant, editor, journalist, college professor, seminary professor, webmaster, librarian, archivist, cafeteria dishwasher, data entry specialist at an insurance company, Methodist pastor, and Episcopal priest. (Not all of them in precisely that order). One of them, which you may not realize, is a historian of the temperance movement in the United States. I even wrote a book about it. It’s specifically about why Methodists use grape juice for Holy Communion.

While I was writing my dissertation—the basis for the book—I worked as a librarian at Drew University. My official title was “Methodist Librarian” because Drew had such a large collection of materials relating to the history of Methodism around the world, and I was in charge of much of it. Early in the dissertation process, I was browsing the library stacks one day in the section where books about temperance were shelved when my eyes hit on an ancient book—over 100 years old when I first read it, which is now over 20 years ago—called the _Temperance Bible Commentary _by Frederic Lees.

Today, you can read this book on Google Books or even order a reprint from Amazon. Then, I could not do word searches or scroll quickly to the end or do any of the things we now take for granted when doing research online. I had to turn the 100-year-old pages one by one. The commentary was a verse-by-verse treatment of every Bible verse in the Bible relating in any way to alcohol. And now you begin to see why I am telling you this story, because this Epistle passage was a highlight of Lees’ argument, and looking at his book brought that home to me in a new way. It is one of the clearest statements about alcohol in the Bible: “Don’t get drunk.” (I stand behind this message.)

This is the same Bible where Jesus makes wine at the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), so whether or not the Bible supports total abstinence from alcohol has historically been much more contested (as I learned while writing my book). But we have clear instructions here about avoiding drunkenness, embedded within a larger list of behavior directives —the sort of laundry list of how to walk the life of faith and run a church that Paul loves to give us. Just here we have “be careful,” “don’t be foolish,” “don’t get drunk,” “be filled with the Spirit,” “sing,” “give thanks,” and encourage each other.

In fact, this passage is the end of a larger list in Ephesians 5:1-14 which includes other pieces of good advice: avoid sexual immorality and vulgar, silly talk (this doesn’t mean don’t laugh, but don’t speak in a dehumanizing way); don’t be greedy; don’t be an idolater; don’t lie. Many of these derive from the ethics we find in the Ten Commandments. Some are specifically emphasized by Paul because he knew the hedonistic pagan Roman Empire context of his audience.

Why should we do (or not do) these things? We get a bit of an answer in this passage: the “days are evil.” If you were to read from Ephesians 5:1 on, you’d hear a bit more of the reason: we are now children of God, and hence we should “walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true” (Eph 5:8b-9).

The people I wrote about in my history of the temperance movement decided that what they needed to do in order to walk as God’s children was to avoid any alcohol at all. Whether or not that is your decision, their story reminds us that what we do as the children of God is lived out in our social context, and that whatever those around us may do, we must always encourage one another to do all that is good and right and true.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Water Into Wine at the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11).