Bible Verses Containing the Word "Strong Drink" as a reference to "Wine"

Some years ago the magazine Christianity Today published an article stating that to compare the wine of Jesus' day to today's brands is like comparing apples to oranges. The article noted that it was the biblical custom of the Jewish people to dilute wine to 2/3 water and 1/3 wine. Anything stronger than this was considered "strong drink".
The article went on to make a comparison by way of illustration. It noted that it would take 26 glasses of New Testament wine to equal a single modern martini. Hence, the beverages of today would all be biblically catagorized as "strong drink" that would not have been encouraged, but rather, fround upon.
Clearly, the reason that the magazine found it necessary to go to such depths of research is because there is no verse in the bible that commands total abstinence for all. Rather, the bible commands self control. However, for those who were going to be dedicated to God ( as the Nazarite and/or John the Baptist) the rule was abstinence.

I have no idea when you posted it but ran accross it and couldn't agree with you more. I really don't know the hang-up with Christians on this issue, but this pastor thinks its been used as a method to secure false righteousness to weaker Christians, and to judge people "of this world" as weaker and "less than" in the eyes of God.

My thoughts on "strong drink" is everyone seems to think it's the difference between "wines" (i think because it's they only way some can justify that Jesus drank it). But Wine has been made the same way for thousands of years, and so have strong drinks of today (ie vodka and other liquors). I think we assume there are differt types of wine, but could there could be different drinks all together? Just thinking outside the box.

The above post seems to speak with knowledge but everything he said is wrong. The only things that are the same is the fermentation of the sugar in the grapes. There has been developments in the types of grapes to produce higher sugar content as well as the yeast to produce the fermentation. In Israel of that day the type of grapes used were more like muscadine grapes and produced an alcohol content of about 2.5%. Edmund de Rothchild introduced wine making grapes to Israel.

Even though the wine was of a much lower content early Christian leaders said that it should be diluted by 10 parts water to 1 part wine. Wine was also defined as either alcoholic or non-alcoholic until the early twentieth century just as cider is today. There are many examples of this in early Greek writings. Crude distillation was invented by this time but there is no evidence that is was used in Israel.

All of this information is available if one is interested in finding out before speaking.

What does it all matter? In my humble, uneducated opinion, the important thing is to control yourself. To be responsible in all you do including drinking. This does not mean you are looking down on others, just that you recognize that everything you do has a consequence and you are making descions that are best for you in your own circumstances. Since you are not another, you cannot judge or look down on other people and their choices. You aren't going through what they are or have their background on which to make their choices from.

Remember that in those times water was still unclean, so wine was used to help them drink something not harmful. If you have depression; drinking is bad because wine or anything is a depressent. It makes things worse. The heavy hearts may not be reffering to depression but to non Christians, or someone who does not believe in God.