ECWA Food for the Day – 6th August, 2025

WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST 

 TEXT: JOHN 2:1-11 

 TOPIC: DID JESUS MAKE INTOXICATING BEVERAGES? 

In most African communities, clusters of drunken people staggering around aimlessly are a common sight. 

Any attempt to dissuade them from drunkenness will be met with stiff resistance and a ready-made answer: “Jesus made wine in Galilee.” This argument does not hold water because the wine Jesus made was not an alcoholic beverage that gets one drunk stupor. The Bible doesn’t contradict itself. 

Jesus cannot make an alcoholic intoxicant that has been forbidden by God. Grape juice has been referred to in the Bible as ‘new wine’ (Proverbs 20:1; 31:4-5; Ephesians 5:18).

The World Health Organisation estimates that alcohol kills three million people throughout the world every year. In other words, alcohol is the cause of 5.3 per cent of all human deaths annually. About one in every twenty deaths worldwide results from alcohol-related disease, injuries, accidents, murder, or suicide. 

The rate of alcohol deaths is greater than that of HIV/AIDS, which causes less than 2 per cent of deaths worldwide. 

It is unthinkable that the wine Jesus made was an intoxicating alcoholic beverage. It was, in fact, fresh grape juice that is called new wine.

QUESTION

Are you a victim of alcoholism?

PRAYER

Help me, Lord, I don’t want to be a slave to alcohol consumption. Please help me to be free from possible addiction.