The Truth About Timothy?

As many of you know, I thoroughly enjoy the Alcohol debate… that is the debate between people who believe the Bible teaches Christian to abstain versus people who disagree. From time to time my ears perk up when I hear people discussing this issue. Often times it is a preacher or teacher very so subtly inserting a phrase here and there which sheds light to their position – at least for those of us who are paying attention.

1 Timothy 5:23 reads, “No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. “

The question asked is, “Why did Timothy stop drinking wine?”

The common answer I have heard for this is that Timothy got saved and was living by the higher-standard set for overseers.

There are two problems with this reconstruction:
1) The “standards” (or qualifications) set for overseers is taken from 1 Timothy 3:2-7. Here it does not say that overseers should abstain from Alcohol, rather that they should not be drunkards (or addicted to wine).
2) Even if the “standards” included abstaining from alcohol, they were not given to Timothy until this letter – he would have had to know about the standard in order to abide by it.

Perhaps this is part of the reason Paul wrote Timothy – maybe Timothy thought the “standard” was abstinence from Alcohol and Paul wanted to make sure Timothy was clear that it was drunkenness that God was concerned about.

Here are a list of possible reconstructions to answer the question “Why did Timothy stop drinking wine?”

1) Timothy thought abstaining was the Biblical principle to obey.
2) Timothy was obviously sick and thought it would be better to strictly drink water.
3) Timothy was once an ex-alcoholic and thought he better abstain, just-in-case.
4) Timothy did not “stop” drinking wine, he never drank wine, just did not like it.
5) Timothy had relatives who were alcoholics and was afraid he might succumb to the same sin.

Well, that is all I can think of off the top of my head. So which of these five is it? Who knows. That really is not the point. We do not even know if we are asking a valid question. All we know is what the Bible tells us. Paul told Timothy to drink wine and he told Timothy that overseers should not be drunkards. It seems pretty plain and simple to me.