For years people have asked, “Where does the Bible say social drinking is wrong?” Some ask not knowing any better; others argue to justify their way of living. One answer to their question is I Peter 4:3 where Peter condemns "banquetings." Peter said that his readers, prior to being converted, had "walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries" (I Pet. 4:3).
Let us begin with the King James translators' use of the word "banquetings." Obviously, this word cannot mean that a banquet in the sense of a mere gathering for a meal is wrong. What kind of banquet is this, and why is it sinful? The answer is not that people present were gluttons, since the word translated "banquetings" is from the word potos, which denotes drinking, not eating. So this type of banquet was not wrong because of gluttony. It was wrong because of the drinking involved. Why did the King James translators use this word?" In the seventeenth century and earlier, banquet frequently signified, not the general feast, but the wine that came after; not the eating and drinking, but drinking only."1Shakespeare and another writer in that age used the word banquetto refer to drinking after a meal or simply drinking itself.
The amount of alcohol consumed by those gathered at such a banquet is unspecified. Some may have drunk to the point of intoxication, while others may have drunk a cup or two. The essential idea is that they were drinking. The Greek word potos means "the drinking bout, the banquet, the symposium, not of necessity excessive. . . but giving opportunity for excess."2The word refers to drinking in general at such gatherings. Barnes is right in saying that the word
means properly drinking; an act of drinking; then a drinking bout; drinking together. The thing forbidden by it is an assemblingtogether for the purpose of drinking. There is nothing in this word referring to eating, or to banqueting, as the term is now commonly employed. The idea in the passage is, that it is improper for Christians to meet together for the purpose of drinking—as wine, toasts, etc.3
Peter used three descriptions in this passage to denote different types of drinking. The first is "excess of wine." This expression has led some to ask, "Since Peter condemns excess of wine, then is the moderate, occasional use of wine justified?" The answer is "no." Notice the next verse (I Pet. 4:4), where Peter mentions, "excess of riot." Does this expression mean that moderate, occasional rioting is legitimate as long as we do not carry it to "excess"? "Excess of wine" is from oinophlugia, which means drunkenness. But the verse does not end at this point. Peter uses other words to describe different types of drinking that are sinful.
The second word is "revellings." This word is from komos, and refers to "feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry."4 This word overlaps with the first word because drunkenness is involved. But it adds the further idea that this drunkenness occurs with companions and involves partying and carousing.
The next word is "banquetings." We have already seen that this word denotes drinking alcohol. Could these banquets be sinful because of drunkenness and not "social drinking"? Does Peter condemn them because people were getting drunk there—nothing more, nothing less? But he has already covered drunkenness in the first word. So, we can rightly conclude that the word "banquetings" involves a different idea, a different aspect of drinking than simple drunkenness. Could these banquets have been wrong because of carousing that took place at them? But Peter has already dealt with this aspect of drinking as well in the word "revellings." Thus Peter is not emphasizing carousing at the banquets. Could these banquets have involved some type of idolatrous worship? Is this what made them wrong? The answer again is "no" because Peter lists "abominable idolatries" after "banquetings." Notice that "banquetings" does not necessarily exclude these activities. But this word does not necessarily involve them, and its point of emphasis as far as drinking is concerned is a gathering where drinking in general occurs. Thus "banquetings" (potos) is distinguished from "excess of wine" or "drunkenness" (oinophlugia), and that distinction is that these banquetings were drinking gatherings in general whereas "excess of wine" was drunkenness in particular. A similar relationship occurs between the words "lasciviousness" and "lusts" in this verse. These words obviously share common ground in meaning, since both are sins that are sexual in nature. But lasciviousness is the more specific term, referring to indecent bodily movements and impure handling between males and females. Lusts, on the other hand, is the more general term for impure desires. Thus, if "banquetings" refers to a type of drinking, and that drinking is different from mere drunkenness, then this word must include drinking that stops short of drunkenness. Therefore "social" drinking is "banqueting" and is sinful.
Some Greek authorities have not given due attention to this distinction.5They usually begin by giving potos the general meaning of drinking, but then add the idea of carousing or a drinking bout. They apparently do so either because some extra-biblical uses of this word connect it with such behavior (and potos only occurs one time in the New Testament) or because the other words in I Peter 4:3 refer to wild, carousing parties. But, as we have already seen, though carousing and drinking bouts may have been part of these banquetings, they were not the focus of the word. The emphasis of potos is simply drinking in general. In fact, this idea is particularly clear when we consider that potos is part of a family of words dealing with drinking.6
The word "banquetings" when understood in the sense mentioned earlier, is a good translation of the word potos. The most literal translation of this word is drinkings. The New King James Version uses the expression "drinking parties" while the American Standard Version uses "carousings." But neither of these two translations emphasize the essential meaning of the word, which is drinking in general.
"I know that getting drunk is wrong, but where does the Bible teach that drinking is wrong?" There are many Bible answers to this question. One is "banquetings" or "drinkings" in I Peter 4:3.
—Kerry Duke
1James Hastings, "Banquet," in A Dictionary of the Bible, James Hastings, ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988 reprint), Vol. 1, p. 238.
2Richard C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1953), p. 225.
3Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: James, Peter, John and Jude(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1949), p. 188.
4Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 367.
5These definitions from lexicographers include "drinking, esp. a drinking party, carousal" (Arndt and Gingrich, p. 696); "a drinking bout, carousal" (Abbott-Smith, p. 375); "drinking bout, carousal" (Liddell-Scott, p. 1456); "a drinking, signifies not simply a banquet but a drinking bout, a carousal" (Vine, p. 170). Moulton-Milligan define it as "a drinking bout" but add that it can be used "in a more general sense." This work cites a first-century B.C. source in which a woman promised not "to put anything hurtful neither in drinks (potois) nor in eatables" and a second-century A.D. record of one who wrote "of what was stored I found of the first vat drinkable (poten)" (p. 531).
6"Pino(drink); potidzo(water, give to drink); poterion(cup); poma(a drink); posis(drinking, a drink); potos(drinking, i.e. revelry)"— Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 2, p. 274.