In the nine months before October 2002, the date I began ministry at Faith Church, I worked at my denomination’s then seminary, Evangelical School of Theology, as the Director of the Annual Fund.* I had heard of the denomination, the Evangelical Congregational Church, and I had heard of the seminary, but this was the first time I was in close relationship with anyone deeply involved in the life of the denomination or seminary.
I had a shocking experience one day at the seminary, one that opened my eyes to a facet of the denomination’s history that I came to learn was a very big deal. At the time, my wife Michelle was selling Tastefully Simple products. Tastefully Simple creates a variety of delicious sauces, spices, dips, and mixes for easy food prep. A favorite of ours is their beer bread. All you need to do is mix up the batter with a can of beer or lemon-line soda, and bake it. Easy, and so amazing!
A month or so after my start at the seminary, Michelle made some beer bread, and I brought samples to the seminary, had a tasting over lunch, and invited seminary faculty and staff to purchase beer bread mix and dips from Michelle. It was a hit!
Except for an administrator who emailed me later in the day. He had partaken of the beer bread samples and loved it. But when he found out that Michelle used beer to make the bread, he said he never would have allowed it on campus. He even accused me underhandedly circumventing the seminary’s No Alcohol On Campus policy. He was very unhappy.
When you, the rather new employee, get an email like that from an administrator, it ruins your day. In no way were Michelle and I trying to do anything sneaky. Our understanding was that alcohol cooks off in the process of baking, so that the remaining bread is alcohol-free. I mentioned that in my response to him, and that data did not matter to him in the least. Thankfully, he seemed to believe me that I had no ill intent, but he did say something to the effect that this could never happen again.
What I learned that day was that the denomination has a long history of passionate disdain for anything related to alcohol. Years later when I did research in the denomination’s archives, I learned that every issue of our (now defunct) denominational magazine, The United Evangelical, which was published throughout the 1900s, included a full page of articles dedicating to eradicating alcohol in the USA. No surprise, our denomination was founded during American Prohibition in the 1920s.
While that strident anti-alcohol approach was removed from our denomination’s book of order in 2016, our book of order still includes a strong caution about casual consumption of alcohol, and a condemnation, in line with Scripture, of drunkenness. I find the current statement both biblical and reasonable.
When a person is inebriated, proper brain functioning is hampered. Sometimes a person is so drunk they are nearly unconscious. And that brings me to what we are studying this coming week. In the next passage of 1 Thessalonians, Paul uses drunkenness figuratively for how we are not to approach the return of Jesus.
How does Paul use drunkenness to help us understand the return of Jesus? See for yourself in 1 Thessalonians 5:5–11. What Paul has to say is important for all Christians to hear, and his point has nothing to do with alcohol consumption.
*Evangelical Seminary is now a part of Kairos University.
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 
pretty! 7 2025 My church building ripped my shirt (and what it taught me) – 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11, Part 1 superb