Today's Question: What is your view about churches serving free beer to attract new members to their churches? Click here for the story. --Crystal

Bible Answer: I am shocked that some churches are resorting to serving free beer to get people to come to church.

I noticed that the churches doing this have already backslid. Now they backslide further by using this carnal attempt to stem back the declining membership. It seems that these churches have become worldly. For example: they have accommodated the worldly view of same-sex relationships. No wonder these churches are declining.

The answer for these churches isn't to decline even further into immorality by serving beer, but to repent, and to get back to the reason Jesus Christ established His Church: to save souls and to be the light of goodness to those in darkness.

People should come to church for good reasons: to worship God, to hear His Word preached, to receive Holy Communion, to give offerings to God, to pray and to fellowship with other believers. They should not be offered free beer to come to church. The churches are tempting people, like Satan would, by using beer as a lure to supposedly get them saved. But God has His own lure: the supernatural power of God will bring people into church.

Someone might argue, "But Jesus turned water into wine, so what's wrong with having beer in Church?" It's wrong because Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding "banquet" (Jn 2:9), not inside a Jewish Synagogue. There may be a time and place for celebration with alcohol, but the Church is not the place and church services is not the time.

Another argument people might have is this: "Doesn't the Church serve wine for Holy Communion, so isn't it hypocritical to limit it to communion?" While our church does not use real wine, I have no problem with it; however, it is for a holy purpose--to declare the sacrifice of Christ, not to indulge in casual drinking. The Apostle Paul had to deal with the abuse of Holy Communion in his day. The people were using communion to feed their physical appetites, rather than remembering the meaning of Christ' death. Paul even accused some of them of "getting drunk" (1 Cor 11:21) on communion wine. He asked a rhetorical question, "Don't you have homes to eat and drink in?" (1 Cor 11:22). If people want to drink beer or wine then let them do it in their homes; not at church during service times.

A final argument might be this, "Churches serve food all the time, so what is wrong with alcohol? Both can be abused: drunkenness and gluttony. So why exclude alcohol but not food?" While it is true that both drunkenness and gluttony are sins, drunkenness has greater bad side effects than gluttony.

The Bible affirms this: "Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise" (Prov 20:1). Many fights have taken place in bars and nightclubs as a result of drunkenness. Alcohol impairs judgment in a way that overeating does not. No one ever got into a brawl because they had one too many tacos. So while gluttony is a sin like drunkenness you cannot place them both side by side and say they have equal devastating consequences.

So why would a church, knowing the devastating effects of drunkenness, then promote it during worship services? This is foolish. The church should be delivering people from alcoholism, not promoting it.

What's next? Pole dancing?