Alcohol has been called the great truth serum. If you want to know what someone really thinks or how they really feel, just get a few drinks in them. The freedom they feel in drunkenness, though, is a futile and pitiful illusion. The gospel offers a better, more satisfying freedom.
Alcohol has been called the great truth serum. If you want to get to the bottom of yourself — to truly know yourself better — grab a bottle.
People drink for lots of reasons. Many drink to experience freedom, an unrestrained, unchecked, and uninhibited ‘me.’ What comes out when you’re drunk — in person, over the phone, on social media, or in text messages — is supposed to be the real you, what you really think and feel under all the put-together masks you wear. The promise on tap is that excessive alcohol will unlock you to yourself and all your friends. It’s liberation by libation.
But the Bible presents a different picture of freedom. “For freedom Christ has set us free . . . Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:1, 13). Freedom, then, is not the selfish, reckless wielding of cravings and opinions. Freedom, rather, is the sober, calculated, sacrificial laying down of our lives for the good of others.
