Proverbs 23:20 Commentary and Bible Study

We take these two verses literally first of all, and then we see what they picture even beyond their immediate meaning. Another way you could put it – never be in pubs and bars. Whatever is a Christian doing in a pub or a bar? That is the place where people drink in order to be influenced by drink and have their moods, so they imagine, elevated – actually chemically depressed, but that is the purpose of it. Why be in that company, influenced by drink and so on? This is really a prohibition of believers ever being in places that are dedicated to drinking. And not only about alcohol, other forms of intoxication: pop concerts, where the sound drug is beaten into the mind to alter your level of consciousness and your mood. The whole purpose of it is for you to be influenced, you imagine by uplifting you and so on, putting you on another plane, another level. but really it is sound intoxication. Be not in places of gluttony, where that is the objective, or other forms of self-indulgence. The fundamentalists are right, there is a clear prohibition in the Bible on mood affecting circumstances, places where appetite is king.‘For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.’ Is this an unfair generalisation? Is it not true that some near alcoholics have made fortunes, and some near alcoholics have been instrumental in winning wars and defending nations, and some near alcoholics have accomplished extraordinary things. Yes, it is a fair statement because certainly sometimes the near alcoholic can achieve extraordinary things, but clearly not generally speaking. The usual rule will be that people who in any shape or form are given to appetites or intoxicating substances or sounds, are deprived by those things.