Quick answer
These qualifications do not sound like an endorsement of alcohol culture. They treat being given to wine as incompatible with the steady judgment expected of church leaders.
1 Timothy 3:3 (KJV)
“Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;”
Titus 1:7 (KJV)
“For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;”
In the wider Bible-wine survey, these passages belong on the warning side.
What these passages show
This grouped page matters because it shows that the New Testament does not wave away wine concerns when it speaks about spiritual leadership. Leaders are to be watchful, temperate, and not mastered by appetites.
Read them alongside is drinking alcohol biblical, is drinking a sin, and wine in the Bible.
Keep these texts together
Read these texts with the sober-minded passages, with 1 Timothy 3:8 and Titus 2:3, and with the warnings in Proverbs and Isaiah.
Frequently asked questions
Do these texts apply only to leaders?
The qualifications are stated for leaders, but they still reveal the Bible’s moral seriousness about wine and judgment.
Why keep these with the wine debate?
Because they show that New Testament holiness language does not treat being given to wine as a small issue.