Paul’s counsel to Timothy to “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments” (1 Tim 5:23 ESV) has puzzled scholars. While the instruction is straightforward, its relevance to the immediate context remains a mystery. Key questions of this text are: What situation precipitated the instruction? Why Timothy seems to have been reluctant to drink wine in the first place? While some interpretations invoke a misguided religious zeal by Timothy, others suggest Timothy’s abstinence is due to his reaction against drunkenness among the opponents. One angle that has yet to be explored in 1 Timothy 5:23 is the link between drunkenness and reckless speech in both Greco-Roman moralists and the Jewish wisdom tradition.
I argue that Paul’s concession on wine found in 1 Timothy 5:23 should be read against both Timothy’s task to rebuke others and the ethical tradition that cautioned against combining insobriety with speech. In other words, Timothy’s hesitancy to partake in wine altogether is due to his vocation to verbally correct others joined with sympathies to guard against drunkenness and reckless speech.
I argue this thesis by first providing an overview of scholarly views of 1 Timothy 5:23 and pointing out weaknesses. Second, I survey both Greco-Roman moralists and Jewish sources on the motif of drunkenness and speech, showing how these contexts assume a moral connection between insobriety and the tongue and thereby promote caution when the two are coupled. Third, I show how the Pastoral Letters generally promote a cautious approach to speech, drawing attention to how they often bring together sobriety and speech. Finally, I highlight Timothy’s task to engage in “corrective speech” before looking at the immediate context (1 Tim 5:19–25) surrounding 1 Timothy 5:23, arguing that Paul’s instruction can conceivably cause his delegate to abstain from wine as he carries out his vocation to correct and instruct others.