Gluttony

While the reader does not quote a specific text, he asks, "Why does the church seem virtually silent in preaching and teaching on the subject of gluttony? I have seen it said that in the past the church preached on it while today we practice it!"

Scripture mentions the sin of gluttony more than once, although not frequently. In Deuteronomy 21:20, Israel’s fathers are commanded to take a rebellious and stubborn son to the elders and to say to them, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard." This command to take a rebellious son to the elders is still in force! In Proverbs 23:20-21, Solomon admonishes God’s people, "Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." The Jews considered gluttony to be a serious sin, for they charged our Lord with being "a gluttonous man and a winebibber" (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34). Although gluttony is not mentioned by name in Proverbs 23:1-3, the admonition is important: "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat." And it would not hurt to read also verses 4-8.

The reader assumes in his question that gluttony is a sin, but asks specifically why ministers never preach on it. I do not know the answer; there may be many answers: The minister himself eats too much; when a minister condemns gluttony from the pulpit the people greet such an admonition with hilarity (as happened once to me); too many in the congregation are gluttonous and the minister does not want to offend; gluttony is generally considered a rather insignificant sin, not worth our attention.

One reason, however, why ministers rarely, if ever, preach on the sin may be that gluttony is hard to define. I suspect that a thin man who eats all he wants and never puts on a pound will define gluttony somewhat differently from a person who eats sparingly and yet finds that everything he eats turns to fat.

A man who eats voraciously and never puts on weight may be guilty of the sin of gluttony, while an overweight person may not be. Not all obese people are gluttons, and not all thin people are free from this sin. The elders in the church do not discover those who are gluttonous by entering each home and weighing the members of the family on a scale they carry with them.

A further problem of no little significance is: How much may a person eat before falling into the sin of gluttony? Or, along the same line, What foods may he eat and what foods may he not eat to keep himself from the sin of gluttony?

There are few gluttons in third-world countries where the problem is not over-eating, but keeping one’s self alive. We who live in affluence must consider that the sin belongs especially to our times and in our circumstances.

However, I do sincerely believe that conscientious ministers who are intent on preaching the whole counsel of God and who seek to apply that Word of God to the congregation do preach on gluttony, but do so without specifically mentioning the sin. How so?

The amount of what we eat and drink and the kinds of food and drink are all matters of Christian liberty. They belong to that area where no laws ought to be made, where the Christian, anointed by Christ to be king in God’s house, rules his life by the principles of Scripture, and where his own conscience is his guide—a conscience bound by the Word of God. And so a conscientious minister preaches the principles underlying this sin. What are some of them?

We are not to be concerned about what we shall eat and what we shall drink, because God, who takes care of the sparrows, has promised to take care of us (Matt. 6:25-34). Much gluttony begins by failing to heed these words of Jesus. With full refrigerators, we worry constantly.

We are not to be ascetics who, in the interests of staying thin, shun God’s gifts. We are to receive them with gratitude, sanctify them with the Word of God and prayer, and enjoy them as good gifts of God (I Tim. 4:1-5).

We must never think of food and drink as ends in themselves, to be enjoyed for their own sakes, but we are to remember that our calling is to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). That is, food and drink are given us by our Father in heaven so that we may have the strength to continue our pilgrim’s journey to heaven, and, while we are still on earth, to do the work of the kingdom given us as our assignments by Christ.

If we indulge in food and drink of the most costly kind and give not to the poor, the food we eat will not only make us fat, but it will turn to bile within us under God’s curse. God is very concerned about the poor.

So important is the kingdom of God’s righteousness that its obligations supercede food and drink. If it is necessary, as it is for many people, to choose between Christian school tuition and meat, between the preaching and potatoes, between missions and peaches, the causes of God’s kingdom must come first.

When, in our affluence, we eat delicacies and exotic foods that are not good for us, we become gluttons. When we eat any food that does harm to our health, we sin. This does not mean that we have to listen to doctors all the time or to take a small scale to the dinner table or to count calories constantly, but it does mean that the scriptural rule, "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand" (Phil. 4:5) is a word much needed in our day. In eating and drinking as well as in all other things, let us do all to God’s glory (I Cor. 10:31).