One Overlooked Sin: Gluttony

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In church, you can’t get away with a lot of missteps, mainly for good reasons. There is accountability from leaders, pastors, and people in your small group. Everything from verbal abuse to addiction to affairs are addressed in an individual’s life. But there is one major sin that is almost never addressed even when the individual is in a ministry role: Gluttony. Despite it being explicitly addressed as sin in scripture, we don’t take it seriously in our churches and in our families. However, its dangers are well noted.

Our Bodies Break Down Due to Excessive Consumption of Food Both in Quality and Quantity

It’s no secret that there has been a rise in cases of illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, celiac disease, dementia, and many other ailments. Sure, we have modern medicine to help treat these diseases but humanity is clearly doing something wrong. God has called us to take part in an important mission and we must be able to perform. This starts with eating the right food.

We Are Unknowingly Letting Culture Define Our Eating Instead of God

We are letting culture and media tell us what is good for us. We are more willing to trust what someone else has to say about food rather than doing our own research, and even looking into God’s word for answers. We see in the Bible that Jesus talks about a big feast we are going to have once we are in heaven and reconciled with God.

Revelation 19:9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God.”

If we were to look at modern marketing to determine what would be on the table during this “wedding feast of the lamb,” then we would see things like processed snacks, soda, and fast food. That’s not what God has in mind for us. He wants us to have food the way he designed it to be in the very beginning. We can’t let our modern culture shape how we see something as simple as food.

Gluttony Is Idolatry

Idolatry is a sin, but our culture has taken food and put it on a pedestal. We have turned it into an idol. It is where we find things like comfort, celebration, or even despair. When we are happy, we eat. When we are sad, we eat. Most of what we do involves eating. We are exchanging Christ for food. Jesus is the great comforter. He is our cause of celebration. He is who we should turn to in times of despair. But we have put food in that place and created a dependency on food that most of us don’t even notice. We have to shift that dependency back to christ.

Self-Forgetfulness and Self-Neglect Are Different Things

As Christians, we should be self-forgetful. We should take ourselves out of the equation and place all focus on Christ and his will for us. However, people are confusing their self-forgetfulness for self-neglect. They are telling themselves that they don’t need to be healthy because these are just our earthly bodies. This can lead to indulgence and even put our lives at jeopardy.

We were designed to take part in God’s important mission. We can’t do that if we don’t have the energy or health to perform. For this reason we should put more focus on eating foods that have stayed the way that God designed them. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to become consumed in the gluttony of today’s culture.