Should the weight of pastors be addressed?

[Ascetic X]

https://manhoodjourney.org/is-gluttony-a-sin/

The sin of gluttony is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of food or drink. But there is a bigger idea at play. It is a desire for more that cannot be quenched, not unlike greed. The point is that food becomes a god for you. In Genesis 25, Esau trades his entire birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. One meal. His appetite cost him everything his future held, and it is one of the clearest pictures of gluttony in all of Scripture.

So, is gluttony a sin? Yes. And it is one that rarely gets called out from the pulpit. We tend to treat it as a respectable sin, something to laugh off while we go back for seconds. But it is not all that different from the deadly sin of lust. Both are rooted in appetite overriding obedience. Both cause real damage to the man and everyone around him.

In the 4th century, Christian teachers tended to list eight especially damaging sins, and gluttony was usually near the top of the list. John Cassian is an example:

[W]e now propose, being strengthened by God through your prayers, to approach the struggle against the eight principal faults, i.e. first, Gluttony or the pleasures of the palate; secondly, Fornication; thirdly, Covetousness, which means Avarice, or, as it may more properly be called, the love of money, fourthly, Anger; fifthly, Dejection; sixthly, “Accidie,” which is heaviness or weariness of heart; seventhly, κενοδοξία which means foolish or vain glory; eighthly, pride.

 

[atpollard]

I suspect “gluttony” is not about food or being overweight when the Bible talks about such things. Y’all are pastors (by and large) and I am not … but sin and I are no strangers.

Starting with Adam and Eve and the fruit in the garden, it was pleasant to look at, delightful to the senses and good for becoming like God. Those are the three areas that all sins draw us into the trap:

”lust of the eye” = seeing and wanting; including lust and coveting.
”pleasures of the flesh” = physical self indulgence; hedonism.
”pride of life” = desire for control; the need to be master of our destiny; refusal to submit to God.

I suspect Biblical warnings about “gluttony” are not about food, but about the attitude of the heart that feeds the “flesh”.

 

[Ascetic X]

I suspect “gluttony” is not about food or being overweight when the Bible talks about such things. Y’all are pastors (by and large) and I am not … but sin and I are no strangers.

Starting with Adam and Eve and the fruit in the garden, it was pleasant to look at, delightful to the senses and good for becoming like God. Those are the three areas that all sins draw us into the trap:

”lust of the eye” = seeing and wanting; including lust and coveting.
”pleasures of the flesh” = physical self indulgence; hedonism.
”pride of life” = desire for control; the need to be master of our destiny; refusal to submit to God.

I suspect Biblical warnings about “gluttony” are not about food, but about the attitude of the heart that feeds the “flesh”.

Gluttony is most certainly about food. Your suspicions are wrong.

Gluttony is over-indulging in food. It is lust for more food than you need, which leads to disease and wrecking your body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit,

Proverbs 23:20-21 - Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.

Proverbs 23:2 - And put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.

Deuteronomy 21:20 - And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 - Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Proverbs 25:16 - If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.

Psalm 78:18 - They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved.

1 Corinthians 10:31 - So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Philippians 3:18-19 - For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.