Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Gluttony
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Tenth Edition defines a glutton as "one given habitually to greedy and voracious eating and drinking." Voracious is "having a huge appetite: ravenous; excessively eager: insatiable." Synonyms for "gluttony" are greed, avarice, gorge, epicure, cram, stuff, and guzzle. Children who eat voraciously are said to "eat us out of house and home," and an adult who eats often "plays a good knife and fork." We associate gluttony most often with overeating, but it can occur in many other forms such as drinking, smoking, gambling, sex, accumulating material things, or even too much studying and researching of a narrowly defined subject in theology, health, genealogy—the list is endless. The key term, however, is "too much." Signs of gluttony are too soon, too eagerly, too quickly.
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: Sin of Lust and Greed (Part One)
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Eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and anorexia are commonly associated with gluttony. As an affluent nation, we binge and starve and binge again, swinging from food-related anxiety to depression and guilt to pursuing sensory pleasure in food "addiction." For instance, bulimia is characterized by self-perpetuating and self-defeating cycles of gluttonous binge-eating and purging. During a "binge," the person consumes large amounts of food in a rapid, automatic, and helpless fashion. Though this may repress hunger, anger, and other feelings, it eventually creates physical discomfort and anxiety about weight gain. So the person "purges" the food eaten, usually by inducing vomiting and resorting to some combination of restrictive dieting, excessive exercising, laxatives, and diuretics.
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: Sin of Lust and Greed (Part One)
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Exodus 32:6
What happened to the God that brought them out of Egypt? Burnt offerings and peace offerings are symbols of worship. They started worshipping the calf. They started giving it honor, reverence, and respect. "...And the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." This does not have an innocuous connotation. "They sat down to eat" indicates gluttony. "They sat down to drink" suggests over-imbibing and drunkenness. "And they rose up to play" refers to fornication and sexual "play" beyond the pale of marriage.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Nature of God: Elohim
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Proverbs 23:19-21
A lack of self-control is commonly shown in lust, greed, gluttony, alcoholism, conceit, sexual sins, gossiping, violent quarreling, and false and reckless speech, and many other sins that Satan can tempt us to commit if we allow him.
Martin G. Collins
Self-Control
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Proverbs 23:20
God considers gluttony a character trait of an evil person, and so He tells us to avoid those who eat and drink too much. In this verse, meat represents food in general since meat partaken in a meal usually indicates a substantially filling meal. Since associating with gluttons could entice us to eat too much, it is wise to avoid close associations with them, as with any willfully sinning person. Familiarity with sin rubs off on us and wears us down.
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: A Lack of Self-Control (Part Two)
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Matthew 11:18-19
What are the children of wisdom? Good works and good fruit. Whether what we do is wise or foolish is seen in the fruit we bear and in what we accomplish. An alcoholic produces sorrow for himself and his family, battered wives and children, poor health, and a shorter life. A glutton produces a bad example for his family and his brethren, poverty, poor health, and eventually death. We must control our desires because excess desire is the driving force behind gluttony. When we lose control of it, we sin, feeding the god that is in our belly, the god of excess, the god of too much, too fast, too eagerly. Another interpretation of "wisdom is justified by her children" is that those who follow the wisdom from above recognize and live their lives based on truth. By their example in living wisely and righteously, they justify, prove, that it is the right and reasonable way to live. The way the wise live destroys the credibility of false accusations. Avoiding gluttony is one way to show that we are living in wisdom. The foolish—the opposite of the wise—tend toward gluttony.
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: Sin of Lust and Greed (Part One)
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Matthew 15:17-20
Because action follows thought, Jesus is against hatred, malice, and envy, all of which are included within "evil thoughts." Each is a form of the spirit of murder. His concern is not only with how we act but also why we act—not only in what we actually do but also in what we desire to do in our heart of hearts. To eat with unwashed hands does not defile the heart, but gluttony does. To eat with publicans and sinners does not defile, but self-righteousness does. What a person does against us does not defile us, but hatred, anger, and malice toward him does.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sixth Commandment (Part One) (1997)
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Romans 14:20-21
If we are gluttonous and encourage or cause others who are weak to be gluttonous, part of the responsibility of their sin rests on us. This puts a great amount of pressure on us to be our brother's keeper, looking after his welfare without judging him.
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: A Lack of Self-Control (Part Two)
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1 Corinthians 11:23-29
I Corinthians 11:17-34 encapsulates the solution to a tragic story of gluttony, drunkenness, class distinction, and party spirit—all within the framework of the "love feasts" of a Christian congregation! Why were some guilty of these sins? Because, despite being converted, some of them neither loved God nor their brethren, which a reading of the entire epistle reveals. To what does Paul refer them to correct their abominable behavior? To the Passover service and Christ's death! Christ's death is the supreme example of unselfish and sacrificial service in behalf of the undeserving guilty. It is the highest, most brilliant example of love. Out of a beneficent good will, the Father and the Son freely gave of themselves for the sake of our well-being. For those of us still in the flesh, this beneficent goodwill results in our forgiveness, forging a foundation from which the same approach to life can begin to be exercised. When we can properly judge ourselves in terms of what we are in relation to Their freely given sacrifices, it frees us, not only to conduct life as They do, but eventually to receive everlasting life too. Job confesses in Job 42:5-6, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Though Job was among the most upright of men, all his life he had held a wrong evaluation of himself in relation to God and other men. Yet when God allowed him to "see" himself, as He did the apostle Paul in Romans 7, Job was devastated, his vanity crushed, and he repented. Now, he was truly prepared to begin to love. "Do this in remembrance of Me" has a couple of alternative renderings that may help us understand more clearly. It can be rendered more literally, "Do this for the remembering of Me," or "Do this in case you forget." God does not want us to let this sacrifice get very far from our minds. It is not that He wants maudlin sentimentality from us. Instead, He wants to remind us that it represents the measure of His love for us as well as of our worth to Him, that we always bear a right sense of obligation, not as an overbearing burden, but a wondering awe that He would pay so much for something so utterly defiled. We are admonished to remember not merely the personality Jesus, but the whole package: His connection to the Old Testament Passover; His life of sacrificial service; His violent, bloody death for the remission of the sins of mankind; the sacrificial connection to the New Covenant; and who He was, our sinless Creator! This act becomes the foundation of all loving relationships possible to us with God and His Family because it provides us reason to hope that our lives are not spent in vain. In addition, it motivates us to do what we failed to do that put us into debt in the first place—to love. Paul admonishes in verse 29, "For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." To eat the bread or drink the wine in an unworthy manner is to treat His sacrifice with casual, disrespectful ingratitude—a better translation might be "without due appreciation, especially as shown by one's life." It means that the person who does this is not showing much love in his life because he is barely aware of his sins and the enormous cost of forgiveness. Such a person is not really free to love because he is still wrapped up in himself. When we take Passover, let us strive to remember that our fellowship at that special time is with Him. The others there to participate in the service are at that time only incidental to our relationship with Christ. The focus is on Christ and our unpayable debt and subsequent obligation.
John W. Ritenbaugh
An Unpayable Debt and Obligation
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Philippians 3:18-19
Paul writes in Philippians 3:18-19 that gluttons tend to concentrate on physical things, neglecting their spiritual relationship with God. We may think such idolatry is rare among us, but the apostle says there are "many . . . whose god is their belly," their appetites, their physical senses. They break the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me," because their desire becomes a higher priority than their Creator and Sustainer. Gluttony breaks the rest of the commandments as well: The second, when we serve or relinquish control to our physical desires. Colossians 3:5 says, "Therefore put to death your members which are on earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." We "bow down" to a false god when we gratify our lusts of the flesh and of the eyes (I John 2:16). The third, when we fail to uphold God's name—and all that it represents—in glory and honor. Many call themselves Christians and claim to follow Christ, but lack the holy character God wants us to have (I Peter 2:5, 9). Is "Glutton" the name God wants His holy people to have? I Peter 1:15 answers, "He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct." The fourth, when we use the Sabbath, a feast day, to crave and overeat. Sometimes we do this under the assumption that, since we are fellowshipping, we can eat excessive amounts. Eating or drinking too much is seeking our own pleasure, which Isaiah 58:13-14 warns against in the context of the Sabbath: If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD. . . . The fifth, when we do not wisely use the many years of support and training we received from our parents. A child of any age who does not have self-control is a worry and an embarrassment to his parents. The glutton, abusing his body with excessive food, may not live even as long as his parents, fulfilling the inverse of the commandment's promise. The sixth, by systematically and continually destroying the body and mind that God has given into our care. It is slow suicide. If parents are gluttons, they teach their children to do the same, thereby eventually killing them as well. Since our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19), to destroy it knowingly is sin. The seventh, when we over-eat, over-buy, over-accumulate as a "get" way of life. Our way of life is our religion, and if it is a lifestyle of excessive desire, our religion is in competition with God's way of life. This, in effect, is spiritual adultery, as seen in Jeremiah 3:6-10. God says in verse 9, "So it came to pass, through [Judah's] casual harlotry, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees." These idols, worshipped on the high places, became the object of Judah's excessive desire, just as food, drink, or any material thing can be. The eighth, when we take more than what is balanced and needful, thus more than God has given. In addition, by hoarding for ourselves we steal from others. Certainly, when there are people without enough, for us to consume more than we need is wrong (Proverbs 22:9; 11:24-26). A society that over-consumes at the expense of others is, at the very least, greedy. Wastefulness is a by-product of gluttony, and Americans no longer live by sayings like, "Waste not, want not!" We live in a careless, throw-away society, but the day will come when this gluttonous nation will lose everything and be taken into captivity. Proverbs 23:21 predicts, "For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty." The ninth, when we are gluttonous while calling ourselves Christians. This is a lie and hypocritical, misrepresenting God. Commonly, gluttons blame a thyroid problem or claim it is a disease, thereby relinquishing responsibility. If this is not true, it is a lie. It is also a lie if we think that giving into excessive desire will not hurt us. God speaks of such self-deception in Jeremiah 7:8-10: Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, "We are delivered to do all these abominations"? The tenth, when we are not satisfied with what we have and desire the possessions of others. A glutton wants even more than he has. Children must be taught not to want the biggest piece of cake or the most ice cream. Solomon had one wife, then he wanted another and another and another until he had hundreds. Solomon was a glutton, which his power and wealth made easier. As James says, if we break one commandment, we break them all (James 2:10). With gluttony, we can specifically break each one. It is not a trivial matter!
Martin G. Collins
Gluttony: A Lack of Self-Control (Part Two)
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Find more Bible verses about Gluttony:
Gluttony {Nave's}
Gluttony {Torrey's}
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