In the Bible food is more than a matter of survival and enjoyment; it is an instrument of divine wisdom. Just as Adam and Eve were confronted with food choices at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2:16-17) – so Wisdom and Folly implore the readers of Proverbs to dine at their respective tables.
Lady Wisdom (cf. God’s voice, Gen 1:29): 9:5 “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.”
Woman Folly (cf. Serpent’s voice, Gen 3:5): 9:17 “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
Proverbs endorses the enjoyment of food and drink, and yet the sages warn that, like all good gifts, when used wrongly food and drink may serve to our destruction.
23:20-21 Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, 21 for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and its beautiful fruit would have served as a constant reminder that God reigns and provides, God is in control, and God sets the boundaries.
“If you love me”, says Jesus (John 14:15), “you will keep my commandments.” Eden was a garden of bounty, but also of boundaries. There was plenty to eat, but the provision of food and its enjoyment came in context with relationship to God – of joyful creaturely gratitude and dependence and obedience – not of rivalry.
The issue of whether we should enjoy food is not a question – the test of wisdom comes in knowing what and when and where, how much and with whom we should eat or not eat. There is consistent advice in Proverbs: 1) Tame your appetite. 2) Satisfy your appetite. 3) Share your appetite.
1. Tame your appetite.
25:27-28 It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory. 28A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.
City walls protected against invasion by hostile enemies. Eugene Peterson translates for our context: A person without self-control is like a house with its doors and windows knocked out. (Eugene Peterson, The Message, Prov 25:28)
The great thing about doors and windows is that you can open and close them. You can walk in and out. You can let the fresh air in or shut out the cold. Windows are not that great if they’re just an opening in the side of the house – where weather and mosquitos come in and out at all times. Is your mouth an open aperture on the front of your head – or a functioning door, which opens and shuts on command?
Indulgence is great – but overindulgence is not. Temperance (self-control) is not about repression of all desire, but about the right alignment of healthy desire. As Ellen Davis puts it:
“…temperance forbids any form of self-degradation…it demands that we use our passions wisely rather than being tyrannized by them. Above all, temperance aims at keeping us free for God’s service.” (Ellen Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; 107-08)
The self-controlled person understands that earthly pleasures are not ultimate – that we are made for more and greater enjoyment. We eat to live. We don’t live to eat. The addict and the glutton are controlled by their desires rather than taming them. They are tossed about on the waves of appetite. They see no higher vocation. 23:35b “When shall I awake? I must have another drink.”
The secret of self-control comes in the recognition of God’s control and the acceptance of God’s call.
John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
When you live for a clearly higher purpose, food and drink are placed in perspective (Matt 6:25-33). And taming physical hunger and thirst often proves the beginning of taming other appetites. Many a spiritual battle has been first won at the dinner table (cf. Daniel 1:12ff., Matthew 4:2-4).
2. Satisfy your appetite.
NIV 13:25 The righteous eat to their hearts’ content, but the stomach of the wicked goes hungry.
Life is more than food and drink, and yet life is not less than enjoyment of these good gifts. Remember that Jesus Christ was accused of gluttony because he enjoyed feasting with other people (Luke 7:34) – yet he always gave thanks (Matt 15:36; Matt 26:27)!
Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil- this is God’s gift to man.
Fasting can prove a vital discipline, but mortification of the flesh does not require perpetual deprivation. And spiritual self-control is not about personal pride in exerting your own will power. It has more to do with cultivating gratitude and knowing when enough is enough. There is an element of our culture which is extremely preoccupied with body image and prides itself on highly limited food consumption. This is a different kind of trap.
“The problem is that what seems like a “good thing” and appears to be mere “self-discipline” is actually a ritual that begins to deny life and crush our spirits. Instead of being healthy, we are an object that retains value from being “perfect” or without mark. Our preciousness is no longer defined by the beauty of our soul or the standing of our spirit. We are the looks we draw.”
(Leanne Spencer, as quoted by Constance Rhodes, Life Inside the Thin Cage, 20)
It is said that lack of self-acceptance is at the core of disordered eating. We feel insecure because we desperately seek the approval of other people, rather than rejoicing in God’s approval and acceptance. God loves you spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally, and physically, whether you count yourself fat or thin. He gave us food as a blessing to enjoy, not as a bondage to self-absorption.
3. Share your appetite.
23:6 Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies, 22:9 Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.
Food is intended for more than personal pleasure (not less); our relation to food corresponds to our relation with neighbors. Food enables hospitality as a boon to friendship, while hoarding prohibits relationship. Our meals should become a means of reconciliation and daily renewal of fellowship with one another – in our families, our church, with neighbors and friends and even enemies (Psalm 23:5).
Don’t make the mistake of thinking gluttony is always shared with others. In fact, it can be very isolating. As the old rat Templeton told Wilbur the pig in Charlotte’s Web, upon being invited to play with the young pig: “I’m a glutton but not a merry-maker.” (E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web, ch. 4)
Perhaps for some of you overindulgence has become that place where you hide from your troubles and isolate yourself from engagement with others. Today, God’s inviting you back out into the open – to a better way of life and a greater enjoyment of life in relationship with others. We assume gluttony is a private sin which harms no one else, but we are wrong – it really affects everybody around us. We will not understand what it is to truly tame and satisfy our appetite until we learn how to share it.
The peace offering (a.k.a. fellowship offering) in Israel holds close similarities to the Passover and thus to the Lord’s Supper – we partake as a bodily participation in the significance of the death of Christ. The peace offering required that the sacrificial animal be eaten by the family who brought the offering that very day. A portion was burned on the altar unto the LORD, a portion was eaten by the priest, and the rest was to be eaten by the family (Leviticus 7:13-18). This holy table fellowship was a sign of the reconciliation of God and humanity – hostile parties renewed in friendship through the forgiveness of sins.
“Eating together before Yhwh brings into being or cements their relationship. …The priest offers the animal to Yhwh, and it thus belongs to Yhwh, so that what the offerers then eat is the food of God. …Making the animal an offering to Yhwh (even if the worshipers then eat most of it) turns a barbecue into a worship event.” (John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology v. 3, Israel’s Life, 141-42)
Likewise, Jesus’ invitation to eat bread as his body and drink wine as his blood is an invitation to surrender our lives to God and allow Christ to set new boundaries of love and significance. All are welcome, but all must come as passive receivers of the holy food of God.
(Full sermon audio available here: theuniversitychurch.org)
Speaking Truth in Babel 