There Are Some Sins We Just Don't Talk About Anymore . . .

Mike Hosey, An Elder

It is likely that you have heard the phrase, “the seven deadly sins,” before.  Given that the modern church has largely shied away from talking about sin, and given that it has also shied away from teaching its own history, it is unlikely that you know what those sins are or where they came from. Pope Gregory the Great, a man that John Calvin called the last good pope, codified them as we now commonly know them, but they began formulating long before even his time.   These sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Because almost any sinful behavior can fall into one of these categories, the medieval church used the list to teach children (and adult congregants) how to classify different kinds of naughtiness. Although all of these sins are certainly in the bible, you won’t find a single verse that touches on all of them, or even that refers to them as the deadly sins.

This might be because all sins are deadly. Only one sin is more deadly than all the others, and that is the sin of rejecting Jesus by refusing to believe how he has offered one a way out from those very sins (and all others). 

 

So let’s take a look at one of those deadly sins, and consider how it affects our lives.

In America, we almost never talk about the sin of gluttony, and I think this is because so much of our culture indulges itself in that particular sin.  In fact, it seems our whole media and advertising community is geared toward inciting us to that very sin.

Most of the time, we think of gluttony as the sin of over eating. No doubt, it is that.  But really, it is over doing anything.  Drinking too much is gluttony.  Facebooking all day long is gluttony. Eating the whole plate of wings, after you finished the plate of pizza at the Super Bowl party is gluttony. That Netflix binge you went on last week is gluttony.  In its purest form, gluttony is a lack of self-awareness, and therefore a lack of self-control. It always leads to some level of self-damage, and it can keep you from serving God in the most effective ways.