Resolution 20: Food! Glorious Food!

20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

I am a BIG food fan... I love snacky stuff and I am a TOTALLY savoury girl (I'll choose starter over pudding any day) with only a slight (!) weakness for Sour Mix Haribo. Food is great, and I'm so grateful to God for creating food that is appetizing and delicious and vibrant! He could have made it dull... we could have needed a diet of gruel that we needed to eat and would satisfy us, but instead he created a vast variety of flavours and textures; sweet and sour; spicy and mild...

HUGE amounts of Jesus' time were spent around the dinner table; he ate with his friends, with his family, he ate at weddings and funerals, he celebrated at the dinner parties of religious guys, and had meals at the homes of the social outcasts. Jesus ate, and drank, and did it all for the glory of God.

Food and drink are GOOD things... God-given gifts that we are to enjoy... but we are also to be careful with them. They can so easily become idols - I can think all the time about what I eat because food curbs my anxiety/brings comfort OR I can think about food all the time because I don't want to get overweight - I count every calorie and can't enjoy it... both of these attitudes are not reflective of what God wants our attitude towards food to be. David Kotter, co-author the workshop series Eat and Be Content, had a look at what the Bible had to say about our relationship with food... 

It was clear that the Bible didn’t provide a menu for every day, or restrict people to only foods mentioned in the Bible for health.  Nor was there a requirement for believers to be a certain size, shape or weight.  But the Bible did speak to the heart of the issue.  The focus was not on food but on the act of eating.  Eating for ungodly reasons, such as reducing anxiety or masking feelings of guilt, is really a form of idolatry in the heart. I learned that overeating was a moral problem.  Believers were exhorted to eat for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).  Only through the gospel can believers hope to eat this way.  Only the gospel empowers believers to overcome these sins and gain discerning wisdom. All other diet plans and good intentions by themselves were bound to fail.

In this resolution, Edwards does not want us to stop enjoying the gifts of food and drink that God has given us - quite the opposite is true. If we keep food and drink in their right place - not over-indulging or over-analysing, we are much more likely to find true satisfaction in them.

As Paul writes...

So whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

- 1 Corinthians 10:31 -