The next two on the list of the 7 Deadly Sins are Lust and Gluttony. Both these sins promise to fill the soul, but instead they make us more hungry than we were before. Every time we commit these sins, we think we are filling a hole in our lives, but in reality, we are enlarging it. The sides widen, like a mouth, calling us to keep sinning more, just to feel full.
Lust Objectifies
The sin of Lust is where we objectify someone else and desire to ‘consume them’. This isn’t about wanting to share ourselves with another, but us wanting to use them for personal satisfaction.
Normally it is a sexual sin, but I think it goes beyond this. We can have lust for power, lust for position and even lust for possessions.
Lust creates objects out of people and promotes the importance of gaining things or objectives far above the needs of others.
For example, if someone lusts after a promotion at work, they would be willing to treat all those in their way with disdain. They would place others lower than their lust to achieve the promotion. And they may even hurt others on the journey.
Adultery
Matthew 5 v 28
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus says that even if we have lustful intent towards a woman, we have committed the sin of adultery. Lust is considered a capital (or deadly) sin, because from it flows other sins. In this verse, Jesus says lust leads to the sin of adultery. We may not commit the act, but even by entertaining the thought and mulling it over, we have sinned.
Another example of when sexual lust leads to other sins, is in the story of David and Bathsheba. Here King David sees Bathsheba bathing on the roof. He is consumed with lust and desires to ‘have her’. He effectively murders her husband by placing him on the front line of a battle. Where he eventually dies.
Earnest Desire vs Lust
In Greek, the word translated as lust is epithymeo. Based upon the context of the verse, depends on whether the word is translated as lust, desire or to long for.
Luke 22 v 15
And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired (epithymeo) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”
Here we see Jesus uses epithymeo to describe his desire to eat with His disciples. He was not lusting, but desiring. When we desire the things of God; the Good, the Beautiful and the True, we do not sin.
On a side note, the philosopher Roger Scruton describes beauty as something which we can’t help but return to, as it always makes us hunger for it more. It never truly fills us up.
This sounds like the sin of Lust, but instead of destroying our soul, the Good, the Beautiful and the True reorientates our lives to love and worship God.
The virtue which is the antidote to lust is chastity. And not just in a sexual sense, but also in other areas. If we find ourselves lusting after a promotion at work, maybe denying ourselves this will help us receive the promotion in God’s timing and others will not get hurt through our lust.
Sin of Gluttony
This sin is usually associated with food and where we over-eat or eat because of boredom.
But this sin goes beyond food and I would say it is where we over-indulge or act unrestrained in regard to the fleshly passions.
We can sin, not just in quantity, but also in quality. This is where we obsess over the things of highest quality. This could include designer clothes, high-end vehicles and holidaying in expensive and exclusive destinations.
In themselves, owning or enjoying these things are not sinful, but it is when we obsess over them. We put them above God and in one sense make them into idols.
This is the least confessed sin. I think because we live in an abundant culture, where nearly all our physical needs can be met by a click of a computer mouse. We don’t see it as a sin. Like fish swimming in water, we live our lives surround by excess and so gluttony is like second nature to us.
It could also be that in this time of abundance, we don’t have the feedback loop. Where if we were to over-eat during the Winter, we would run out of food and starve in the following Hungry Gap (early Spring).
The antidote to gluttony is temperance or self-control. If we can control our desires to consume in the extreme, it will help us to control ourselves when it comes to committing other sins.
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