Palatka51 said:
Over eating can be offset by increased activity. This is not gluttony in the Biblical sense.
...To point and call an overweight individual a glutton is to judge without knowing the person but judgment by association with his weight. This is Pharisaical.
Gluttony is to food what being a drunkard is to alcohol. The two are often mentioned together for this reason. Being a drunkard is drinking more then the appropriate amount of alcohol.... it is drinking passed satisfaction and until "drunk" to use a common phrase. That is why Jesus was able to drink the "wine and other fermented drink" John abstained from, but still was not a drunkard. That is also why "drunk driving" is not driving after one beer, but typically it takes 3 or more beers in quick succession to be charged with that offense. Being drunk is drinking until your liver cannot process the amount of alcohol you are putting into it. The excess goes to your brain and stays there, and you start to stumble and not be in control of your body any longer. (Science has shown the liver can processes 2-3 drinks per hour up to a certain point, by the way... though that differs with weight and sex, it could be as little as 1).
Anyway, similarly, being a glutton is eating more then the appropriate amount of food. It is eating until the body starts storing fat in excess b/c it has nothing to do with all the extra calories you put into it. Gluttony is eating after you've had enough.
I grant that exercise can increase one's caloric requirements, so in that sense it can increase the amount of food that is appropriate. However, that doesn't change what gluttony is, it just changes what "enough" means for that particular person. The fact that some bodies can process slightly more alcohol then other bodies before "drunkenness" starts to occur doesn't change the fact that "drunk" is simply drinking passed a certain point. Gluttony is eating too much, it is eating more then your body requires. That's it.
Most people are overweight because they eat more then their body requires. Period. That being said, I agree that it is wrong to point at any person and call them a "most definite" glutton. There are other things that can cause obesity, rare as they are. However, it is not wrong to assume that person is most likely a glutton. Similarly it is not wrong to say a person in prison for theft is most a thief. Only God can know for sure if that person is a theif, since God is the ultimate Judge. But given our system of legal due process, we can and are free to analyze the likelihood that the person did in fact commit larceny.
Just like convictions of the innocent are relatively rare in our legal system, so obesity amongst people who do not consume more food then they require is relatively rare. Unless evidence to the contrary is presented, it is safe to assume people in prison for theft are thieves, and I assume that obese people do not have the extremely rare genetic/hormonal diseases that also cause obesity.
That doesn't mean I "judge" them. The fact is if this thread were titled "a question about murder," and we were talking about Adolf Hitler, and I was pondering whether he really did commit the sin of murdering people or if in fact he was just helping the human race as he said, then you probably would be weighing in with some Scripture of your own, perhaps some historical facts, and saying, "No, it seems Adolf did in fact murder."
We can analyze activities, even activities of specific people, and ask whether they are sinful or not. We can come to conclusions from our own readings of the Scriptures, and use those conclusions to guide our own lives and to help provide guidance to others. Identifying sin is half the battle of making sure not to commit it ourselves.
Judgment has to do with analyzing and then handing down a *sentence*. That is what is meant by "he who has no sin *cast the first stone*". In addition to a skewed view of gluttony, many in the church also have a skewed view of what "judgment" is and use it simply as an insult to levy toward people they disagree with.
