Coca-Cola sued health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages

You’ve got the:

  • Beer companies
  • Liquor companies
  • Fast food
  • Candy companies
  • Packed goods companies (think Kraft “Mac and Cheese”)
  • Restaurants: “Ruth Chris” and her steaks

This is a frivolous lawsuit

Why not (as long as we are going to really make the world safe from ourselves), ban:

  • Skydiving
  • Paragliding
  • Tanning
  • Tattooing
  • All sex (think of all the unsafe sex!!!)
  • All bars
  • All restaurants: (Think “Cheesecake Factory” or “Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory”)
  • Swimming in the ocean (sharks)
  • Swimming in lakes (microbes that can kill)
  • Swimming in rivers (flash floods)
  • Forks - you can choke on a fork / spoons and knives. One can choke without a fork too!

Here’s a link to it—Strong’s 2282—which is linked to Strong’s 2287. The question I’ve got is simple; does the word itself always connote overeating? Yes, it is a feast, a celebration, but the word also connotes a pilgrimage, dancing, and more. So while I’d personally guess people would bring out the more tender meats, the more flavorful cheeses and wines, and the like for such, I really don’t know that you would necessarily link it with overeating. Put mildly, try cutting the rug when your gut is about to burst.

No objection to drinking Coke on occasion, or orange juice, or whatever, but just like Spurgeon’s doctor told him how to cure his Bright’s disease, and just like Ron and I have had doctors loving enough to confront us for our lifestyles, I think it’s incumbent upon pastors to look at the organ recital itinerary and remind people “if y’all would lose some weight, we could get around to praying more for our missionaries, donchaknow?”

By the way, it’s worth noting that fruit juices are listed in The Mayo Clinic Diet as sugar sources, not fruits. Yes, you get some vitamins and such in there, too, but the kicker is that since sugars go into your blood almost immediately, caloric intake via fruit juices is not significantly limited by the size of your stomach.

(drink that Coke, but maybe the 7 ounce size our dads enjoyed on dates in days of yore?)

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Without doing a ton of digging into the Hebrew, I’d have to imagine the word feasting does indeed mean eating past the point of being technically “full.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a celebratory feast, the perfect example being the Thanksgiving meal.

The main problem is that while most people in biblical times probably struggled to eat enough simply to stay alive and healthy, we Americans basically “feast” (overeat, based on calorie count) every single meal.

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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

…you could assume that “feast” might ordinarily indicate eating “more than you need”, and agreed 100% that it’s still quite different from overeating routinely, but it strikes me even so that the reality of things like dancing at these celebrations, as well as the reality of “eat too much now and you might starve letter”, would have put a lot of restraint on these parties.

(no debate that 5x feasts per year and a few weddings in town would be less damaging than every night at Chez Mac, but still)

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.