Philippians 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) Even heathen thought in its higher types could brand sensualists as κοιλιοδαίμονες, men who worshipped belly gods. The striking words which Euripides puts into the mouth of the Cyclops, the type of this class, have often been cited in this connection: "I sacrifice to no one but myself; not to the gods, but to this my belly, the greatest of the gods; for to eat and drink each day is the god for wise men." We have, further, the greatest of the German poets representing Mephistopheles as contemptuously, yet insinuatingly saying to the fool rejoicing in his possessions, "Du hast dafur was Schluud und Bauch begehrt." And we have the words of scathing denunciation of John Ruskin, "The creation over which God appointed us kings, and in which we have chosen to live as swine." With such instances of the contempt with which men can justly regard the lower, baser levels of life, we can the better comprehend the indignant yet sorrowing scorn with which the apostle contemplates the objects of his denunciation. In view, too, of such grossness of nature as is here depicted, we can listen to the call which has addressed to every true cross bearer — the call to higher things — "Thou hast received a belly that thou mayest feed, not distend it; that thou mayest have the mastery over it, not have it as mistress over thee; that it may minister to thee for the nourishment of the other parts, not that thou mayest minister to it; not that thou mayest exceed limits. The sea, when it passes its bounds, doth not work so many evils as the belly doth to our body, together with our soul." They are men who, in the contemptuous words of the Roman satirist, in their all-engrossing care for their belly and their amusements, ask no other favours of their emperor than "bread and circus games." They are those who, as Cornelius a Lapide puts it, are like the moles, ever concerned with the earth, ever blindly digging in the earth, and ever breathing of the earth, whereas Christians feed on heavenly food and breathe the air of heaven. Or once more, we can recognize these men in the picture in the interpreter's chamber of Bunyan's allegory, "The man that could look no way but downwards, with the muck rake in his hand, while there stood over his head one with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor." (J. Hutchison, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) |
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