It’s a popular message in Christian circles when the topic of food arises–we need more self control. The message is subtle but clear. If you had more self control, food issues would disappear. If you had more self control (which is a fruit of the spirit) then you would always choose Jesus over brownies. If you have more self control, you’d never have an issue with your weight. We’ve made the biblical concept of self control all about sticking to our diet. But, is that what self control is really about, according to scripture?

Today, my guest is Amy Carlson, RD. She’s worked with women with disordered eating and eating disorders for more than two decades. She loves Jesus and loves helping women break free from the bondage of food restriction cycles so they can make peace with food. She and her colleagues created the Peace With Food App, a helpful app that encourages you to be present and helps you transition to intuitive eating.

Here are places we go today as we tackle this big topic: Is Self Control Really the Solution to Our Food Issues?

• What does it really mean to deny the flesh?
• Why have we made self control about denying ourselves of food and what is really behind that?
• Does Jesus really have clear opinions on what we eat?
• How the church has co-opted the messages of diet culture surrounding good foods, bad foods, and sanctification that comes from eating what’s most “acceptable” in our diet culture.
• Why self control is more about looking like Jesus than looking like a model.
• Why food restriction isn’t holiness or sanctification (and how food really doesn’t have anything to do with these biblical concepts.)
• How we conflate the concept of gluttony when we talk about having “control” around food.
• How biblical self-discipline is about controlling lusts of the flesh, not about avoiding nourishment of our bodies.
• How truly changing our desires and becoming more like Christ has more to do with how we love and treat others than it does about what we eat.
• And so much more!

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