Thanks for joining our study on a topic that affects our everyday lives. We all love and need food. It unites humanity. Meals bring us together, especially families, even amid conflict, which reminds me of my deceased sister, Andrea. She was known for her provocative nature and declared, “I love Thanksgiving because all you have to do is show up and eat.” In 2008, after Andrea’s hero, Hillary Clinton, lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama, Andrea announced she was “done with politics and would only watch the Food Channel.”
If you were busy watching the Food Channel last Sunday, preparing for this weekend’s official opening of the grilling season, and missed last week’s study, please read it now. The study was titled “What the Old Testament Says About Food,” and the verses we discussed were foundational to my ancestors’ relationship with God. He chose the Israelites as His people. God commanded them to obey the Ten Commandments and dietary laws as they journeyed toward the Promised Land.
Below is a brief overview of what food represents in the Old Testament from last week:
First, gratitude to God, a thanksgiving for providing food. Second, nourishment, representing His care for us. Third, fellowship, “breaking bread” to eat and worship together to glorify Him. Fourth, food represents generosity and sharing. Fifth, overeating underscores the need for self-control because gluttony is a sin against your body.
With all that in mind, let’s turn to the New Testament, which is all about Jesus. His relationship to food could be considered somewhat “radical” compared with how food is portrayed in the Old Testament. Simply stated, Jesus is food, the “bread of life.” What exactly does that mean? We begin with the “Temptation of Christ”:
“And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He [Jesus] was hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But He answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:2-4).
Jesus teaches that spiritual nourishment from God’s Word is more nourishing than from “bread alone,” meaning food in general. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus emphasizes that theology in a long teaching called the “Sermon on the Mount,” also known as “The Beatitudes,” which spans Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Regarding our topic:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).
Also in The Beatitudes is a famous teaching that makes us rethink the time and mental energy we spend being anxious and worrying:
“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:25-27).
For those who love Jesus, His teaching makes a great deal of sense. However, my Jewish mother was the Queen of Worry. As a result, I have spent my adult life trying to undo an inherited “worry default” and replace worry with prayer, hope, and trust in Him. Still trying! Raise your hand if you can relate.
Next is the miracle feeding of 5,000 followers. Jesus used food to demonstrate compassion, satisfying his followers’ physical needs along with their spiritual ones:
“And taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And they all ate and were satisfied” (Luke 9:16-17).
Now we address the all-important bread-of-life teaching found in John 6:25-59, but beginning with this preview in John 4:
“Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But He said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought Him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work’” (John 4:31-34).
Jesus is fed through His mission from God. Then Jesus teaches that He is our “food.” In John 6, Jesus explains His identity through the “food” He will provide while teaching in a Capernaum synagogue:
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal” (John 6:27). And then Jesus delivered what are among His most important teachings:
“Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, [manna] but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32). (See last week’s study.) Continuing:
“Jesus said to them [the Jews], ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’” (John 6:35). He further explains:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).
Then Jesus confounds and infuriates Jewish leaders at the Capernaum synagogue:
“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him’” (John 6:53-56).
In that passage, Jesus foreshadowed what He said at the Last Supper:
“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me’” (Luke 22:19).
For more details, see Vol. 318 about “Blood in the New Testament” when I wrote:
“The breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood can be a source of life energy and eternal life for humankind.” And I continued:
“Catholics and other denominations partake of a wafer called the Eucharist, which brings Jesus’s sacrificial teaching to life at every Mass. The Catholic Church teaches that the consecrated wafer (the host) and wine are THE body and blood of Jesus. That teaching has led to tremendous religious conflict.”
This study of Jesus and food will facilitate much discussion. I look forward to your comments and emails. I conclude with a favorite hymn about bread, from one of my early studies in 2020. Amen! And thanks to loyal readers who saw it the first time.
Myra Kahn Adams is a conservative political and religious writer. Her book “Bible Study For Those Who Don’t Read The Bible“ reprints the first 56 volumes of this popular study. “Part 2,” reprints Vols. 57 –113. Order it here.
Myra is also the Executive Director of the National Shroud of Turin Exhibit. You can help support our six-month exhibit at the Basilica in Orlando, Florida. Contact: Myraadams01@gmail.com
This article was originally posted at Townhall.com.
