the quiet protest of praying before a meal

[5 minutes]

Everything God made is good, and is meant to be gratefully used, not despised. The holiness or otherwise of a certain food, for instance, depends not on its nature but on whether it is eaten thankfully or not, It is consecrated by the man who has accepted the message, and thanks God for food.

1 Timothy 4:3-5, JBP

I’d like to share something with you in this post that you may not have thought of before. At least not thought of in quite this way. But first, some background:

A young ‘Timothy’ and I are going through Paul’s first letter to Timothy together. He has recently come into my life and has been such an unexpected blessing. We’re learning about a very complicated church in first century Ephesus, seeing it as more of a battleground for Timothy rather than the promising church Paul birthed. In short, Ephesus Church was a hot mess.

Timothy wanted out. He felt the job well above his pay grade, but Paul told him to stay put, wage war (with faith and a good conscience), get prayer back into the assembly as the first order of business, remove unqualified teachers, and ordain qualified leaders.

Of course, Paul warns the GenX pastor, these strategies aren’t a guarantee that some – possibly even many – won’t still break his heart by abandoning the faith and make shipwreck of their lives. But, Paul exhorted Timothy, make it harder for them to defect by giving them life-saving truth!

Paul gave Timothy five tools for changing the culture at Ephesus Church. He instructed him to be an “example” in these specific areas: speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Just as David had five smooth stones at the ready to take down Goliath, Timothy had five straight arrows in his arsenal.

• Words matter.
• Conduct matters.
• How we treat people matters.
• What we believe matters.
• Character matters.

“Example” is tupos, the Greek word for ‘mark, impression.’ Thomas used it when demanding evidence that Jesus was truly raised from the dead. “I’ll believe it when I see the marks of the nails!”

Leave your mark, Timothy. So live that they will know a man of God is in their midst!

There are two other surefire weapons Paul hands Timothy in chapter 4. One of them was to “make scripture great again” by reading it aloud in the public services. Stop letting false teachers share their devilish doctrines and twisted hermeneutics in the congregation. Put the kebosh on all that trifling nonsense. Make it policy that only God’s word will be preached and taught in the pulpit.

The other weapon might surprise you. It did me. In the context of zealous nitwits who had infiltrated Ephesus declaring certain things morally wrong — including food — Paul told Timothy that,

…everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 4:4-5

“And prayer.” That’s what caught my eye.

Since the dawn of human history, food has sparked both lively conversation and controversy. Right there on the first page or two of the Bible, a crisis happened where food was involved. God created a garden world for Adam and Eve where he served up vegetables and fruits of every variety. He told them to feel free to eat anything their little hearts desired — and enjoy it — except for…

/Enter the dragon./

Food, fun, and fellowship nazis had apparently entered Ephesus Church and overturned God’s “saw that it was good” edict and put their own devilish spin on it.

Paul told Timothy to ixnay that, say grace over God’s good bounty, and sanctify it. It’s not only good, it’s very good. Eat up!

Norman Rockwell, the true-to-life artist whose paintings have been a mainstay of American lore and inspiration, painted Saying Grace (seen above) in 1951. Rockwell was inspired by a Saturday Evening Post reader who shared a story about seeing a Mennonite family praying before their meal in a busy restaurant. Rockwell was intrigued. He set to work creating a touching tribute to that iconic moment. Post readers voted Saying Grace as their favorite magazine cover in 1955.

Saturday Evening Post editors presented it this way:

The world is not too happy a place these days. There are wars and threats of wars. Anxiety and frustration are abroad, and in many quarters we see the bankruptcy of morals. So, suddenly comes the day to give thanks for the goodness of life. And perhaps this can be done most understandingly by someone like this little old lady who, wherever she may be, bows her head to say grace, speaking not analytically from the mind but spontaneously from the heart.

Sandy and I have long made it our practice to join hands and pray over our meals, whether at home or in public. Most of the time we don’t think anything about it, but there are other times we are palpably aware of people nearby; it can feel awkward.

This is why we pray before our meals. To consecrate it, to recognize it as God’s good provision from creation for us to enjoy. To believe that it sustains us and gives us life.

The devil hates Genesis 1-2. He hates God and good and living shamelessly and obedience and fellowship and harmony and beauty. He hates the imago dei and likeness and dominion and fruitfulness. He hates ex nihilo. He hates that he was created by One infinitely more powerful and wise than him.

He hates mankind and womankind.

“I’m better than either of them. I’ll prove it. I’ll have them eating out of my hands!”

The simple act of praying before a meal, then, is our protest against the devil’s narcissism and our profession that we only eat from God’s hand.

So the next time you are sitting at a table, whether at home or in a public place, and food is before you, remember that scene in the garden. Make the devil mad by bowing your head, saying grace, and thanking our Heavenly Father for giving us a world where food is on the menu.

Selah, beloved.