Introducing "Take and Eat"
“Take and eat.” This simple statement conjures up a host of thoughts and feelings for most of us. The first thought that comes to my mind is food, obviously. I enjoy food. It is a wonderful gift from God. It is currently fall here in the North Country of New Hampshire and to me that means apples and pumpkins. Applesauce. Cider. Pie. Every fall these things bring a little extra joy to my life. And this joy should point us to our very good God.
Solomon once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” All of our ideas and thoughts come from somewhere. And the piecing together of my many thoughts regarding this blog did not originate with myself.
I recently attended an online conference where one of the keynote speakers, Mike Emlet, focused on the theme of “Fellowship, Nearness, and Food.” At one point he made the following observation, “Eating is intimately connected to our relationship with God.” As he said this, I was eating a bite of fresh pumpkin bread my wife made the previous night. It made me stop and think: “God has given me such good gifts: delicious pumpkin bread and a good (nay, very good) wife. How can I do anything other than thank God for such good things?” That simple bite of pumpkin bread became a moment of rejoicing in my Creator. And as I became more aware of who He is, and of His goodness, it drew me hearer to Him. Sure, it was a small thing, but these small things matter.
The statement “take and eat” takes on a new dimension entirely when we look at it through the lens of the Bible. In the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2) Adam and Eve had the opportunity to feast in the presence of God. Revelation 19 speaks of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. Feasting is where God’s people began, and it is where we will end up. Feasting is a picture for us of the intimate joy that God has planned for us, His people.
What’s more, we have that feasting between the times, here and now. Adam had it and lost it by eating the one fruit that was forbidden. We are still waiting for the Marriage Feast that will only happen at Jesus’s return. And yet, God has graciously, lovingly, called us to the feast even now; a feast for our famished souls. We see this quite plainly in the Lord’s Supper. “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” (Matthew 26:26; ESV).” The Lord’s Supper is all about feasting. In it we are invited by the Lord Jesus to dine at His table and, even more remarkable, He Himself is the meal. Not a physical meal of His body, of course , but rather a spiritual one; a meal that proclaims physically our union with Him — His life, death, and resurrection — and reminding us of all that it means for redeemed sinners.
So the Lord’s Supper is a feast for our souls. But it is only one piece of the feast that we can, and must, partake of here and now. Another means of feasting on and with our Savior is through the study of His Word, the Bible. Every verse, passage, or book we read and contemplate; every theological topic we explore; every aspect of God’s Word that we partake of becomes for us a new course in the never-ending feast that is laid before us.
The goal of this blog, then, will be to study the Word together, looking at both the big picture and the nitty-gritty details, in order that we might partake of this feast to the utmost.
The Psalmist wrote, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103; ESV)” May we find here the sweetness of God’s Word and partake of it together as food for our souls.