Honoring Christ In The MealExemplo

Meals as Historical Turning Points Let’s give a short synopsis of how Scripture’s storyline and historical turning points are built around meals: * God’s blessing began in the garden with a meal (Gen. 1:29). * God gave Adam and Eve a choice to eat of blessing or curse , symbolized in the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. * The curse, fall of mankind, and Satan’s temptation happened over a meal (Gen. 2:16–17). * The first family struggle, over a food offering, resulted in murder. Cain and Abel (Gen. 4). * In the Flood, God preserved animals and food for Noah’s family as blessing and destroyed everyone else as a sign of curse (Gen. 7:1–3). * The first burnt offering & declaration of clean & unclean food (Gen. 9:3–4). * The beginning fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham is made over a meal (Gen. 18:2). * Jacob deceives Esau over food (Gen. 25). * Joseph’s rise to power is during a famine, and Joseph’s wise reign leads to provision for all (Gen. 37–52). * God’s work in freeing his people from the Egyptians is remembered in the Passover meal (Exod. 12). * God provides manna for his people in wandering (Num.). * Ruth, through whose lineage would come King David, was provided for, betrothed, and kept alive by Boaz through gleanings of wheat (Ruth). * Daniel refused to eat from Nebuchadnezzar’s table and asked to continue in his freedom to eat as God had instructed (Dan. 1:8). * God’s sovereign rule and the deliverance of the entire Jewish nation in the Book of Esther comes over a meal (Purim) (Esther). * Jesus enters his ministry and is tempted with food (Luke 4). * Jesus’ ministry is spent attending Jewish Feasts (John 2) and feeding people (Mark 6:30–44). * When “all authority in heaven and earth is given to Jesus,” in his last moments before the cross, he chose to hold the Last Supper (Luke 22:7–23). * The church begins, forms, and grows over meals (Acts 2:42). * Meals are used to symbolize fake religion or true freedom (Col. 2:20–23). * Weak and Strong faith is contrasted through the metaphor of eating (Rom. 14). * Heaven on Earth (The Final kingdom) is portrayed as Table Fellowship, around a Tree of Life, at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6–9). Every time God initiates something in the timeline of history, it is done in and around a meal. The remaining days in this study will explore why.