Hunger Pains (Kosher Edition #2)

May 8th, 2007

Kosher (adj.):

• Conforming to dietary laws; ritually pure.
• Selling or serving food prepared in accordance with dietary laws.
• Legitimate; permissible.
• Genuine; authentic.

The verses in the Book of Matthew (18 verses):

• "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?" (6:25)
• "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'" (6:31)
• When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" (9:11)
• For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." (11:18-19)
• At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. (12:1)
• Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." (15:2)
• "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" (15:20)
• "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." (15:27)
• Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way." (15:32)
• For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; (24:38)
• And he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. (24:49)
• For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. (25:35)
• For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. (25:42)
• On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (26:17)
• And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." (26:21)
• While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." (26:26)

Matthew 6:25-34 (NCV)

"So I tell you, don't worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. Look at the birds in the air. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it. "And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don't work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don't have so little faith! Don't worry and say, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' The people who don't know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. The thing you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you. So don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Thoughts:

• Do not worry about food or eating - it takes away from my faith in God.

U R What U Eat

May 5th, 2007

What is kosher? The Bible talks about eating laws and what is clean and unclean... and even though in Christianity, these laws do not particularly apply to us today, I am sure that if a Jew became a Christian, the person would still struggle with it. I've recently heard the word "kosher" and it seems to keep popping up in places that I go and in conversation. I honestly do not know the meaning, although I have an idea.

Kosher (adj.):

• Conforming to dietary laws; ritually pure.
• Selling or serving food prepared in accordance with dietary laws.
• Legitimate; permissible.
• Genuine; authentic.

And when I looked up this in the dictionary, I am only showing you the definition according to the Jews. The slang use is also the same as the Jewish use (partly), and only applies to the last two definitions.

In this study, I am looking at the word "eat" and just in the New Testament, there are 150 verses that use this word in one form or another. That's just the NT, which by volume is roughly a third of the length of the Old Testament. So how many verses in the Old Testament? Multiply it by three and it still isn't enough. Close though, with 467 in the OT totalling 617 in the entire Bible (I used the NIV for this search - other Bibles will vary in one way or another). The NIV doesn't use the word kosher, however. It does, however, spell out the Jewish Laws for eating.

I've decided that this is going to be a bit of a little series, just because it is interesting and I can. I'm going to approach this differently than other things I have done in the past, just to shake things up a little.

The verses in the Book of Matthew (18 verses):

• "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?" (6:25)
• "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'" (6:31)
• When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" (9:11)
• For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." (11:18-19)
• At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. (12:1)
• Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." (15:2)
• "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" (15:20)
• "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." (15:27)
• Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way." (15:32)
• For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; (24:38)
• And he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. (24:49)
• For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. (25:35)
• For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. (25:42)
• On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (26:17)
• And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." (26:21)
• While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." (26:26)

O, this is going to be enlighting to me, I can already tell. What's fascinating is how food and eating are tied to everything. I'll elaborate more on this as I go along, but really, it is pretty clear in the scriptures in Matthew.