The Wine of God's Wrath

~Revelation 14:10

Then a third angel followed them, shouting, “Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath.

~Revelation 14:19

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath.

~Revelation 16:19

So God remembered all of Babylon’s sins, and he made her drink the cup that was filled with the wine of his fierce wrath.

~Revelation 19:15

He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress

Wine is a powerful image. The Bible uses it to give us a picture of the love of Christ in communion, a symbol of the blood he shed for our salvation. The Bible also uses it, as seen here, as a symbol of the wrath of God against evil and injustice.

Nourished by God

~Revelation 12.6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for 1260 days.

~Revelation 12.14

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

Of course God's taking care of someone includes nourishment.

Sweet to sour

~Revelation 10.8-10

Then the voice from heaven spoke to me again: “Go and take the open scroll from the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.

Revelation: what an amazing book. In with all these mysterious images is the common act of eating and the experience we've all had of eating something sweet or desirable and then having a bad reaction in the gut. Ugg.

Sharing a Meal with Jesus

~Revelation 3.20

Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

Sharing a meal with Jesus! There's an analogy to ponder. I bet the menu would be out of this world, so to speak. But even so, it would be of little importance by comparison to the company.

No Clue

~Jude 1.12

These people (people who, v4, pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord, and, ungodly people who, v8, pollute their own bodies and reject authority) are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted —twice dead.

Here is no hint of what was actually eaten at the "love feasts," just a warning about who may show up to eat there. Also another food analogy. As my pastors like to say, "healthy living things reproduce."

A Time for Milk

~I Peter 2.1-3

So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.

We've seen two other New Testament references to milk as being for infants. (See below.) Both admonish people to grow up and get on to food for the more mature. This reference to milk, however, encourages its consumption: Chug it! Enjoy it! Thrive from it! Maybe Peter's audience is newer believers, or maybe he's just encouraging them back to the basics since at this point persecution against Christians is strong and many are suffering for their faith.

Or maybe Peter just liked milk better than Paul or the writer of Hebrews. :-]

*I Corinthians 3.2 I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. (Feb 29,2012, entry)

*Hebrews 5.12-13 You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. (May 31, 2012, entry)

The Cost of Indulgence

Hebrews 12.16

Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal.

Powerful example of what a food fixation can do. Makes me think of looking at, say, a DQ Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard Cake and thinking, "I don't care what this costs me in terms of sugar or fat or acidity or health. I've gotta have some!" There's a price. Of course the difference is that for the loss of health we have to make this decision continually; whereas Esau lost his birthright on one incident.

Esau's story, by the way, is found at the end of Genesis 25.

Taste the Goodness

~Hebrews 6.4-7

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.

Spiritually, the meaning of this verse can be debated, but foodwise the analogy is clear: we are meant enjoy good taste. God's word is something we are to enjoy the taste of. (In fact, we'll see it compared to honey in the OT. Psalm 119.103 "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!")

Milk is for babies.

~Hebrews 5.12-14

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Milk is for babies; solid food for the more mature. (See also I Corinthians 3.1-3, February 29, 2012)

Fruit of Salvation

~Philippians 1.11

May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

Another analogy: as the fruit of trees is a benefit, so should the fruit of our lives be.

Give your enemy a drink.

~Romans 12.20-21 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul repeats Proverbs 25.21-22, using another food analogy to show us the Christlike way to live.

Scary Verse

~Romans 11.9 And David says:
“May their table become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling block and a retribution for them. "

This is Paul quoting what David says in Psalm 69--a scary verse. People who have little to eat and who give it little thought are unlikely to suffer this plight. But when the table is laden with plenty of variety and rich fare, as are most tables in the US today, it's possible for people to get so focused on the food, the comfort, the affluence, that they can lose track of what really matters: their spiritual lives and relationship with God.


~Romans 11:16 If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

. . . another hats off to the power of spreading yeast in dough.

God's Table for Us

~Psalm 23.5

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

I have been reading in Romans in the chronological Bible and not hit on any food references for a week, so I decided to jump to Psalms in the meantime.

How wonderful that in David's most famous poem, his shepherd-influenced picture of how God loves and cares for his children, we have a table set for us. I picture it as an amazing feast. Perhaps it is the one Jesus mentions in the references below.

~Matthew 8.10-11

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said . . . “many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

~Luke 13.29

People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.

~Luke 14.15 [ The Parable of the Great Banquet ] When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus,

“Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

Wow! Wonder what's on the menu. :-]

Food = Pleasure

~Romans 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you . . . in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. NIV

~Romans 1.13 I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles. NLB

~Romans 1.13 Please don't misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I've made plans for Rome. I've been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God's work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it. The Message

Paul refers to his beloved new believers as fruit or as a harvest, again using a satisfying food analogy to communicate pleasure.

Death like a wheat seed

~I Corinthians 15.35-38 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

I don't understand why Paul thinks this is a foolish question. But he answers with an analogy of wheat.

Eat for God's Glory

~I Corinthians 10:3-5, 6-7, 15-22, 25-31

~25-26 So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

~31 So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

In this chapter Paul covers several food-related topics (see labels), but there is nothing specific about a particular food. I print only the key verses 25-26 and 31.

Another interesting point here is the connection between idols and demons. Surely it's possible to make an idol of food. Be careful, Ruthie!

Jesus, the Passover Lamb

~I Corinthians 5.7b-8 For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

John 2.29 and 36 also refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, that is the lamb sacrificed for the Passover meal. Why lamb? I expect to look at this more when I get to Exodus.

Is unleavened bread better?

~I Corinthians 5.6-8

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Here's another use of the spreading capabilities of yeast. Here Paul implies that in keeping the Passover, in remembering the sacrifice of Christ, unleavened bread is more appropriate.

I'll ponder the Passover lamb next time.

Hungry in sharing the gospel

~I Corinthians 4.10-13

We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.

Paul uses irony to get readers to see their pride and stop being so judgmental of each other. He speaks of the literal hunger and thirst experienced in his mission "not to shame [them], but to warn [them] as . . . beloved children."

Beyond "milk is for infants"

~I Corinthians 3.1-3

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly-—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. . . . For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

Milk is for infants; solid food is for people who can chew. This milk analogy shows that while new believers should grow quickly into spiritual nourishment that requires some chewing thought and more mature participation, sometimes they get stuck in infancy.

I want to look beyond Paul's spiritual point into the physical, the digestive realm. No one would argue that milk is for infants, but can we then conclude the reverse and say that milk is not for adults as some nutritionists claim? Maybe. Maybe not.

Clearly, whole cow's milk causes problems for a lot of people. I read that the human enzyme responsible for our ability to digest milk sugar (lactose) is "turned off" in most populations at around age four, that lactose intolerance, not tolerance, is the normal state of the human body. What an interesting thought for our "got milk" culture. Researchers Lee-Thorp and Ackerman from the University of Cape Town suggest cultural factors and evolutionary transitions that allow people of Western European origin to better maintain tolerance past childhood. I think the debate will continue.