PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 347: FOOD TWINS, Part 5
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 347: FOOD TWINS, Part 5
More food twins today. Check them out. It is amazing how much God speaks about food in His Word. You will be amazed.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Here we are, still talking about food and twins. There are 25 of them, and we’re up to No. 7. Isn’t it amazing how much God talks about food?
No. 7; FOOD AND FELLOWSHIP
They are real twins. They are inseparable. We are not meant to eat food alone. Food needs to be eaten in the company of others. That’s what makes it special—sitting down, and sitting around the table, or sitting around something where you're together and you can communicate together.
I love to call it . . .
“face-to-face table fellowship”
That’s what it is. It’s face-to-face. You can look one another in the eye. You can see one another, and you can have true fellowship. I love how the apostle John wrote to the elder lady in 2 John:1: 12. “I trust to come unto you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.” I know he was meaning face-to-face fellowship, sitting around the table, talking together.
And again, when he was writing to Gaius in 3 John 1:14, he writes, “I trust I shall shortly see you, and we shall speak face to face.” That’s what fellowship is. God wants us to have fellowship with food. That’s why He paints the picture in Psalm 128:3 of the family and the children sitting around the table. They’re not sitting in front of the TV; they’re not sitting in the car looking at the neck of their brother in front of them. No, they are looking at one another, where they can communicate together.
Of course, fellowship is always so much more wonderful when there is food. They’re twins. They go together. When we want to get together to fellowship, of course, we have food. Either someone putting on a meal, or we have a fellowship meal where everybody brings a dish, and we can all contribute together. But we can eat and talk. It’s so wonderful.
No. 8: FOOD AND FULLNESS
Oh, there are so many Scriptures here of how God wants us to be filled, filled to satisfaction, filled to satiation with the food that He provides. I’ll give you all those Scriptures in the transcript. There are too many of them here, but you’ll be able to look them up (at the end of the transcript).
No. 9: FOOD AND GLADNESS, JOY, AND REJOICING
God wants us to rejoice as we eat together. I love Acts 2:46. Let me go to it here. This is speaking about the early church. It says: “And they continued daily, with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (that was hospitality) “they did eat their meat (their food) with gladness, and with singleness of heart.”
They had gladness and joy together as they ate their food. God, who is the giver of joy . . . He gives us food to enjoy so we have fellowship and food and rejoicing and joy all together. This morning, at our family devotions, we sang that beautiful hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” It goes on to say:
“Melt the clouds of sin and sadness.
Drive the dark of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day.”
I love that because it gives the picture of God who is the giver of immortal gladness. Gladness is something that is immortal. It is eternal. It is not just for this present life. It’s for eternity. It’s not something that is just for when everything is going well. It’s something that is for us continually. So, we can have gladness, even when things are going wrong, even when we’re going through a difficult time. We can still experience immortal gladness.
I think God gives us something of that too when we sit down with others and eat together. He wants us to do it with gladness, and joy, and rejoicing. So many Scriptures about that. Let’s just look at perhaps another one.
Deuteronomy 12:7: “And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto. Ye and your household, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.” God wants us to have joy as we eat. I will give you all the Scriptures in the transcript.
No. 10: FOOD AND CHEER
Once again, He wants us to have good cheer as we are eating.
No. 11: FOOD AND GOOD THINGS
Let’s go to Psalm 103:1: “Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy Name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities and heals all thy diseases: Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
It’s interesting that when you look at this Scripture, you see that the word “things” is actually in italics which means it’s not in the original. They just added it to give the meaning. So, in the original, it says: “He satisfieth thy mouth with good.” Well, we don’t even need to have things, do we? “He satisfieth our mouth with good.” All the foods that God has created are good.
We remember that from the very beginning, don’t we? Back in Genesis 1:11-12: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind . . . and God saw that it was good.” All the beautiful seeds, the fruits, the vegetables, and the herbs, everything that God created is good. So, let’s enjoy God’s good food. Amen?
Not all the junk food. The good food. The good food, remember, is healing food. If it’s not healing, if it’s just chips and white junk and refined food, it’s not healing, and it’s not good. We’ve got plenty of good food to choose from, haven’t we?
All right, now we’re up to . . . We’re getting through them a little more quickly today.
No. 12: FOOD AND HOSPITALITY
That is another twin. You can’t have hospitality without food. That’s really the essence of hospitality. When you invite someone to your home, you're going to provide food for them. If you invite them just to sit in a chair and look at the walls, well, that’s not very exciting, isn’t it? It has to be food with hospitality.
We see a wonderful example of this when we go to 1 Timothy 5:10. This is a picture, really, of what God has planned, the plan, the mandate, the vision that He has given to women. We see it here in verse 10, where Paul was writing to Timothy because he had obviously communicated with Paul that there were so many widows in their midst. He didn’t know what to do with them all.
So, Paul writes back to him and says, “Timothy, this is what you do. If a widow has family, if she has children or grandchildren, they must take the responsibility of caring for her and providing for her needs. This is what the Scriptures say.”
But he says, “If they don’t have any family, there are no children or grandchildren to provide for them, if they are 60 years if age and over, and have lived a servant lifestyle, you must provide for them from the church.” So, what is this lifestyle?
Here it goes: “Well reported of for good works.” The word there in the Greek is kalos. It means “beautiful, lovely, valuable.” What we’re going to read now are beautiful works.
Number one: “If she has brought up children.” Now the words there, “brought up,” mean “to nourish, to pamper with food.” That’s talking about raising children. It’s interesting that the word that is used in raising children is a word to feed our children and to nourish them with food, even to pamper them with food.
Of course, we begin the moment a baby is born, as the mother puts the baby to the breast, and she nourishes her little babe at the breast until the babe is ready to wean. Either way, mothers, don’t be in a hurry to wean your babies. Wean your baby when your baby is ready to wean, not when you think it’s time to wean.
Babies have different times. Some will wean early but others want to linger on longer. It’s most important that we learn to be aware and minister to the needs of our particular baby. Some babies like to nurse until they’re four years of age or maybe some even longer.
The mother nurses her baby. Well, as the baby’s getting older, she’s not only nursing only for food. By that time the baby’s eating solid food, three meals a day along with the family. But the baby’s still nursing, still wants that nursing touch, because nursing a baby is far more than food. Oh, yes. It’s ministering to that inner need, those inner needs of the soul. Remember that, those of you who are nursing babies. You are giving your baby far more than just food. Even when your baby’s eating food they may still want to keep that nursing relationship.
But then it goes on to the next thing. “If she has lodged strangers.” In other words, she’s opened her door in hospitality. Once again, food. You can’t lodge strangers and have people stay in your home and starve them! No, you've got to prepare meals. You’ve got to cook.
So, we’re seeing, as we read this Scripture, that cooking food and preparing meals are a huge part of our lives as wives and mothers in the home. God looks upon it, lovely ladies, He looks upon it as a good work, a lovely, beautiful work.
In fact, I just put out a podcast this morning, not realizing I was going to talk about this, and how that even when we give a cup of water in the name of Jesus, we will not lose our reward. That’s an amazing promise, isn’t it?
But just think about it, ladies. If God was going to reward you for giving a cup of water to some thirsty soul who is in need, how much more is He going to reward you for cooking a whole meal? Wow! If you can get a reward for giving a cup of water, how much more cooking a whole meal? And mothers, you're cooking breakfast, lunch, and supper every day, every week, every year, for years, and years, and years, and years, and years. Just think how many rewards you are going to get!
Oh, don’t despise cooking. Don’t despise preparing a meal, even though you think, “I’ve done this a hundred times! No, maybe I’m up to a thousand times.” Forget counting. This is your ministry. Cooking is not a chore. Cooking is a ministry. Not only to feed bodies, but to feed souls.
When you gather your children and your family, and other people around your table, you're not only feeding them physically, you're feeding them spiritually. The food, the physical food, just prepares people for that greatest feeding of the soul and the spirit. It’s such a beautiful thing, as God says it is. “Well reported for good works, beautiful works.” So, hospitality. That’s another thing. When you're having hospitality, it’s going to take work. It’s going to take cooking. Some people don’t show much hospitality. Maybe they don’t want to work. But it is such a beautiful ministry. God is looking for people with hospitable hearts because our God is a hospitable God.
Right throughout His Word, He says: “Come, come, come unto Me.” He longs for the day when we will sit at His table with Him in the eternal kingdom. Even Jesus talked to His disciples, and He said, “One day you will be sitting with Me at My table, in My kingdom.” Then He invites us to the greatest feast of all time, the marriage supper of the Lamb. What a feast that will be!
But God longs to show hospitality to His people because it ministers to people. Not just the food, but they are being wanted, they’re being loved, they’re feeling special because someone wants to invite them to their home. But it takes cooking. And it takes work, and it takes preparation. So, don’t despise that. Just think how wonderful and how blessed you are to bless others, and you won’t lose your reward, remember.
But we haven’t finished yet. It goes on to say: “If she has washed the saints’ feet.” Back in Bible days, when people came into a home, usually the servants would wash their feet as they came in, because they’d been walking on the dusty roads with their sandals, and they didn’t want to bring it into their home. That was the norm, that they washed their feet.
But here, this woman, she was a servant. She had a servant heart. She washed their feet. If you're going to wash someone’s feet, why are you washing their feet? To bring them into your home. And if you're bringing people into your home, well, you're going to feed them. That’s what you do. So, once again, it’s cooking!
And then, we haven’t finished yet. It goes on to say: “If she has relieved the afflicted,” those who are in need, those who are poor, those who have problems, those who are sick. Once again, if you're going to relieve the afflicted, you're going to bring food to them. You’re going to bring them into your home to feed them or you're going to go and take food to them.
Just like when someone is sick, you make a big pot of soup, and you make some homemade bread, and you take it to them. They’re feeling too lousy to cook for themselves and so you take food to them. You are relieving the afflicted when they’re down, when they’re sick. Every one of these things, every one of these beautiful things, as the Bible calls them, that’s the intent for women to do. They all entail cooking. And they entail hospitality. And then it goes on to say: “If she has diligently followed every good work.” The Scriptures say that that woman, if she doesn’t have children or grandchildren to care for her, she must be provided for by the church. Isn’t that beautiful? God’s provision to the woman who has lived that lifestyle, that beautiful lifestyle, that lifestyle He wants us all to live.
Once again, I have so many Scriptures about hospitality, but let’s just look at a couple of them. I’ll put the rest in the transcript.
Romans 12:13: “We are to be given to hospitality.” That’s really quite a word. That doesn’t give the impression, “Well, maybe about every few months we might perhaps, oh, we’d better have some people over for a meal.” No, we are to be given to it like someone is given to drugs. We cannot help ourselves because we have the anointing of Christ within us.
He says: “Come. Come unto Me.”
We also say: “Come to my home. Come to my table. Come and have a meal at our table. We want you to come.” We have hospitable hearts, because we are given to it. It’s like that family over in 1 Corinthians 16:15: “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints).”
That’s the same picture. It’s not, “Well, maybe I might do it. Help! I wonder if we’ve got enough food. Oh my, I wonder if we’ve got enough chairs. I wonder this . . .” No! They were addicted to the ministry of the saints, to serve the saints, and show hospitality to the saints. When you have a heart that’s addicted to hospitality, you're going to find a way around all your excuses.
Often, it’s, “Well, I don’t have enough food.” Well, Colin and I learned very, very early in our lives that if we were going to show hospitality, we would have to throw away our budget, because when you have a budget, you only have so much, and you've got to fit it into what you can afford to buy for that month. So, usually it’s just what you eat as a family.
Therefore, if you're going to open your home in hospitality, how do you do it if you keep your budget? I don’t think we ever actually had one anyway. We’ve never ever had a budget ever in our lives. We have lived beyond our budget all our lives. And yet, God has been good. He has provided. In fact, we have found that the more hospitality that we show, the better we live!
How does that happen? Because God aligns Himself with those who are hospitable. When we reach out to people, God sees us reaching out and He wants to feed those people. So somehow, He provides for us so we can feed those people! We have always found that that is so true! We live better the more we reach out and show hospitality to others.
I can remember back in the early days with our growing family. We’d invite families. Especially Sunday dinner, we would always have people to our home. We’d always invite people home. We didn’t have enough chairs in the very beginning, but back in those days, we had these wooden boxes in which we could buy 50 pounds of peaches, or apples, or so on.
We’d be preserving all our fruits for the winter. We would keep those boxes, and everybody would sit on boxes when they came. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have enough chairs. It doesn’t matter what you feel you don’t have. You’ll always find a way around it if you are addicted and given to hospitality.
Let’s go over to 1 Peter 4:7: “But the end of all things is at hand.” Whoo! Wow! What is God going to say next? The end is coming! “Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer, and above all things, have fervent love among yourselves, and practice hospitality, one to another, without grudging.”
The closer we get to the end, the more God wants us to open our homes in hospitality without grudging. Amen? Oh yes, hospitality is such a wonderful lifestyle, and it is associated with food. They are twins.
Let’s go on, shall we?
No. 13: FOOD AND LAUGHTER
Ecclesiastes 10:19: “A feast is made for laughter.”
Isn’t that great? God loves us to have joy and have laughter. It’s so wonderful when you can have laughter around the table, isn’t it? Of course, especially with your children. Don’t make your mealtimes boring and sober. Fill them with joy and laughter.
No. 14: FOOD AND LEFTOVERS
Yes, God not only wants to fill us. We have those twins, FOOD AND FULLNESS, but He provides even more than we need. He loves us to have leftovers. There’s a story in the Bible, back in 2 Kings 4:42-44 about leftovers. I wonder if you are familiar with it. Let’s go there, shall we?
Here’s this little true story: “And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the LORD, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So, he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD.”
What happened there? This man came. God obviously sent him because at that time, just before this, they had found that they had put something in the pot, and it was poison! There was nothing for the prophets to eat. They had nothing! Obviously, they were hungry, but God did a miracle.
He sent this man from Baalshalisha. God must have spoken to him. He came with 20 loaves of barley and some ears of corn. Was that going to be enough to feed how many? 100 men? But Elisha said, “Just put it there. Just give it to the men, and see what God does, because I’m telling you, God has said there will be leftovers.” So, he gave it to the prophets to eat. They all ate, and there were leftovers. Isn’t that amazing?
And then, of course, we think about the story of the feeding of the 5,000, and how Jesus commanded that after they had eaten, the disciples were to go and pick up all the leftovers. And you all know the story and you know how there were 12 baskets full of leftovers.
But do you notice how God was interested in even the leftovers? He didn’t just leave them there for the birds to pick or to rot in the ground. No, they picked up the leftovers, and I’m sure that they distributed them to those who were in need.
But I’m a great believer in leftovers. I love to cook a big meal and hopefully there will be leftovers for the next day. Don’t you like having leftovers for lunch? In fact, food is usually even nicer the next day because all the spices and herbs begin to get stronger as they sit there.
Also, I am a great believer in not wasting food. Oh, my. Especially when we have feasts. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas and big parties. I will always have to give my little speech to all the children and the grandchildren too. “Only take what you can eat. You are welcome to come back and have as many helpings as you like. But you've got to eat everything on your plate. So, just take what you need for a start.
Well, sadly, even though I give my big lecture, I usually find, as I go around to pick up the plates, there is still food left on the plate! They didn’t listen to Nana. And some of it is beautiful meat! Oh, what a waste!
In fact, even on Sunday, at our fellowship meal this last Sunday, I went around to pick up all the plates. I couldn’t believe it! On just about every plate, there were leftovers! I think we should learn to take only what we’re going to eat, so that we don’t have leftovers from plates that are just going to be thrown in the trash.
I don’t mind leftovers in the pot because we’re going to save them for the next day, and they won’t be wasted. I think it seems to be, as I have noticed, a very American thing. It shows you that we are so affluent. I’m sure maybe you've trained your children out of this habit, and they eat everything on their plates.
But I see so many families where they don’t, and children and even adults, I have to confess, they take the food, and they just eat what they want. Then they leave the rest and it’s thrown in the trash. Half the food is thrown in the trash! I can’t bear it! I guess I’m older. I just can’t bear that because I don’t believe in waste at all!
But I think we should watch that, mothers. Don’t you? Teach our children to take only what they’re going to eat. Now, if they’re hungry, they can come back for more! We’re not going to starve them. Never! But we want to make sure they’ll eat everything they take. Amen? I hope you agree with me about that.
Actually, our time has gone by again! Whoo! I can’t believe it! Well, hopefully we’ll finish our food twins in the next session. But it’s just amazing, isn’t it, to see how much God has to say about food.
“Dear Father, I pray that You will bless every person listening today. I pray that You will bless their homes, bless their families, each one in their family. Bless their provisions. I pray that You will provide for them all that they need, and they’ll know Your provision as they walk before You to obey Your commandments. Because You’ve promised that, Lord, as we walk in Your ways, that You will provide.
And You say, as David said: “I have been young, and now I am old, but I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children, breaking bread.” We thank You that You are a God of provision. And I pray Your blessing and provision on every family listening today. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”
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FURTHER SCRIPTURES TO LOOK UP:
No. 8: FOOD AND FULLNESS
Job 36:16b (NLT): “He is setting your table with the best food.”
Leviticus 25:19; 26:3-5; Deuteronomy 6:10-12; 8:8-14; 11:14, 15; 14:29; 26:12; Psalm 37:19; 81:16; 103:5; 104:27, 28; 144:13; 145:15, 16; 147:14; Proverbs 3:9, 10; Isaiah 25:6; Joel 2:19, 26; and Luke 6:21.
Jesus fed the hungry listeners until they were filled (Matthew 14:20; 15:37; Mark 6:42; 8:8; Luke 9:17; and John 6:12, 13, 26).
No. 9: FOOD AND GLADNESS, JOY, AND REJOICING
Deuteronomy 12:7; Ezra 6:22; Nehemiah 8:9-12; 12:27, 43; Esther 9:19-21; Ecclesiastes 9:7; 1 Chronicles 12:39, 40; Acts 2:46; and 14:7.
No. 11: FOOD AND GOOD THINGS
Genesis 1:11, 12; Psalm 103:5; Ecclesiastes 3;13; and 5:18.
No. 12: FOOD AND HOSPITALITY
It is impossible to show hospitality without feeding your guests: Genesis 18:5-8; Deuteronomy 10:17-19; 14:27-29; Judges 6:18, 19; 13:15-21; 2 Samuel 9:10; Nehemiah 5:17, 18; Job 31:32; Isaiah 58:7-11; Matthew 25:35; Acts 2:44-47; Romans 12:13, 20; 1 Timothy 5:10; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9; and 3 John 1:8.