Fueling Our Mind, Body and Spirit

If we can navigate a more balanced relationship with food, it can keep our bodies healthier and also help us deepen our relationship with God. 

As a dietitian, I’ve been in the world of food and nutrition for over twenty years. In that time, so many of the people I talk to relate to food with shame, guilt, fear, and an overwhelming sense of confusion. Food has also been contributing to unhealthy medical outcomes. From the beginning, this was not what God intended. If we can navigate a more balanced relationship with food, it can keep our bodies healthier and also help us deepen our relationship with God. 

God laid out a beautiful series of laws regarding food for His people in the Old Testament. These laws were meant to be a schoolmaster to lead us to care for our bodies and relationship with God. In these commands, there is also medical guidance and knowledge meant to protect us from potential food-borne diseases and allergens, as well as sin and its consequences.

For example, in Leviticus 11, dietary restrictions are laid out for the children of Israel. The restricted foods (i.e., pork, shellfish, insects, and scavenger birds) are now known to us as foods with a higher potential to carry bacteria, which could make people ill. This result was especially true for the children of Israel, who had less access to food processing and pasteurization, which can remove some of these harmful bacterial agents. In the New Testament, these foods were declared clean (Mark 7:18-19), but with increased knowledge, we can see why they may have been restricted to those without access to clean water and preservation techniques. 

Foods in the Bible were also to be prepared in a certain way for similar reasons. This practice of ritual cleaning, separation of the blood, and boiling would protect the Jewish people from bacterial outbreaks. The most significant example of this is the Black Plague in 1347-1350. Jewish people were accused of poisoning others because they were not dying. Years later, it was discovered that the plague was spread by poor hygiene. The ritual cleaning the Jews followed helped save their lives. 

While these practices are no longer followed in our society, we can be comforted by the fact that God laid out practices to preserve and protect His people. How can we also apply some of these food guidelines to keep us healthy in a world that is becoming increasingly unhealthy and dying of diseases linked to poor dietary behaviors? 

Biblical Food Guidelines

What foods were typical to God’s people? The first chapters of Genesis describe a plant-based diet. 

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11-13).1

The land produced the food meant to nourish Adam and Eve at a time when there was no need for the death of animals. Their bodies were made to survive off this vegetation. We see this practice again in Daniel’s time. The people of Babylon were eating an overabundance of the King’s meat. He did not want to eat this meat since it was defiled by sacrifice to their gods, but even then, he was nourished body and spirit by vegetables and water. After ten days, Daniel and his friends were healthier on a plant-based diet. 

Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.”  So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.  At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. (Daniel 1:12-16).

These instances do not mean we should all be vegetarians, as there are mainly essential amino acids found in poultry, meats, and fish. But what should we build our diets around? We should seek to find a balance of fresh produce, lean proteins, and complex carbohydrates. When I give grocery store tours to those in the community, these are the foods found on the outside perimeter of most grocery stores. They do not come in boxes. They do not have big advertising budgets. No athletes or superstars are promoting them. They come to us the way we would find them in nature. 

Self-Control and Approach To Food

Self-control over food can help us control all other aspects of our lives. We do not want our appetite for sin to control us and our behaviors. In the Old Testament, having a “great appetite” is often associated with someone unable to control themselves. 

This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. (Deuteronomy 21:20 KJV).

Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags. (Proverbs 23:20-21).

While it is not a sin to overeat, the guidelines in the Bible can help us to see that continual overeating can cause much pain in this life. When helping guide people in their relationship with food, there is often an uncomfortable relationship with the scale. Weighing people can be a helpful tool to determine success in weight maintenance and the need for loss or gain. For those unhappy with their number on the scale, I often encourage people to see the scale as a choice reflection and not self-reflection.

If we make continuous healthy choices, the scale will often find balance (though this is not always true in special circumstances). This description is obviously an oversimplification of the complexity of food balance, but seeing food as a source of energy “in” versus energy “expended” is a balance all of us seek to maintain. 

Fellowship With God and His People

People come together around food. My boys just love potluck Sunday at our ecclesia. People identify with each other in the Bible and in our current society through food. Relationships are formed through meals, and people show love and connection through giving and sharing of their food. 

In the laws regarding the altar offerings, when the people wanted to show God honor, praise, atonement, and/or dedication, they would bring animal offerings to the priests. According to the law, the fellowship offering (also known as the peace offering) is the only time when people are able to eat the food offered. When God wants to be in a relationship or find fellowship with us, a meal is involved.

The fellowship offering was also voluntary. (Leviticus 7:11-38). God wants us to be in a relationship with Him, but we must also choose to come to Him. In the offering, people could offer a variety of foods. The animals were to be without blemish, but they could be male or female, and there was also a grain offering. It was a full meal with protein, carbohydrates, and fat. This offering was much less specific than the others and was meant to be consumed. They put this fellowship offering in their bodies and let it nourish them. 

Foods connect us to God and each other. They nourish and care for our bodies. The foods mentioned in the Bible are important to know more about—why are they mentioned, and how can we apply them to our lives?

One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible that represents the power of food is when Abigail prepares a meal for David and his hungry men. They are running from Saul; they are scared, angry and hungry. They want revenge and are prepared to show aggression to Nabal and his household. Nabal, whose name means “fool,” tells David he has no reason to protect and provide for him and his men. 

And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be? (1 Samuel 25:10-11 KJV).

Abigail, knowing the will of God and hearing how these men protected her household, does not hesitate.

Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. (1 Samuel 25:18 KJV).

Like many other examples in Scripture, this is a well-balanced meal. It is filled with complex carbohydrates and proteins that are high in fiber. This meal will sustain these men, but it also led David to recognize his foolishness in wanting to avenge himself. Their fellowship meal and her appeal to him caused him to feel blessed by her gift of food and knowledge of God’s will.

Lessons For Us

In future articles, I plan to discuss specific foods and their amazing power to heal, as well as their great spiritual significance. But let us look at these Old Testament examples of balance, moderation, and spiritual fellowship when making food choices. Can we see food as a fuel for our bodies that God has provided? Will we choose minimally processed foods so that their nutrients can provide us with proper nourishment? How can we show self-control in our portions to not overfeed our bodies and cause injury? 

Give us today our daily bread. 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 than food, and the body more than clothes? (Matthew 6:11, 25).

Eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart. (Ecclesiastes 9:7).

Julia Mutter,
Arlington Unamended Ecclesia, VA