how to eat a person

Ho!  Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat.  Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Isaiah 55:1-2

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Psalm 34:8

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. John 6:53, 55-56

You have heard it said, “Be careful the company you keep,” and, “You are what you eat.”  But I say to you, be careful the company you keep because they are what you eat.

Long ago, the Lord gave to His people Israel laws governing types of food to be eaten under the Mosaic Covenant.

Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud – that you may eat.  Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, it is unclean to you; the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves it is unclean to you; the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, it is unclean to you; and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet it does not chew the cud, it is unclean to you. Leviticus 11:3-7

As Paul points out in Galatians 3:24, the Law served as our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  The Law, then, contained in it physical representations of the spiritual realities that would be made manifest by the coming of our Lord.  Understandably so, the Lord Jesus Himself used physical illustrations to demonstrate to His disciples spiritual truths about the Kingdom.  The Mosaic food laws themselves are rich with spiritual meaning relevant to us today, from which a brief example will serve as a springboard into the topic of discussion indicated by the title, how to eat a person.

Among the list of unclean foods, presently we will concern ourselves with the swine (Our Nigerian Brother Peters has a more exhaustive discussion about all the foods in an essay predating this particular writing).  The swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, is forbidden for consumption to the people of God because it does not also chew the cud.  Swine will eat anything and everything set before them (even their own offspring!) and they do not take time to properly digest anything as they do not chew the cud.  The swine can spiritually be compared to that person who may in some manner rightly divide the word of truth (dividing the hoof), but who does not feed on pure milk (1 Peter 2:2) and meat (Hebrews 5:14), or exclusively on that bread which comes down from heaven (John 6:51), but instead absorbs any and all spiritual slop that comes their way.  To make matters worse, of what good things the swine does eat, it does not draw all possible nourishment from those things by chewing the cud (meditating on the Word), but rather such a person only gets a superficial filling of that food and passes many good things through as waste.

It is no mystery in our modern age of understanding that those things our foods take into their bodies, we also take into our bodies.  Be there pesticides on our vegetables or hormones in our beef, what things we find in the foods we consume, we also find in our own bodies.  The same principle applies in a social sense.  After some time, we begin to resemble those persons with whom we regularly and intimately involve ourselves.  Those things that influence our closest acquaintances, they also bring to the table of our meeting to influence us.  It is by sharing our lives in close relationships with others that we feed on one another.  The danger of feeding on spiritual swine, a person influenced by every wind of doctrine but deeply nourished by nothing, should now be apparent.  Consuming other people spiritually represented by those unclean foods will also prove equally as damaging.

Brothers and sisters, by the Lord’s direction, we must be careful the company we keep as they are what we eat.  When we assemble together in His name, we gather around His table to feast on one another, and by association on Him.

For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20

Scripture testifies that when the people of God gathered together to eat the Lord’s Supper, they broke bread and took the cup in the context of an entire meal (1 Corinthians 11:20-34).  They did not receive a cracker or crumb and a little cup of juice in the context of a religious worship ceremony.  When the people of God gather for a meal under the pretense of supper, truly it is over that table that our souls are fed and watered by our exchange of gifts over the Table.  This is so because what we have to exchange is merely that which we have received from the One who is the source of our life.

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.  Therefore He says:

“When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.”

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors  and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:7-8, 11-13

For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.  For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.  Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them… Romans 12:3-6

To be continued…