Lesson 7: What Shall We Eat?

 A Healthy Lifestyle for Your and Your Family

Lesson 7: What Shall We Eat?

Part 4: A Loaf of Bread

1. How was hospitality shown in Bible times? Genesis 18:3-5

2. What food was specifically offered to guests? Judges 19:5

Bread was offered to travelers and to whomever one wished to show hospitality. See 2 Kings 4:42; Luke 11:5, 6

3. What two kinds of bread were used in ancient times? 

A. Exodus 12:39

B. Matthew 13:33

Unleavened bread has no yeast, baking powder or other leavening agent in it to make it rise. The meat (or food) offerings offered in the sanctuary service were usually unleavened. The exception was the offering of the firstfruits. See Leviticus 2:14; Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 2:4; 23:13.

4. What three kinds of grains were grown in the land of Israel? Isaiah 28:25

5. Who gave the recipe for Ezekiel’s bread and what are the ingredients? Ezekiel 4:9

Fitches is spelt, a grain not grown much today.

6. Famine is often associated with the lack of what particular kind of food? Genesis 41:35-36

“Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread” Psalm 105:16.

Famine is still prevalent in many parts of the world. When aid is sent into areas of famine, the first and most important staple that is sent in is grain of some kind, corn (as we know it today), and wheat. Not only are they cheaper and easier to ship, they have an extended shelf life and contain a better balance of nutrition than meat.

Corn is an old word used for grain. The grain that we now refer to as corn was unknown in Europe until the discovery of the Americas when explorers took samples of native plants and animals back home with them. The term corn was applied to the grain the American natives called maize.

7. What must we have besides bread? Luke 4:4

8. For what are we to labor and how long does it last? John 6:27

9. What food did the children of Israel eat in the desert? John 6:31

That food was a type of the real bread from heaven. The life-giving Spirit, flowing from the infinite fullness of God, is the true manna.

10. What kind of food was it? Psalm 78:24, 25

11. What did Jesus say the Father had sent from heaven? John 6:32

12. What does this bread give to the world? John 6:33

13. What did Jesus say the bread from heaven is? John 6:48

14. What happens when you eat this bread? John 6:35

15. How long can you live by eating this bread? John 6:58

16. What does the bread He gives us represent and why does He give it to us? John 6:51

17. At the last supper Jesus told His disciples the bread He gave them to eat represented what? 1 Corinthians 11:24

18. Why must we “eat” of His “flesh”? John 6:54-56

To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ is to receive Him as a personal Saviour, believing that He forgives our sins, and that we are complete in Him. It is by beholding His love, by dwelling upon it, by drinking it in, that we are to become partakers of His nature. What food is to the body, Christ must be to the soul. Food cannot benefit us unless we eat it, unless it becomes a part of our being. So Christ is of no value to us if we do not know Him as a personal Saviour. A theoretical knowledge will do us no good. We must feed upon Him, receive Him into the heart, so that His life becomes our life. His love, His grace, must be assimilated.

19. What is spirit and life? John 6:63

The rabbis themselves had a saying, that the eating of bread, in its spiritual significance, was the study of the law and the practice of good works; and it was often said that at the Messiah's coming all Israel would be fed.

Those who see Christ in His true character, and receive Him into the heart, have everlasting life. It is through the Spirit that Christ dwells in us; and the Spirit of God, received into the heart by faith, is the beginning of the life eternal.

20. Are any words of God referred to as being eaten?

A. Ezekiel 3:1-3

B. Revelation 10:9, 10

The life of Christ that gives life to the world is in His word. 

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.... More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” Psalm 19:7, 10.

21. What are we to do when we find the Word of God? Jeremiah 15:16

22. If man does not eat the bread that came down from heaven, what bread is he eating? Proverbs 4:17

23. What kind of famine is going to come on the earth? Amos 8:11

We should not wait for a famine to feel our need of eating the Word of God. By partaking of the Bible each day, we satisfy our spiritual hunger. Now is the day of our salvation.

24. What other kind of bread might the Lord give us to eat? Isaiah 30:20

25. Even if that happens, what has God promised? Isaiah 30:18

Next Lesson: What Shall We Drink?