Mealtime Prayers: Necessary or Optional?
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:05.840 | In episode 123, you explained how food is made holy by the Word and prayer.
00:00:11.040 | And as a follow-up question, Pastor John, should we pray before meals?
00:00:14.240 | Why or why not?
00:00:16.480 | That question, "Should we pray before we eat?" might be coming from two different mindsets.
00:00:24.640 | It might come from a convert out of paganism who's never seen anybody in their life pray
00:00:31.680 | before they eat.
00:00:34.080 | And then they see it done the first time at church or visiting a Christian, and they wonder,
00:00:39.120 | "What is that?"
00:00:41.480 | And so the question might be perfectly, wonderfully appropriate and innocent coming from somebody
00:00:47.760 | who wants to bring their life into conformity to a biblical way.
00:00:52.480 | However, I just have the sense that this question might come from a 20-something who might have
00:01:01.240 | grown up in a home where every meal time was preceded by prayer, and it didn't feel all
00:01:08.840 | that authentic to him, and therefore, he's having a hard time making that part of his
00:01:16.160 | life, and he wonders whether, "Do we have to do that?"
00:01:21.120 | So let me just say a few things, and whichever of those applies, I have more the second person
00:01:31.720 | in mind because I'm just suspicious that may be where it's coming from.
00:01:36.160 | So here's my first observation.
00:01:39.560 | The question may reveal an unwholesome view of duty.
00:01:45.680 | Here's what I mean.
00:01:47.320 | Edward John Carnell, who wrote the book Christian Commitment, one of my favorite books, which
00:01:53.080 | is out of print, in that book writes this, "Suppose a husband asks his wife if he must
00:02:03.720 | kiss her goodnight.
00:02:07.040 | Her answer is, 'You must, but not that kind of must.'"
00:02:13.640 | When I read that 30, maybe 40 years ago, I said, "Wow, that is so illuminating."
00:02:21.840 | Yes, you must kiss me tonight, goodnight, but no, no, not that kind of must.
00:02:31.440 | My statement then with regard to eating, I mean, praying before we eat is we should,
00:02:36.440 | but not that kind of should.
00:02:40.080 | In other words, depending on the tone of voice, when you say, "Must we?"
00:02:46.200 | What does that mean?
00:02:47.840 | What is going on there?
00:02:50.000 | There are morally, spiritually fitting things to do, and their oughtness rises not from
00:02:59.080 | law but love.
00:03:02.040 | First John 5, 3 says, "This is the love of God that we keep as commandments, and his
00:03:07.820 | commandments are not burdensome."
00:03:11.080 | In other words, yes, we should keep the commandments, but no, not that way.
00:03:16.600 | Yes, we should pray, but not that way.
00:03:20.240 | Our aim is to cultivate a heart that feels a duty like being told to, "You must enjoy
00:03:28.840 | your hot fudge sundae."
00:03:30.280 | Oh, okay, I will try.
00:03:35.240 | In other words, if you eat a hot fudge sundae because you have to, you don't have to eat
00:03:41.080 | this hot fudge sundae, but you really should eat the hot fudge sundae.
00:03:46.120 | That's number one.
00:03:47.120 | The question may reveal an unwholesome view of duty.
00:03:52.440 | Here's a second thing that I'm afraid a lot of people today don't think through.
00:03:57.720 | Habits of the body nourish habits of the soul as well as vice versa.
00:04:05.360 | A lot of people think that it is a spiritual and life-giving thing if habits of the soul
00:04:11.840 | give spontaneous rise to acts of the body, and that's right.
00:04:16.080 | They do.
00:04:17.080 | That's wonderful.
00:04:18.080 | That is life-giving.
00:04:19.080 | That feels free.
00:04:20.080 | But in the real world where we live, it works the other way, too, and a lot of people don't
00:04:24.400 | think about that.
00:04:25.880 | Habits of the body, like praying at mealtimes, which sometimes are enlivened by the spontaneous
00:04:33.800 | delights of the soul in God and His goodness, and sometimes are at 50 percent and sometimes
00:04:40.080 | at 10 percent, and sometimes we're just doing it, that, too, should be preserved for the
00:04:48.240 | sake of the soul, for the sake of the spontaneity, for the sake of the joy.
00:04:54.320 | It's like, I'm wondering if the person could try this, it's like kissing your wife goodbye
00:04:59.040 | in the morning and hugging every kid.
00:05:02.760 | Should you do that?
00:05:04.600 | And if someone says, "Well, I should do it when I feel like it, then it'll be authentic."
00:05:09.480 | I'm going to say, "No, no, no, no.
00:05:11.280 | I don't think it works like that.
00:05:14.240 | I don't think it works like that.
00:05:16.080 | If I say I will only kiss her and hug them when I'm feeling especially warm, I will destroy
00:05:24.240 | a pattern of life that has value not only to express the affection when it's there,
00:05:31.520 | but to tip me off when it's not there, and to be there when the affection returns, that
00:05:39.480 | is, the pattern of life will be there so that the affection can come down like an anointing
00:05:44.480 | on it, even sometimes when I'm not expecting it.
00:05:48.720 | So I think in family life especially, and single life is getting ready for family life,
00:05:57.300 | we should cultivate outward expressions of love that matter when feelings rise, when
00:06:04.440 | feelings fall.
00:06:07.880 | We don't need the habit of body at mealtime just because it's always authentic.
00:06:15.300 | We need it to be there so that when the authenticity comes, there'll be something to feel.
00:06:22.800 | Here's a third observation.
00:06:26.500 | Giving thanks at mealtime is a wonderful, well-timed opportunity to obey the command
00:06:32.040 | to give thanks.
00:06:33.360 | The Bible says, Ephesians 5, "Give thanks always and for everything to God, and what
00:06:40.120 | better time to build obedience into our lives than at a very moment when God is freely giving
00:06:45.840 | us something we need for our very lives."
00:06:49.080 | It's also one of the clearest ways of teaching children massively important truth about where
00:06:55.240 | everything comes from.
00:06:57.680 | Children, especially little children, they're not reading your heart every time.
00:07:02.780 | They're reading your body, your faithfulness, your commitment, your steadiness, and it's
00:07:08.360 | a wonderful time to be teaching them simple prayers about how to be thankful to God.
00:07:14.720 | I think the last thing I'd say, Tony, is why would you not want to?
00:07:20.520 | Why would that not be the question?
00:07:25.040 | What would be the new, compelling, modern arguments against a tradition that has gone
00:07:34.120 | back 2,000, probably 4,000 years, and is practiced by Christians in every culture on the planet?
00:07:43.480 | What would be the new discoveries people are making today that would say, "Oh, I see.
00:07:49.760 | We can have a better view of this than has been had all these years."
00:07:54.720 | So it is a beautiful Christian tradition.
00:07:58.060 | Why would we not want to do it?
00:08:00.360 | Right.
00:08:01.360 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:02.360 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:08:04.280 | Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:08:07.900 | At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands of other free books and articles and sermons
00:08:11.400 | and other resources from John Piper.
00:08:12.960 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:08:14.360 | Thanks for listening.
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