(upbeat music) - Pastor John, we have two related questions on prayer, possibly two podcasts. The first question is, should we pray before eating? Why or why not? And the second question is, how is food made holy by the word in prayer? 1 Timothy 4, three through five. - Right, Tony, I think it will probably be better to break these up.

I don't know, you can decide. I'm gonna talk about the second half of the question about 1 Timothy 4. I think that is so fundamental, really fundamental, to the way we live in this world that it might fill up a podcast on its own. And then we shift over to, should we pray before meals?

So here's the verse, I'll read it. 1 Timothy 4, three through five. In the last times, people will forbid marriage, which probably means sex is viewed as something of a problem here, or maybe too dirty or too fleshy or too something, too unspiritual. So people are gonna forbid marriage, they're gonna require abstinence from foods.

So eating and sex are the two issues here, that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth, for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So behind this verse, evidently, is a false teaching, a false spirituality that solves the problem of sex and food with asceticism, strict asceticism. No marriage, no eating certain foods. That's the way they're solving the problem of the temptations of sex to be controlling and to be overpowering and the temptations of food to take control of us.

And I find it, Tony, amazing that 2,000 years ago, Paul would be dealing with the two massive temptations of our own day. Several years ago, I was speaking to a group of about 800 missionaries at a conference, and I spoke, I was told that they're gonna fire that afternoon five missionaries for pornography.

And I said, really? The mission board was gonna fire them? And I said, okay, I need to address this. So I changed my plan, addressed sexuality issues, and when I was done, a woman came up to me. So I'm talking mainly to the men, right? And a woman came up to me and she said, if you had replaced the word sex everywhere in your talk and put the word food in, it would have landed on almost every woman in this room the way it would have.

And I thought, really? Now, I don't know whether she's right or not, but that she said it is really significant. So here's Paul addressing those two things. In fact, if you go to 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul says, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated or enslaved by anything, the two things that he chooses to address in the next verses are the stomach, food, and prostitution, sex.

So clearly, these two huge appetites that human beings have, created by God, the sex appetite and the hunger appetite, can become idolatrous. They can become enslaving, and that's why false teachings arise. We gotta get this under control, right? We gotta figure this out. And so let's just not, let's let our best people not marry, and let's have everybody figure out foods that they should abstain from, and we'll conquer this thing with the asceticism pea shooter.

And Paul said, he said in Colossians, that's not gonna get anywhere. So what's Paul's solution? And the question actually dealt with his solution. His solution was food and sex are made holy by the word of God and prayer. And so if we ask what word? You have a word in mind, Paul, a word of God?

What kind of prayer do you mean and when? And we're not left without any pointers. I mean, the very context, verse four, says God created them to be received with thanksgiving. So that's the prayer. The prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the dethroning of a God and turning it into a gift, right?

We've said this before. Sex is starting to get this power over us, starting to exert an enslaving God-like force on our life, and thanksgiving humbly says, you are not a God, you are a gift from God, and I will let him determine how this gift is to be used, and I will be filled with humble thanksgiving.

I will not worship you, I will receive you, or not as a gift by God's design, and I will thank you. So thanksgiving, I think, is what is meant by the word, it is sanctified by prayer, prayer in the sense of, I am thanking God for you, and therefore you are not gonna compete with God, you're gonna be a means of my worship rather than a competition with my worship.

And that leaves me with the question, well then, what's the word of God? It is made holy by the word of God and prayer, and he had just said earlier in the previous verse that these things were made to be enjoyed by those who know and believe the truth.

So evidently there's truth here in the word of God that will help us not mistreat these gifts, and I sat down and I thought about this, I thought, where has Paul dealt with this? And here's the one I thought of. Back in 1 Corinthians 10, eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

Now what's he doing there? He's saying this food is clean, you may eat this food, and how is he sanctifying it for them? He reaches to a word of God, Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. So my general answer to the question, what does that mean, is if we're dealing with sex, if we're dealing with food, we prevent them from having undue control or an undue place in our lives by bringing them both under the word of God, like the earth is the Lord's, and so you don't need to worry that you are eating this meat that was offered to an idol, it belongs to God, he's offering it to you as a gift, and if we're saying thank you to him, we are dethroning God and making it a gift.

So I would just have everybody put all the gifts of God, not just sex and food, but all the gifts of God in the context of his word, let his word define their place, and then be filled with thanksgiving and let it overflow in prayers of gratitude. - Yes, thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands of other free books, articles, and sermons, and other resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)