Saying Grace

1 Timothy 4-Part 1 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.
For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.    1 Timothy 4:4-5


LET IT GLOW

As a child, our family didn't give thanks to God for the meal, say grace or say a blessing, as it is often called. However, when my dad's family got together at holidays, the hostess would call on my Uncle Carl to pray. Perhaps that was because he was a Baptist minister. So I was familiar with the practice. After I got saved, before a meal, I would bow my head and silently say thank you to God for His provisions and gifts. Now my family practices the giving of thanks to God for the food He has provided. What about your family?

Paul addresses the false teachings of false  teachers in the Ephesian church. They forbid marriage and the abstaining from certain foods. Paul rejects any divison of foods into good and evil categories. His reasons are: God's Creation is good and we should eat with thanksgiving what God has created. In verse 5, Paul also says this act of blessing the food made it special or consecrated before God.

Does that mean we can eat anything? 1 Corinthians 10:23 says, Everything is permissible-but not everthing is beneficial.  French fries may be all right to eat, but they make me sick because of my Crohn's disease. Therefore, I should not eat them. However, I can eat baked ones and they don't bother me.

Back in Acts 10, we find Peter being told through a vision, What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.

Meat (broma in Greek) means solid food in genteral and not simply animal meat. The Bible says marriage and meats were created by God and are not to be refused. (Liberty Bible Commentary)

Do I give thanks for all  food, even though my diet is restrictive, and I repeat the same menues often?

Forbidding to marry was a teaching of the first century Essenes. They considered it necessary for preservation  of our human race, but their followers were forbidden to marry. Forced celibacy (and diets) is not scriptural nor does it save nor sanctify. Paul is warning Timothy of this false religion practices.


LET IT GROW

In chapter 4, Paul distinguishes between false and true teachers. First, he warns about the dangers of the gospel being distorted either by adding to it or taking  something from it.
Here is what Warren Wiersbe has to say:

We can recognize false teachers by the description Paul gave in this paragraph.
* They are energized by Satan. He has his own ministers and doctrines, and seeks to deceive God's
   people and lead them astray (2 Cor. 11:3). Paul warned that false teachers would arise from within the
   church (Acts 20:30).
*They lead people astray. Their goal is to seduce people and get them to depart from the faith. This is the
   word apostasy, and it is defined as "a willful turning away from the truth of the Chrisitan faith." These false
   teachers do not try to build up the church or relate people to the Lord Jesus Christ in a deeper way.
*They are hypocrites. These false teachers preach one thing but practice another. The tell their disciples
   what to do, but they do not do it themselves. Seared means cauterized. Just as a person's flesh can be
   "branded" so that it hecomes hard and without feeling, so a person's conscience can be deadened.
*They deny God's Word. Paul deals with this same false doctrine in his Letter to the Colossians. Those
   who "believe and know the truth" are not impressed with the dos and don'ts of the leagalists.

Am I always watching out for false teachers? Do I know enough of the Bible to refute their false teachings?


LET IT GO

Give thanks to God for the food He provides.

Be aware of false teachings and false teachers.