How to say grace before a meal

1913 235 Why do so many Christians, on sitting down to meals, begin by praying? The appropriate thing on accepting a gift is to give thanks. The Christian recognises God as the giver of his food, and therefore should render thanks to Him. This indeed is consonant with scripture: "meats" are "created to be received with thanksgiving of them who believe and know the truth" (1 Tim. 4:3).

Scripture says that "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." The current idea is that each meal needs to be prayed about, before it can properly be partaken of. But the contrary is the truth: it is sanctified by the fact of the new position in which the Christian stands. "All things are yours … the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours" (1 Cor. 3:22). The action on our part which scripture enjoins is not prayer but thanksgiving. "If it be received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:4). It is "created to be received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:3). Thus the Christian's meal-table becomes an altar of praise; the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. How different from the dead formula which some of us have had to listen to with pain: "Sanctify, we beseech thee, O Lord, this food to our use, and us to Thy service, for Christ's sake. Amen." Not a word here of thanks to the Giver of all good for His bounties spread upon the table before us; and the prayer which is made is out of place, it being that God would do something which He has already done, and for which He expects thanksgiving or praise from loving hearts which know Him.

And even where formulas have long been laid aside, one has often to hear what is really only an expansion of the gloomy one just quoted prayer about the food, about ourselves, about our service, but never a note of praise to our God for His creature-gifts! Prayer is very, very blessed, but so also in its place is praise not only does it re-act subjectively upon ourselves, but it glorifies God. "Whoso offereth praise (or, thanksgiving, marg.) glorifieth me" (Ps. 50:23). At a meal-table it is sometimes said, Will you ask a blessing? and the appropriate reply would be, "No; the food is already blessed; it is sanctified to our use; and for this food, thus already blessed, I will cheerfully give thanks."

The New Testament gives us the Lord’s own teaching and example. He taught His disciples to say, when they prayed, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ (Matt. 6:11). He taught the poor of His little flock not to be over-anxious concerning what they should eat and what they should drink, because their heavenly Father knew they had need of all these things (vs. 31–32). The Lord Himself, at the outset of the meals He provided for the multitudes, blessed and gave thanks (Matt. 14:19; 15:36; Mark 6:41; 8:6; John 6:11). The importance of His public thanksgiving may be gathered from John’s subsequent reference to the miracle: ‘the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks’ (John 6:23). He emphasises, not the multiplication of the loaves which we think so wonderful, but the Lord’s giving of thanks at the beginning of the meal. There was blessing as well, as there was at the institution of the Lord’s supper (Matt. 26:26–27). But it must be noted that in no case does the Lord bless the bread (there is no ‘it’ after the verb in the original in Matthew 26:26; compare Mark 14:22). The Lord Jesus, as the obedient man, blessed God the giver, not the inanimate food.

Another instance is after the Lord’s resurrection. At the evening meal in Emmaus, He ‘took bread, and blessed’ (Luke 24:30). On this occasion the meal was private, not in public; in the house, not on the hillside; with perhaps only two beside the Lord present, not a great multitude. It is especially helpful to note this in connection with the query before us. The risen Lord gave thanks at a little cottage meal!

We will now refer briefly to the particular points of the query. (1) Some scriptures have been cited which afford guidance on the general subject. They undoubtedly show that thanksgiving at meals should be cultivated as a regular Christian habit. (2) It is true that all God’s gifts, such as fresh air and sunshine, should be acknowledged thankfully, but food is placed by God in a special category, and we are admonished not to overlook the giving of thanks for this mercy. (3) It is also true that the act of thanksgiving may be performed mechanically sometimes, but this is equally true of our prayers and Bible reading. A lapse into dry or dead formality does not provide an adequate excuse for occasionally abstaining altogether. It would be better to seek to overcome the tendency to legalism by recalling our direct indebtedness to God for the nourishment of our bodies.

It may be added that the above principles should be carried out in practice, not in a spirit of irksome bondage, but in the spirit of happy liberty ‘wherewith Christ hath made us free’ (Gal. 5:1). In one’s daily practice, problems are sure to arise, calling for individual exercise of heart and conscience. Food may be eaten under a variety of conditions, ranging perhaps from a glass of water or a biscuit or a bar of chocolate to a multi-course dinner. We may eat alone or in company, at home or at a public table, with fellow-believers or in the presence of unbelievers. One may say one’s own grace silently, or give thanks aloud for others. In all cases God looks at the heart and accepts the simple, real, earnest thanks rendered to Him. But where grace is said as a parade of piety, in a bold and conspicuous manner with the evident intention of being seen of men, it incurs the Lord’s condemnation of the hypocrites in their prayers (Matt. 6:5). Let us heed the words of the psalmist: ‘O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good … who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever’ (Ps. 136:1, 25).

Verse 4. "Every creature of God is good." There is no evil whatever in the fact of eating any of the various meats therefore. The question of what may be harmful to health in specific cases, is not, of course, considered here, but the spiritual implications of eating. If one knows he cannot tolerate certain foods without suffering for it, then it is only sensible for him to avoid these. But eating or not eating makes no spiritual difference. "If it be received with thanksgiving" is an important condition noted here. If I do not thank God for my food, then whatever I eat, the spiritual implications are bad. That which sets the food apart as God's provision is the Word of God and prayer.

The spiritual significance of this for us we must not ignore. For if anyone in Israel did not give God this first place of recognition, he was to be sentenced to death. The matter is no less serious for us, though God is not today requiring the sentence of death for an offender. Instead He has given us the instruction of 1 Timothy 4:4-5, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Even animals unclean for Israel by the law's standards are for us perfectly fit for eating, for they are sanctified by the word of God and by the prayer of thanksgiving on the part of the eater. If one does not thank God for his food, he has no proper right to eat at all. For every creature is the property of God, and in receiving it we ought to recognize His rights first of all.

The Lord took of the bread that was before Him, and He blessed. We do not read that He blessed it. You will observe that the word "it" is in italics in our version, and therefore the significance is not that He took a piece of bread, and made it something else. He did not transform its nature. He blessed. He blessed God. He recognised the Giver of all good. His heart went up, as He loved it should, in thanksgiving to Him that was above. No occasion too great, none too small, for such devotional acknowledgment. For each and all things He always would bless, and give thanks. If you compare the account in Luke with those in Mark and Matthew, you will find that in Luke the parallel words are, "When He had given thanks." Blessing, therefore, is in this instance equivalent to giving thanks. There is no support at all in Scripture for the notion that the bread mysteriously and wonderfully became something different from what it was before.

But, on the other hand, it is a mistake to think we partake by breaking the bread, or that we break it. The whole force of the thing consists (as to this point) in our partaking of already broken bread. It is His body broken for us that we take and eat. We are not the breakers of His body, properly speaking. So that, I apprehend, the true partaking of the Lord's supper is after the bread is broken. The breaking of the bread now is, of course, a necessary accident to such participation, but is no part of the communion at all. And every one acquainted with scripture on the point, knows that "blessing" means simply giving thanks, and not consecrating the bread. See 1 Corinthians 11:24 and compare Matthew 26:26-27; Mark 14:22; and Luke 22:19. So in Luke 9:16, the miracle of the loaves and not the Eucharist, He blessed them and brake; in John 6:11, 23 Mark 8:6-7 (also Mark 6:41), the terms are united; in Matthew 14:19 He blessed, and in Matthew 15:36 gave thanks. In 1 Corinthians 14:16 we find incontestable proof of what indeed the previous passages can leave no doubt on to a reasonable mind. "Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what thou sayest?" Blessing is blessing God, a giving of thanks. So the apostle says, in 1 Corinthians 11, "the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks," and in 1 Corinthians 10 "the cup of blessing which we bless." Matthew and Mark, speaking of the bread, say He blessed; and speaking of the cup, say He gave thanks. In Luke it is simply, He gave thanks. Thus, the blessing which precedes the breaking of the bread is a giving of thanks; and in this, of course, all join, as in every thanksgiving, though one may utter it. Every saint is essentially competent, though in a large congregation godly order of mind may leave it to such as may have justly earned the respect of the body; yet, as the feeling of priesthood is readily slipped into, I should think it desirable that it were not always one.

Further, Paul, condemning an unnatural abstinence from certain foods on pseudo-religious grounds, laid down the fundamental truth that ‘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 Tim. 4:4–5). Again, it is implied that thanks to God is an habitual accompaniment of receiving or eating food. Like the early believers, we should eat, or receive, our food (meat) with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God (Acts 2:46–47). Note that every ‘creature’ good for food is already sanctified or set apart for this purpose by the word of God in Genesis, as we have observed above.

But in addition to this habit of general thanksgiving, we find that a meal is to be considered a particular occasion for the giving of thanks. In partaking of food for the support of our life we are, or should be, reminded of our great benefactor. Ignorance on our part of this obligation is inexcusable, because from the beginning God by special revelation, both before and after the fall, showed that vegetable and animal food alike are His gifts to man for his maintenance (Gen. 1:29–30; 9:3). He has never failed to send rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling men’s hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). What a perennial cause for thankfulness to Him! But, alas, it is recorded as a signal mark of men’s sinful departure from God and forgetfulness of His mercies that ‘they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful’ (Rom. 1:21). Thus, despising the riches of God’s goodness in the things of nature has been true of sinners from earliest times. This is deplorable, but it is still more so if found in the children of God.