Sermon preached on 1 Timothy 4:1-5 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/23/2025 in Petaluma, CA. Audio not available.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
As our nation approaches our annual Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to reflect again on the importance of giving thanks. Now, often, when I teach a Thanksgiving message, I focus especially on being thankful for our salvation. Certainly, there is no greater blessing than our salvation. Let us indeed be thankful again that Christ has delivered us from eternal condemnation and given us the hope of eternal life. And yet, this year I wanted to spend some time thinking about being thankful for the seemingly more common matters of life, particularly for our food. Jesus taught us to pray for many things, including our daily bread. As God is kind to provide for our sustenance, and often bountifully, let us give thanks for his provision. Today’s passage will help us consider this.
I’ll address this in three points. First, we’ll see “God created food to be a good thing”. Second, we’ll see “God created food to be received with thanksgiving”. Third, we’ll consider what it means when it says our food is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
Let us begin by observing that God created food to be a good thing. Notice the context here. Paul prophesies that one day people would come and turn people away from the faith by teaching demonic false doctrines that include forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from foods. The most immediate fulfillment of this was surely the Gnostics which were an early threat to the church. The Gnostics tried to merge certain Greek philosophies with Christianity. A common belief they held was that physical matter was inherently evil, while championing the spiritual. Consequently, the Gnostics taught it was religious to forgo marriage and abstain from various foods. Sadly, later, the medieval ascetism that rose up in the church also promoted celibacy and abstaining of foods. For them, it was also religious to deny themselves these things. Both medieval ascetism and Gnosticism failed to recognize that both marriage and food are good things from God.
Paul states this in verse 3. God created both marriage and food to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Paul seems to especially focus on the food, but surely there is application here to marriage as well. Let us appreciate that Paul says if you are a believer of the truth, then you will know that food is a good creation of God for us. We see this taught in Genesis. Genesis teaches that God tells us that God gave fruits, vegetables, seeds, and animals for our food. Now, yes, later on under the Mosaic covenant, God gave some special food restrictions for God’s people, the kosher food laws. But as we see in the light of the new covenant, those temporary restrictions were meant to teach a spiritual lesson, that we need to have clean hearts. Jesus explained this in Mark 7:18-19, that it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, it is what comes out of a man. It says there that he thus declared all foods clean. The point is that the Bible throughout teaches us that God has created these things for our good. Psalm 104 is a great example in celebrating God’s good provision. For example, Psalm 104:14-15, “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.”
This brings Paul to conclude in verse 4, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected.” Food is a good gift from God, period. To further make this point, let’s go back to those two things some would want to restrict, marriage and food. We can point out that elsewhere (1 Cor 7) Paul speaks that singleness has certain advantages over marriage to the person who is gifted and called to singleness. But that doesn’t make marriage bad. Indeed, for the person who is not gifted and called into singleness, marriage is preferable than singleness. So, it would be wrong for someone to speak generally against marriage. Likewise, we know the Bible teaches that there can be special times and circumstances that warrant fasting. Then one might abstain from food for a time to focus on some concentrated prayer. But fasting is occasional for extraordinary circumstances. And so while fasting may be done for religious purposes, that does not mean that food is bad. Rather, the opposite is here clearly asserted. Paul says that this is a truth we should believe. Do you believe this?
As an aside, let me note that the goodness of food is not to be taken in a simplistic, absolute sense. For example, we should not become a glutton by eating too much food. Also, some foods are very rich and should only be enjoyed in moderation. The book of Proverbs speaks to both these as a matter of wisdom. The goodness of food must still be balanced with prudence and self-control, that we do not sin in how we eat.
Let us also note that the Bible acknowledges there are times for feasts. Our nation has this annual Thanksgiving feast. We can enjoy such feast in godliness. It is a good thing. Yet, Paul says there is more to how we are receive this for it to properly be a good thing. This leads us to our second point. God created food to be received with thanksgiving.
We’ve already acknowledged that food is a provision from God. Yes, it is true, that we humans are going to have to work for our food. A man who does not work does not eat, 2 Thess 3:10. But, if we plant seeds in the ground and God doesn’t send rain or sun then we won’t have any food. If God doesn’t give us health and strength, then we won’t be able to work. In God’s providence we live and move and have our being. So yes, in all things, we rely on God to provide our daily bread, even if he uses us in some way in the process. As James 1:17 says, God is the giver of every perfect gift. That includes our food. So then, we ought to give thanks to God when we receive our food to eat.
Romans 1:21 makes this point in reverse. It describes how everyone inherently knows there is a God, just by observing the created world. But Romans then condemns fallen humanity saying this, “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” It goes on to say that common man is under God’s wrath because of such failure to properly acknowledge God. In a similar way, 2 Timothy 3:2 gives a list of sins that includes being ungrateful. Tie this together on our point about food. Paul just said that our food is God’s good gift to us. But if someone eats that food without thanksgiving to God, then suddenly that good thing becomes a bad thing. If you eat with thanksgiving, that is good and lawful and right. If you eat without thanksgiving, that is bad and sinful and evil.
So then, daily we should thank God for our food. At our upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, it is especially fitting to set aside some time to thank God for all this many blessings, including for your food. When we thank God we are acknowledging that we depend on him. When we thank God we are acknowledging his goodness in so blessing us. When we thank God we are recognizing his power and riches to provide. When we thank God, we glorify him for the divine Provider and Benefactor that he is. Thank you, God!
As an aside, I might go back to the point about marriage for a moment. If it is true that we should be thankful for our food, it is also true that we should be thankful for the institution of marriage and the family that it produces. Let us be thankful this Thanksgiving not just for our food, but especially for our family. Indeed, as much as I love food, and my family knows this, I am far more thankful for my wife and children and parents and siblings and all my extended family. Let us all see our family as a good gift from God to receive with thanksgiving.
So far today we’ve acknowledged that food is a good gift from God, but it is only good for us to receive it if we receive it with thanksgiving. Let us now turn to our third point to further think about how we as Christians should receive our food. I have in mind how verse 5 speaks of our food being made holy by the word of God and prayer. We’ll see how this calls us to receive our food with our practice of praying before and/or after the meal.
So then, verse 5 interestingly says that our food is made holy. What does it mean here when it says that our food is made holy? Some translations put it that our food is sanctified or consecrated, which is just another way to say the same thing. Paul has in mind that there is a way in which our food becomes holy. What does this mean?
Let me first say what surely it does not mean. It doesn’t mean that it is holy in the way that say the Lord’s Supper is holy. When we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, that is particularly setting apart these elements for such a holy, sacramental use where as a congregation we are being renewed in the covenant of grace in a formal worship assembly. Surely, this is not saying that our daily bread, our regular meals we eat three times a day, are holy in the same sense that the Lord’s Supper is. Likewise, the old covenant had different meals that were eaten and called holy, like the Showbread that was ordinarily only for the priests to eat and they even had to eat it in a holy place. Surely, our regular meals are different from those holy meals used in formal cultic practices.
Yet, it says that our food is made holy, sanctified. Some how tried to get around this statement by saying that Paul is referring to the Lord’s Supper here. Their interpretation is that Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser: that if God sanctifies bread in the Lord’s Supper then it proves that bread is not inherently bad and shouldn’t be rejected as such. While that is an interesting argument, I don’t see anything in context that would get me to read the verse that way.
Here’s what I think is going on. First, let us appreciate that there are degrees of holiness. Even in the old covenant, there the tabernacle had the Most Holy Place, the Holy Place, and the courtyard, and those were varying degrees of holiness. Likewise, the book of Leviticus taught that all the people of the old covenant were to be holy and to pursue living holy as God is holy. Yet, their holy status was not the same degree as the holy status of the Aaronic priests, who even had an extended seven-day ritual to consecrate them for service. In a similar way, there is a way that our everyday food can be made, in a certain sense, holy. It is not holy like the Lord’s Supper is. But it nonetheless becomes set apart in some sense when we bless the meal and give thanks for it.
While that might sound strange at first, it makes a lot of sense when you think about things further. The Bible calls Christians saints, which literally means holy ones. We are God’s holy ones, and not just when we are at church worshipping together. As we live out our lives, day by day, we are holy people living in a common world. As holy people, there are things that we do in the common realm that we bring something of our holiness even into the common.
Let me explain it a different way. While our Sunday worship services are intended to be the highlight of our worship, it’s not just at church when we do acts of worship. Take the example of giving courtroom testimony. That is a mundane act, common to human society. Yet, when you swear an oath in the name of the Lord to tell the truth, your oath is an act of worship. You are invoking the name of God! There becomes something holy about you taking that oath and the testimony that you then deliver in God’s name. On a more ordinary note, think of the family and private devotions or worship that you do. While that is not a church worship service, when you read your Bible, pray, or sing to the Lord, those are all acts of worship that you are doing either as a family or privately. This is essentially what is in view here. When you bless the food and give thanks for it, this verse explains that you are consecrating the meal before you have it. Your act of worship as a Christian sets your meal apart. It transforms the ordinary into something religious.
Now I’ve been alluding to the fact that the meal only becomes so consecrated when you say that prayer of grace beforehand and/or afterwards. But this is what verse 5, I believe, is getting at. It says that the meal is made holy by the word of God and prayer. I believe the reference to the word of God and prayer are together describing the blessing and thanksgiving we give before a meal. The reference to prayer is pretty obviously referring to that. The reference to the Word of God might seems less so. Some interpreters actually think it is just referring to what Paul was just talking about, that Scripture speaks to the goodness of food received with thanksgiving, yet I would argue that Paul already made that point. Rather, what is surely in mind here is that it was customary back then for the prayer before a meal to involve a lot of Scriptural language in the form of a blessing. So, your prayer with your meal involved a lot of speaking of God’s word at the same time. So, I believe that is what verse 5 is describing when it says that the meal is consecrated by the word and prayer. It has in mind those two things coming together to set apart even our common meals.
This is what we see illustrated elsewhere in the Bible. There are two ways we see the premeal “grace” described. It is described as saying a blessing and it is described as giving thanks. Recently in our Ephesian’s sermon series, I mentioned the common Hebrew form of prayer known as a berikah where the prayer would involve several “Blessed be God” statements, rich with language from God’s Word. The “blessing” of a meal commonly used such blessing statements based on God’s Word. Likewise, the giving of thanks would be expressed in prayer. So then, verse 5 describes the consecration of the meal with word and prayer which elsewhere is commonly described as saying a blessing and giving thanks.
Let me point to some examples of this with Jesus. In Matthew’s account in chapter 26 of the Last Supper, it says that Jesus took the bread, and after blessing it, he then gave it to the disciples. Then it goes on to say that he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he then gave it to them. So in that meal, the blessing and thanksgiving beforehand are both highlighted. But it’s not just at the Lord’s Supper. Matthew 14:19, Jesus feeds the five thousand, but before he distributed the food it says he said a blessing. Likewise, Matthew 15:36, Jesus feeds the four thousand, but before he distributed the food it says he gave thanks. Jesus would bless the meal and give thanks for it before eating. Paul here explains that this in some sense consecrates the food.
Hopefully you all already have the practice of giving thanks and saying a blessing before the meal. If not, may this passage exhort you to correct that deficiency. This is what Christians do. For the rest of us, I hope this passage has reminded you of the significance of this practice. May it help you to be all the more intentional in such an act of worship. It is such a temptation that the things we do frequently can become mindless and rote. May today’s message spur you on to being all the more engaged in your setting apart of your daily meals with prayer before and/or after. It is a great way to further set apart your meal, transforming it from just something common and mundane to a way to honor and recognize the Lord and his provision.
If that application is true in general, it surely is so for this upcoming Thanksgiving Day meal. May our feast be marked out with God’s word and prayer. May we receive it with much thanksgiving. May this be a way to express worship to God as you feast.
So then, here are four closing applications: One, have joy in your feast. God has blessed you with this meal to enjoy with family and friends. It pleases God that we find joy in his good gifts as we recognize the joy comes from him. Two, have moderation in your feast. At church we are naturally more aware of our sin and more on guard against it. If our meal is in some sense holy, let us remember to treat food properly, not by turning it into an idol, but by a moderate and sober enjoyment. Three, may we remember to be generous if God has generously blessed us. This is a great time to remember the poor as we enjoy such a feast. Four, may our earthly feasting point us to glory. The Bible describes that the age to come will have feasts. Our earthly feasts point us forward to eternity. This eternity is ours because of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, for all who have believed on his name.
In conclusion, I offer this short blessing from Psalm 113:2. “Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore!” Amen.
Copyright © 2025 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
