Doctrine of Food – Food Demonstrates the Goodness of God

Food Demonstrates the Goodness of God

Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food …

Thank you, God, that food tastes good. Food is delicious, scrumptious, tasty, yummy, and mouthwatering. Everything God made is good. Food is very good. I have yet to meet a person that doesn’t enjoy a good meal.  All of us have seen the look of bliss in someone’s face when they bite into something they love; sheer joy! We are born with an appetite and a hankering for good-tasting, lip-smacking food. Around 99% of the time, I look forward to eating, and 100% of the time I look forward to eating when I know it is one of my favorite foods. We eagerly share our eating experiences with others.

God’s goodness gives us the ability to experience favorable things. Food teaches us that God cares about appealing to our senses. Things in the world are “sensational.” God wants us to observe and find that what He has made is good. He has given us tools and abilities to make observations and to evaluate the world around us and how He made it to be good. Food is one of those good things God made, and taste buds are what He gave us to realize that food is good. God made food good to eat. Imagine if food had no taste, and it all looked the same. Taste is known to have the ability to become an obsession. Ever have a craving for chocolate? Some of you reading this just did. People often overeat just for the taste. Even the mention of a food may cause the mouth to begin to salivate. People with the loss of taste have to force themselves to eat as the sense of taste is related to our appetite. People spend extra money on items that taste good. A real-estate investor from Hong Kong reportedly paid over $160,000 for a gigantic Italian White Alba truffle. Oh my!

God’s goodness has endless variety and imagination. When God made food, He made more variety than we could imagine. There is the rich delicacy of sevruga caviar and the New England favorite of baked beans and franks. I recall that my grandfather enjoyed eating pickled pig’s feet. God made such a variety of foods that it is impossible to taste all the different types of food that the world has to offer in our lifetime. There is variety in taste, color, shape, and size. In one meal you can have blueberries and an orange accompanied by black-eyed peas and yellow squash with green beans. We can eat tiny grains of wild rice or a large watermelon. Food can be a highly fattening donut or be tasteless and without calories. We can have an oblong eggplant, a flat tortilla, or a wedge of cheese. It is amazing to think of all the different types of food and recipes available to us.

It happened that my recent devotional reading took me through the book of Nehemiah. Toward the end of the book, the people were repentant for their sins which were drastically contrasted and highlighted by the backdrop of the goodness of God and His helping them rebuild Jerusalem, their great city. In their repentance, the Levites testified and praised God before the Israelite people. In their proclamation of praise, they told of how God had been with them throughout their history. When they recall the time period when the people of Israel entered and dwelt in the promised land and basked in the bountiful produce, they said this, “So they ate, were filled, and grew fat, and reveled in Thy great goodness  (Nehemiah 9:25).“  In this sentence, I was struck by just exactly how the goodness of God was measured; by the abundance of good food.

God is good. His goodness is to be praised for its variety, plenty, beauty, and enjoyment. Taste and see that the Lord is good!

-Allen