^“Do we have no right to eat and drink?” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:4

Our Christian faith requires that we acknowledge, with gratitude, God’s provision of food for us and that we feed the hungry, the widowed, the orphaned and the aliens. Food is essential. Through the medium of food, we live and grow, develop human relationships, even express our spirituality. When we lack food, we place all these pursuits in peril.

One report published by the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights indicated approximately 800 million people worldwide are hungry. Why? It is not because the world does not produce enough food to feed its 6 billion inhabitants. If food were evenly divided around the world, every human being would have access to a daily diet of about 2700 calories, which with the appropriate balance of nutrients would be more than enough for an adequate diet. So the problem of hunger is not a production problem, but rather one of distribution.¹

Food is vitally important in the Bible. Food has a significant role in our first contact with the creator in the Garden of Eden. The tribe of Israel is cared for in its 40-year desert trek by God-given manna and quail after which the nation is ushered into a fertile land that meets all of their physical needs. Christ’s ministry started at a wedding reception, and it ended when he proclaimed his message of the New Covenant using bread and wine. The Early Church shared everything, including food. Even in the Revelation, food and wine references abound with more than a dozen occurrences of allusions to eating and drinking.

The law given to Moses as set out in Exodus and Leviticus makes it clear that those who have food have an obligation to share with others. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 23:22) This particular command is part of a more significant admonition to care for the poor and the alien. However, it is significant that one of the ways the poor are to be cared for is that those who produced food were to leave some for the poor.

Throughout this issue, we seek to gain insight into our Biblical understanding of our obsession, our insecurities, and our spiritual relationship with food. How should the church respond to matters of physical and spiritual hunger? Today when you sit down to eat, what actions demonstrate your faith in God’s provision of food to satisfy hunger? Here is a short list of thoughts to consider.

Food should be received with gratitude.

Paul reminds us that “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor.10:31).

Food is the fabric of relationships.

Ultimately the sharing of food is a sign of love and acceptance such as was shown by Jesus dining with tax collectors.

We struggle with the balance between justice and compassion.

How does one balance the justice theme of strict food laws in the Old Testament or the hard teaching of Paul’s New Testament passage “if you do not work, you do not eat” with the compassion that God’s show for his people in the desert or Jesus’ feeding of the 5000?

The focus in the Christian theology of food (and our mission to support feeding ministries) is that we have no right to food but rather an obligation to be thankful for the provision of food and to show this gratitude by extending an offer of food to others—to meet their physical, social, moral and spiritual needs.

¹ Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 12, para 6 (1999). United Nations Document Number E/C.12/1999/5, CESCR General Comment 12. Available at: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/MasterFrameView/3d02758c707031d58025677f003b73b9? Opendocument