Episode 39 of the Living Life Well Show: Taste and See-Bread!!!!
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Living Life Well Show, the intersection of God's Word, today's science, and healthy living with common sense application, all based on the truth of the Word of God. I'm your host, Dr. Jon Skelton. Now let's get straight to the truth.
All right. Welcome back to the living life. Well show today. I'm excited to continue our taste and see series and talk about bread. You know, bread is one of the staple foods, right? It's been around for thousands of years. We see evidence of bread making back 10, 000 years ago and bread is biblical, right?
So we use it in our Lord's supper. We talk about the bread of life. And we talk about [00:01:00] bread even in the Lord's Prayer. So, so bread is a staple and bread has been used for thousands and thousands of years. And so it is very important and it's God given. And so it's something that we really want to pay close attention to and make sure that we are really understanding the significance of bread.
And how it can best impact us not only physically, but mentally
So today, what I'd like to do is take a little walk through the Bible, going through where we first see bread, the significant ways in which bread is talked about and used. And then we'll go into our modern breads and how the things are today and how we can get the best for ourselves through our current conditions.
So, as I like to do with this series, we want to go into the Bible and look at [00:02:00] how often something is mentioned and when it is first mentioned. To review, when I'm looking for a biblical basis for something, I like to look at the law of first mention.
In addition, I also really like to look at how often something is mentioned. The more often something is mentioned that indicates. In general, that God wants us to pay attention to it, right? So when we are looking in the Bible for food and bread specifically. The names are somewhat synonymous. We, we see that bread or food is mentioned over 400 times in the Bible.
So when we look at those names for it, the first Hebrew name that we see is Lehem and Lehem refers to food. and or bread essentially synonymously it appears. [00:03:00] So when we take that aspect, it is mentioned quite often in the old Testament where the Hebrew translation is. Now, when we look in the new Testament that is using the Greek and they use the word artos.
So two different words, two different languages. However, the Greeks were much more specific with their definition of bread. The way they defined artos is a food made from flour mixed with water and baked. The root word is Airo to raise up or elevate. So think of yeast there.
Lehem really, like I said means food or grain. But the root word is interesting. It's Lawkhem, L A W K H E M, to fight or do battle. So when we think of that root word the lawkhem, and [00:04:00] then we put that in place in the Bible, it really has interesting significance.
We see food is involved with the fall. And so we. Notice that Satan's temptation dealt with a food, right? So, the fruit that tempted Eve. So this is very interesting when we take that root word, Lawkhem, because It essentially is referring to the fall that, that doing the battle for our souls for sin, and then taking that even further, we really see this come up in the new Testament where we see it in Matthew four with the temptation of Christ, right after he's been in the wilderness for 40 days.
And has come through this time of fasting and he is tempted by Satan. He's tempted to turn the stone into [00:05:00] bread and feed himself. And this is the first temptation that we see out of the three temptations that are given to him upon his. coming out of the wilderness time, this time of significant fasting and reflection preparing for his ministry.
So when we think of Lehem and Lawkhem, it really is significant that it indicates that we are doing battle and the food is the first way that we've been tempted in this. In addition, Lehem is referring specifically to bread, and we talk about the bread of life. And so when we look at this, it seems maybe silly to some but it is.
spiritual warfare over bread. And I know that may seem extreme. That may seem [00:06:00] kind of out there for you. But when sin corrupts, it corrupts all things. It wants to corrupt the way we look at, think about, and operate in an everyday basis on those things that God has told us are good and or necessary. So we take this.
a step further to the Christian life. And we talk about the Lord's prayer and how Jesus tells us to pray, and he asked that we pray for our daily provision, our artos, our bread so our food is what he's referring to, meaning that Our food really needs to come from God. I believe that literally as well as spiritually.
And so, so we really want to take that approach as we look at this staple that is really [00:07:00] just so significant in our everyday life. In addition. God tells us in the Lord's Supper when we look at Matthew 26, 26, where he's really taking the bread as a representation of his sacrifice as part of his sacrifice for us on the cross.
So, and Bread has tremendous significance. Bread is going to be attacked in the literal form of bread, as well as its representative forms to us of God's provision. So we have to take that stance, that understanding, as we really look at this. And so, so bread is in my opinion the foundation of all our physical food from that fact, now going one step further, going back a little further, even, you know, what is bread?
Made from well, [00:08:00] breads made from grains. Okay. Wheat, generally speaking is referred to in the Bible as well as grains in general, many times that was referencing corn, but quite often was referencing wheat and different varieties of wheat, and when we look at that we see that they had several different grains that they were referring to besides just wheat.
They were, they barley, spelt, millet, these would all be considered ancient grains in addition. We see other ancient grains like einkorn and these things as well. So, so we have lots of different ancient grains and we see that these were very important. And when we look in the old Testament, even we see that there was very specific sacrifices that needed to take place with bread that was made with olive oil bread that was made with salt the bread of [00:09:00] sacrifice.
We know that in the Exodus bread was very important and it needed to be unleavened bread. And so we see many aspects to bread through, throughout the Bible and throughout this concept. of not only physical food but spiritual food meaning that God wants our physical sacrifice to him for spiritual blessing.
And so this is kind of what I want you to be thinking about as we are going through this, because Bread, in my opinion, what's on your store shelves is not at all what God intended. And so we really want to get into that and look at that a little bit more closely so that we can get those physical benefits that God tells us by giving us our daily bread, by giving us our food, by giving those things that are going to be nourishing and [00:10:00] helpful and healthful.
So let's talk about bread and how it was produced then versus how it is produced now. So when we look at bread, it is essentially the berries that are coming off of the grain and it's essentially looks like a seed.
So if you remember one time, the Pharisees. chastise the disciples because they were quote picking grain on the Sabbath and they were going through a field. They were hungry. They picked off some berries and essentially ate it. Well, essentially that is seeds. That is the basis for bread.
And so when they did that, they ate it. broke Sabbath protocol because they were doing work, right? Well, when we go back, we look at what bread is, it is made [00:11:00] from these essentially seeds or as we call them, wheat berries, if you will. They are then ground and then combined with water and nowadays many other things and potentially yeast to really help solidify that bread, work through it, make it rise.
In ancient times, they would do this with yeast. The Egyptians really seem to bring in the yeast aspect of things to bread. And we see yeast again mentioned in the Bible in a positive and negative light for that food. fact negative, obviously with regards to sin positive obviously how God can work through us and fill us.
So when we're looking at bread in biblical times, we obviously see in the Old Testament aspect where essentially they were each individually making their own bread.
They were making the specific unleavened bread for the Passover. They were making specific. Loaves of bread with olive [00:12:00] oil and salt for sacrifice. And we see that illustration the importance of bread, the importance of doing it in a prescribed way set forth for us. in the Old Testament.
Now, as we move into the New Testament, specifically in Jesus times, once Romans were around, Romans really kind of started the production aspect of bread, if you will. They were able to make bread. Up to 200 loaves at a time to really sell and create a business. Prior to this, essentially bread was something everybody did at home.
Everybody made their own loaves. Maybe you shared some with neighbors or something like that, but there wasn't a huge production value for bread. But we see that beginning in the Roman times and continuing to our modern day. [00:13:00] However, what they would do is they would generally give the white flour, the lighter flour to the upper class and they would give the brown flower to the lower class.
Well, what that consisted of was essentially straining out or sifting the crushed flower that was created. And we see that even starting back in, in those biblical times. Now, moving forward, this kind of continued in that vein, but again, it was an incomplete process. The high production value that we have today didn't exist.
And now today we have with the. Invent of the roller mills. We now have a process for which we can really separate out the three different particles of the bread, which is the bran, [00:14:00] the germ, and the endosperm. Think of endosperm as. flour. That's what you're going to be seeing on your store shelves as flour.
It's that endosperm and that is essentially what created the white bread, if you will, that you would see them using in, in Roman times for quote the upper class and the brown bread being essentially not sifted or using the other parts that were considered less desirable. Well, We've moved forward and into the 1830s with this advent of the roller mill.
What that did was that allowed huge commercial bakeries to start and huge mass production of things. And so what started is they would remove that bran and germ. The reason they remove the bran and germ is because that was not very stable. It also did not allow [00:15:00] quite the fluff, if you will, as you add yeast.
And so. It was considered less desirable and so it was removed. And so we saw proliferation of high production of bread and flour in general from this aspect. And so that, that began in the 1830s and has continued over time, continues to be perfected and changed. for production value. When I say perfected, I mean, as a production value, not necessarily that it is better for you.
Okay. So when we look at this, that, that production value was really raised up and then now allowed to sit on store shelves. Well, they noted that over time there was still decay occurring. And so. As things happened over the 1800s to 1900s to [00:16:00] today they've continued to perfect bread to make it more shelf stable, it's still.
Obviously is going to decay but it, it tends to remain a little bit more shelf stable due to the way in which it is produced. Well, what we see is immediately when you start grinding grain or the wheat berries you are going to start that clock ticking for the shelf stability or the goodness of that grain.
As long as it remains in seed form, it continues to be good and be good for years. This is why we see in the Old Testament with Joseph's dream about the seven good years and seven bad years and his ability to essentially save Egypt and all mankind in that region was because of the [00:17:00] stability of having grain in that seed or berry form as opposed to being ground.
And so that is the way it was stored. And then that is the way it was distributed to allow life to be sustained, to allow people not to go hungry, to essentially bring all of Israel his father and brothers to Egypt and then start the nation of Israel essentially. So, so it's interesting that when we look at this, that in its in stable form, that wheat berry.
It created the entire nation of Israel, if you will, because of the famine that was occurring in the land. It brought them to Egypt to be able to obtain food, to be able to sustain life. So that's a little bit of the history of bread in the Bible. What I believe is the [00:18:00] significance of it. And on the next episode, what we're going to discuss is we're going to discuss bread in its modern form, how we can go through a good, better, best process to get the bread that is really life sustaining and that
I believe God really intended for us to have. So I hope that you've found this beneficial. I hope that you found this interesting and thanks and God bless.
That's it for this episode of the Living Life Well Show. If you like what you've heard and want to learn more, or want to know how to put this into practice for yourself, go to livelifewellclinic.com. Until next time, this is Dr. Jon Skelton saying, go out and live the truth so you can live life well. The preceding is for entertainment and educational purposes only. It is not meant to be used to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. The [00:19:00] information contained in this show does not substitute the need for a qualified medical professional, nor is it meant to provide medical advice or services.
If you feel information presented in this show may apply to you, we recommend you seek out the help of a qualified medical professional who can evaluate and treat your specific concerns.
