How to Use Food to Reinforce a Bible Story
- 1). Use food offerings to represent some of the food that is in the Bible story you want to reinforce. For the Lord's Supper, the meal and food should be served during a Christian Seder dinner. Incorporate at least unleavened bread and wine or juice, the items that are most well known in the Bible to represent the sacrifice of Christ. Stories of food can also be discussed with corresponding food items from the stories of times of famine and need. Serve fish, for example, when you discuss the story from chapter 1 of Mark, where fishermen casting nets were given a plentiful catch by Jesus.
- 2). Say a prayer before you serve and eat the food that is meant to reinforce the story of the Lord's Supper. The prayer can include a message of thanks, such as "Lord, we thank you for what we are about to receive...," which will help bring the meaning of the stories of the Bible to the present time. Discuss passages from the Bible, such as those from Genesis, that discuss the presence of seeds on the earth that have given us food to plant and consume. You can plant your own garden or talk about the fruits of the earth as you read through and discuss Genesis in the Bible.
- 3). Read about the Lord's Supper and the other food stories as you serve and eat the food offerings, using them to explain how the food is a representation of the Lord's sacrifice. As you share and consume the food, suggest that it should create a feeling of gratitude for what the Lord has given us and for what he sacrificed for us. The following passage from John can be read along with a Christian Seder Passover to reinforce the story:
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." John 6:51-56, New American Bible.