Do you realize how hungry you are? Years ago, experts encountered the medical mystery of a boy who lost his sense of hunger and thirst. His parents had to follow a rigid schedule of regularly reminding him to follow the rhythms of nourishment. This tragic and mysterious condition created a high stakes fork in the road: every meal was a conscious choice between sustenance and starvation—flourishing and famishment.
I wonder if you and I are more like that boy than we realize. Is it possible that we have lost our sense for sustenance and don’t realize how hungry we are? Could we also need reminders to follow the rhythms of nourishment?
In a famished world, God invites us to a feast. Not a feast of food and drink at supper, but a feast of words in scripture. A feast like this isn’t a one-time stop-and-fill-your-tank experience. It’s an invitation to make a conscious choice for a life of flourishing.
The Bible poetically portrays this absorption of scripture as food (Ezekiel 3:3; Jeremiah 15:16; Revelation 10:9-10). When we feast on words from God, they fuel a range of responses: from sobering humility to joyful delight. Eugene Peterson describes the satiation of scripture this way in Eat This Book:
“Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the Holy Community as food nurtures the human body. Christians do not simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus’s name, hands raised in adoration of the Father.”
Notice how scripture changes us. It nurtures us into a community of love, mission, compassion, and praise. We don’t just read scripture—we are read by it, changed by it. Through the Holy Spirit, the Bible is metabolized into renewed thoughts, affections, and actions. If engaging with scripture is a feast, it’s a feast that forms us.
Peterson’s words reflect my own journey of hungering for God’s word. It’s a journey that’s been deepened and widened through every meal we experience in Ten Minute Bible Talks. Our time together through TMBT reminds me of the three big reasons why I need the rhythm of nourishment through scripture. They are all distinct, yet related, ways that the feast of scripture is working to change you and me through our regular meals together:
It’s tempting to approach the Bible like a food critic eying a new and suspicious dish. The emphasis can easily center around my preferences, comfort, and control. Yet, engaging with the Bible as a rhythm of life reminds me that I’m not an independent, elite critic. I am a dependent, hungry guest at the table. Our journeys through the beautiful and challenging portions of scripture on Ten Minute Bible Talks have deepened and expanded this sense of dependence on God’s grace and truth in all areas of life. We feast because we need the sustenance of God’s word.
True sustenance doesn’t just keep us alive—it causes us to live well. It enlarges our capacity to be equipped as we engage with God’s world for God’s purposes (2 Timothy 3:17). So just as the meals of scripture sustain us, they also strengthen us. Greater dependence is not abandoned—it ascends into greater discipline. Exploring the Bible through Ten Minute Bible Talks stirs my heart and mind to be changed by God’s grace and live well under his grace. To work hard for his glory because he is at work within me (1 Corinthians 15:10). As we come together for our banquets in the Bible, we are sustained into greater strength—God’s strength—as we bear fruit in his mission.
Thankfully, the feast of scripture is not a utilitarian exercise in stacking calories for the purposes of productivity. It is a feast to savor. As renewed dependence and discipline course through lives, we are also met with delight. God’s words have a honey-like sweetness that cultivate our affections for deep joy in Jesus (Psalm 119:103). In a world obsessed with productivity and optimization, it is far too easy to leave the element of savoring behind. Through our time in Ten Minute Bible Talks—and in all of Bible-reading—God is not inviting us to a fast-food restaurant to quickly consume his word. He has brought us to the kind of table where we slow down and enjoy every morsel. This is a feast for pleasure, connection, and joy. As we are sustained and strengthened, God reminds us to be a people of savoring.
We are hungry people who need the nourishment of our good Creator and Savior. All of us need the sustenance, strength, and savoring he offers us in the Bible. We could stop our survey of God’s meal with these three elements, but there is one final feature to the feast that we should consider before we pull up our seats.
It’s easy to assume that our experience of scripture through Ten Minute Bible Talks is segmented into little bite-sized morsels of individual consumption. After all, it’s a podcast, and we are separated by significant degrees of space and time. Some of us listen and reflect while commuting to work or school. Others are finishing chores, exercising, or sitting in a quiet room.
Even though our time together is split by the barriers of space and time, we are still very much together. We do not feast as isolated individuals absorbing prepackaged TV dinners. No, even in our distinct locations and time zones, we are feasting as a family—a family that is being filled, formed, and freed into flourishing.
Do you realize how hungry you are for this kind of meal? For this kind of flourishing? Through the movement of the Holy Spirit, there is a feast unfolding in the word of God. There’s a spot at the table for you. Will you pull up a chair and join us?