"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer."
1 Timothy 4:4-5

Ever wonder why your parents taught you to pray for your food? Why take 10 seconds to talk to God? Especially when the sweet smell of your favorite meal is rising up into your nose because it's still so fresh and hot. Why let it get 10 seconds colder??

You may have even prayed something like this:

"God is great, God is good
Let us thank him for our food.
By His hands, we all are fed,
let us thank him for our daily bread.
Aaaaaamen!"

Isn't that cute? Sure it is. Until you get to be about 13. Then you don't have an extra 10 seconds to spare of your mealtime to give God thanks. So, did your parents just make it up? Is it just a church thing to pray for food? Where did the idea come from? It came from the verse above.

Paul is writing to Timothy. Timothy is a young pastor at Ephesus that needs some guidance in things concerning the church. Some people are coming in and preaching false doctrines (statements and beliefs they claim are true and from God, but are in fact not). One of those false doctrines concerns people telling others to abstain from certain foods because they aren't good for some reason or another. Thus, Paul addresses the issue.

He starts off by saying that "everything created by God is good." There's our first principal to draw from the text. God created, and, furthermore, he created all things good. Well, some things are bad, right? So then those bad things must not have been created by God, right? Wrong. The gospel according to John starts off by saying "In the beginning was the Word...he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:1-2, italics added).

It seems then that everything was made by God. Then why are there "bad" things out there? Why can't we do some things and why can't we eat or drink certain things? Those questions dive deep into lots of theological rabbit holes that a short blog cannot cover, but here's the quickest answer: the things themselves are not bad, it's our sinful use of things that constitute something being evil or not.

So, when we eat, we are to receive it "with thanksgiving." And we can know that it is made holy "by the word of God and prayer." This is why we pray over our food. And this is why, generally, that prayer consists of something like "thank you, Lord, for this food..."

The bottom line is summed up in 1 Corinthians 10:31 when Paul says, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." So, enjoy that Reese's peanut butter cup, or that Dr. Pepper, or that meatloaf sandwich your great grandma made you, but enjoy it to the glory of God. Amen.