Better Digesting Spiritual Food

My house was built back in 1890 and is in fairly good condition. It’s a little drafty and it lacks the fancy-pants insulation that modern homes boast, but it has some character and has stood time’s test. It was constructed in sandstone, a pleasant, warmly coloured material which the original masons would have found easy to dress. It weathers worse than harder building materials, but it’s likely to outlive me.

The other day, I noticed a sparrow pecking at my doorstep. I assumed a seed had there landed and thought nothing more of it. Spending more time at home these past months, I noticed the sparrows’ attraction to my doorway more frequently and realised that many were attracted to the step as well as the vertical stonework of the surround. Both have been worn, by feet, rain -and sparrow pecks.

I provide the local birdlife with seed, crusts and fresh water. They reckon my little backyard with its overgrown bushes and borders an oasis of life in an otherwise built up Victorian part of town. I didn’t realise I was also providing them with free sand. I decided to find out why, and the Royal Society for Protection of Birds’ website was most obliging; they had evidently been contacted by numerous concerned householders:

Seed eating birds, such as sparrows and finches, will eat mortar for the grit it contains. Birds have no teeth for crushing food items, so they utilise small, hard pieces of stone, or sand as abrasive digestive helpers. Birds swallow small bits of grit to act like teeth in the gizzard, a specialized stomach constructed of thick, muscular walls used for grinding up food. The grit helps to break down hard foods, such as seeds and the hard exoskeletons of some insects. Gizzards can also be found in reptiles, earthworms and some fish. Bird gizzards are lined with a tough layer made of the protein keratin, to protect the muscles in the gizzard. All birds have gizzards, but not all will swallow stones or grit.

So putting out seed is all well and good, but the sparrows also need the means by which it is digested. Food without digestion does us little good; it may instead do harm. It makes us feel full and contented but from it we derive little nourishment. We Christians often talk about spiritual food, by which we mean, or should mean, the Bible. That book is God’s word, it is the written record of His oracle and revelation. Some of it is harder to understand, some of it as simple as can be. The former we sometimes call the meat, the latter the milk. Wherever you are on the scale of maturity, consider this advice:

Always take your spiritual food

Without it you’ll starve and your faith will be weak and flimsy. When troubles come, it will faint or die. Read your Bible regularly, think about its meaning, apply it to your life.

Eat enough

Don’t take on more than you can chew, but neither should you insist on dieting. Challenge your spirit, seek growth, read those ‘harder’ books like Romans and Hebrews.

Be hospitable

Eating is often a social practice. Singletons like me love the prospect of sharing food. Families that eat together often seem to get on better. Not everyone is called to preach and teach, but we may all encourage and comfort each other with the Bible. I seldom cook or bake; the results are typically poor or mundane, not worth the relative trouble and extra washing up. On those occasions when a cake turns out well, I give it away. Eating it myself seems a waste; Virginia Woolf declared that "Pleasure has no relish unless we share it.” Surely a good dose of spiritual food is best shared also?

Yet I wonder if we ought to better consider a fourth point:

Aid digestion

My local sparrows are smart. They go to extra trouble to pop sand crystals in their gizzards. So too might we pop in a little extra- not to top-up the Bible but better digest it. Some use daily study notes, though their quality varies. They’re only as good as their authors, and their respective theology.

Listen to expository preaching, whereby a preacher takes a text and explains its meaning, applying it to life. This isn’t the only way to preach, but it’s certainly a good way to help breakdown a text’s spiritual content.

Read Bible commentaries. They aren’t the preserve of the pastor or scholar, for all believers might profit from them. Sure, some are technical, poring over the usage of Greek verbs and Hebrew idioms. Others are far simpler, offering interesting background information and application to life.

Three questions.

If you come across a verse or passage that doesn’t seem to make sense, do you just skip it, or will you return and wrestle like Jacob and the Angel?

When you come across an apparent contradiction, such as James declaring that faith alone doesn’t save, or Paul telling us to work out salvation, can you study it until understanding comes?

Can you understand the Bible as a whole, seeing it as a complete work? It is a glimpse into the unfathomable mind of God, a record of His response to human sin. It is a whole, for it has one Author.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:31