Dinner Time (Part 2)

My home is better off with just a simple meal served with love than an expensive meal served with a side of hatred.

August 27, 2019

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

Proverbs 15:17

Part 2

Yesterday:
“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is,”
It’s not about the expense of the meal, but the amount of love in the home that matters.

Today:
“Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”
Maybe you are from a family with money enough and too spare.  Like the well-off, prodigal son’s folks, here with the “stalled ox.”  At any time they can afford steak.  As Jesus told in the story of the prodigal son, even after his father gave him his inheritance, which he squandered away, his family was still able at a moment’s notice to have a big barbeque…

When the prodigal returned the father had the means to say,

“And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry” (Luke 15:23).

But sadly, in that family of plenty, there was a great rift between the prodigal son and his elder brother.  Their fancy feast could not cover over the sour relationship between the boys.

“A feast of salads, or Daniel’s pulse, is more cherishing with mercy, than Belshazzar’s banquet without it”1 (T. Adams).

That family could have whatever they wanted to eat every day, but the hatred harbored by the older brother still needed attention.  Hate in a family is just wrong.  For hatred is murder in seed form.  It causes many problems in the home if the hatred is let go and ignored.

“Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).

“He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool” (Proverbs 10:18).

It’s not about what you all are having to eat, but what matters is how you all are getting along?  That’s the test of family health.

“Riches cannot secure happiness, and poverty cannot destroy it.  But such is the power of love, that with it you will be happy in the meanest estate; without it, miserable in the highest”2 (Arnot).

Parents let’s strive to keep family mealtime together intact.  Your family needs this meaningful, quality time together daily.

 

 

 

1.  T. Adams as quoted in The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary, the electronic version in eSword.
2.  The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary, ibid.