Proverbs 23:1-3. 1When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, 2and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite. 3Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.
The first eight verses of Proverbs 23 give us three back-to-back warnings for those of us who would wish to advance socially in this life. Verse one finds us at a dinner party with a ruler. This is high society, but it is also likely to be low morality. Deceptive food will be served. This is why we are warned to enter these situations with our eyes wide open – observe carefully what is before you. Don’t be blinded by the power and prestige that surrounds you, the glitz and the glam. With rich and powerful people, things are often not as they appear.
Verse two offers a shocking alternative to being deceived by the rich and powerful – put a knife to your throat. This is an extreme way of saying, stop eating! Don’t allow yourself to be deceived by earthly gluttonies. Be aware of the spiritual realities that surround you. It may literally be food that draws you into the snares of the wicked, but more likely it is the status and position that those in power can offer. The delicacies offered might be promotion, fame, wealth, flattery, or any myriad of sensual desires.
Daniel serves as an Old Testament example of one who lived out this warning. As a captive in Babylon he was considered the best of the best, worthy of promotion. But only if he ate the delicacies that were set before him. Daniel resisted with a knife to his own throat, risking his own life in order to do what his Lord commanded. In the end, Daniel would eat with rulers, live in palaces, and influence the highest levels of government, but always with his eyes wide open. He was never seduced by the power. He was never willing to put his own status over his service to God. Can you say the same?
In the end Daniel trusted the Lord. He trusted the covenant that God had made to his people. Promises to return his people to the land of Abraham. Notice how Daniel prayed in faith and repentance:
Daniel 9:3-5;19. 3Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules…19O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Daniel’s trust is in the steadfast covenant love of God. The promises of God to restore his city and his people. It is his faith in these promises that gave him the internal strength to resist Babylon’s deceptive delicacies.
Consider also the wilderness temptation of Christ. What allowed him to resist the deceptive delicacies (literally, “bread of lies”) of the Devil? Not just the literal bread, but the kingdom, the glory, and the honor? What allowed him to put a knife to his own throat at the cross? Faith. Christ trusted the path of God more than the path of power.
In Christ we too can choose the path of trust. The path of Daniel and of Jesus. The rejection of this world’s deceptive delicacies and the acceptance of the steadfast love of God as the greatest banquet we will ever be invited to.
You: Where can you see yourself being seduced by power and prestige? Glitz and glam?
You in Christ: How does our union with Christ allow us to reject this world’s offerings of temporary and deceptive power?
Christ in you: What earthly temptationsdo you need to rely on Christ in you to resist today?
Pray: Father, feasting at your table is all I need. Feed me with the bread of life in Christ. Amen.
To Live is Christ 