When referring to "soul food" you usually think about collard greens, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, fried catfish, black-eyed peas, and sweet potato pie. The term "soul food" became popular in the 1960s and 1970s in the midst of the Black Power movement. Many Black Americans wanted to reclaim their part of the American culture, and thusly terms like "soul music," "soul sister," soul brother," and "soul food" started to be used.
Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. It originated in the South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans trafficked to North America through the slave trade during the Antebellum period. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West Africa, Central Africa, Western Europe, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas. Soul food came from the blending of what African Americans ate in their countries.
During the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slaves ate African food such as rice, okra, black-eyed peas, kidney and lima beans aboard the ship. These crops were brought to North America and became a staple in Southern cuisine. Other foods brought from Africa to the Americas were millet and legume. Also pork and corn were two staples items in the Southern U.S.
Food provides nourishment to the body. Nourishment is something that nourishes. It provides what is needed for someone or something to be healthy and to grow and develop. The words nourish and nourishment are most commonly used in relation to food. Our bodies need food to survive. Honestly, we really need physical food and spiritually food. Physical food for the body and spiritual food for the soul. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35). This is very powerful! Jesus also said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51). Now this is "Soul Food," real food for the soul.
Jesus is the Bread of Life. In the Book of John, chapter six, we find that after Jesus fed the five thousand, then walked on water, we find the crowd of people going to Capernaum to look for Him. When they arrived at Capernaum, they found Him and wanted to know how did He get there. Jesus answer was: "The truth of the matter is that you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you believe in me. But you shouldn't be so concerned about perishable things like food. No, spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I the Messiah, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for this very purpose" (John 6:26-27). Then the crowd wanted to know what should they do to satisfy God? Jesus' reply was: "This is the will of God, that you believe in the one he has sent" (v. 29). They told Jesus that they wanted Him to preform more miracles if He wanted them to believe Him. Can you believe that? This is how it is today. God can perform miracles in some people lives everyday and they will still refuse to believe. The crowd revisited the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand and they wanted Jesus to provide them with free bread every day, like their ancestors had while journeying through the wilderness, en route to the Promise Land. They said, "Moses gave them bread from heaven." Jesus corrected them and told them: "Moses didn't give it to them. My Father did. And now he offers you true Bread from heaven. The true Bread is a Person - the one sent by God from heaven, and he gives life to the world" (v. 33). They wanted Jesus to give them that same bread everyday, but Jesus replied, "I am the Bread of Life. No one coming to me will ever be hungry again. Those believing in me will never thirst."
Research shows that most humans eat between three to five pounds of food per day. The average daily consumption of food and water can vary depending on someone's age, gender, weight, and level of physical activity. The average daily caloric intake for an adult can vary widely, but it is often around 2,000 - 2,500 calories per day. Scientist says that the average human eats 16 times their weight in a year, in comparison to a horse that only eats 8 times their weight in a year. God has truly blessed us by providing us with so much food. But the tragedy is we are really starving ourselves. I am not talking about physical food, but food for the soul. We are becoming so very skinny that our spiritual ribs are showing and we are so very malnourished. But yet Jesus tells us, "I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst." This is so powerful.
This Bread that gives life is distinct from the bread which will perish. Jesus is the Bread whose characteristic is life. He is the Word of God, that is revealing God to man and is teaching the eternal truths which are the life of the Spirit, just as bread is of the body. This Bread would not only fill your hunger, but would cause you to never hunger again. This Bread promises you eternal life. When you eat this Bread, you will live forever in God's kingdom. Now let me be perfectly clear, even when you eat this Bread, unless you are caught up in the Rapture, you will one day die, your body will be buried or cremated, but Jesus the Bread of Life, will raise you from the grave. Suppose this Bread was sold in the grocery stores, although it could never be, but supposed, can you imagine the lines of people stampeding the stores just to get a sweet morsel of this bread? Can you imagine the demand for this bread? Of course you would want everyone to know about this bread and where to go to get it.
Jesus is this Bread. He is our eternal "soul food." He is both the "Bread of Life" and the "Living Bread." Jesus went through the same process of baking real bread, because when you are making bread, you have to proof the yeast, mix the dough, knead the dough, proof the dough, punch down and proof the dough again, then you bake it. Don't you know, have you not heard that this bread was the proof in the yeast that was born in Bethlehem. He was the mixed dough in Nazareth, kneaded in Gethsemane, proofed before Caiaphas, the High Priest, punched and proofed again by Pilate, baked at Golgotha where He was crucified, but He was raised from the dead and now sits on the right side of our heavenly Father. Glory Hallelujah!
Sadly some of us are starving for the True Bread and there are so many that has become spiritually weak. Maybe some have lost their spiritual appetites because they are eating too much junk food. The term "junk food" has been around since the early 1970s, when the Center for Science began using it to raise awareness of foods it considered to be unhealthy. Junk foods are foods that are high in calories and low in nutrients. Junk foods tend to contain large amounts of fat, sugar, and salt. Some common examples of junk foods include sodas and snack foods, such as potato chips and french fries, crackers and candy, cakes and biscuits, processed meats,etc. So we are filling up on junk food and this junk food is spoiling our spiritual food and this makes us spiritually hungry. In other words you are on a spiritual hunger strike. You really have a eating disorder, because you are refusing to eat "soul food" and this will cause you to have a preference for the delicacies of sin.
Jesus is the food that can undo our eating disorder. Jesus is the Bread that gives spiritual and eternal life and He gives eternal life to those the Father has given Him. Christ is the true bread that only gives life, which is conveyed by the Word, and made effectual by the Spirit. Jesus supports and maintains the life that He gives, because it is not in the power of a believer to support their spiritual life, nor can they live on anything short of Jesus Christ. He is the bread that takes our death and through His death we have life. When we feel the hunger pangs of our soul, that gnawing emptiness that cannot be filled with flesh. This nagging hunger the world can not fill. We try to fill it with achievements, success, work, relationships, travel, fun, hoping that it will go away. But none of these worldly things can quench this pain. No drugs of any kind can take away that nagging painful hunger. What you don't realize that you need something more, something real, something permanent. What you need is "soul food," the Bread of Life - Jesus. There is enough food in Christ for us to live upon, because Jesus quickens and makes the believer lives through the exercise of grace, renews our spiritual strength, and secures us for eternal life.
God sent us Jesus who is the Bread of Life and He continually feeds us daily, urging us, bidding us, inviting us to "taste and see that the Lord is food." Jesus is our Daily Bread and we should be hungry or even greedy for Him. God desires that we pig-out on this "soul food." He is not stingy with us. It is our own fault if we choose to pick and nibble on the Bread of Life. I, myself want to become fat on the Bread of Life. You should eat all the Bread of Life you want. Then eat more than you want, eat all you need, and eat what the Lord gives you.
Jesus said, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." We do not have to go up to heaven to eat this Bread of Life, because He descends down to us. When the Israelites was en route to the Promised Land, Canaan, they became very discouraged and they began to murmur against Moses and Aaron. They said, "Oh, that we were back in Egypt.., and that the Lord had killed us there! For there we had plenty to eat. But you have brought us into this wilderness to kill us with starvation" (Exodus 16:3). The Lord told Moses that He was going to rain down food from heaven for them. This food was called "manna." This lifeless manna fell and laid on the ground until they gathered it, but they could only collect what was needed and there was not to be any leftover for the next day. Any manna that was left over until the next day it became inedible. Each day's supply only met the need for that day only. This manna only fed the physical bodies. Jesus is the heavenly bread, the true spiritual food, the manna from heaven, that is needed for survival. When Jesus says, "I am the bread of life," He is commenting on His divinity.
Jesus is that bread containing life in Himself. He came by His own will, it was an act from heaven, living among people, imparting life to those who ate by His coming and those who believed on Him. We do not have to go up to heaven to eat this Bread of Life, because we can not. Jesus descends to us. He is the living bread that hung on the cross and died for us. There are all types of breads: sourdough, brioche, multigrain bread, white bread, potato bread, beer bread, banana bread, pumpernickel, cornbread, rye bread, whole-wheat, and sourdough, just to name a few. Then there are brand name breads: King's Hawaiian, Nature's Pride, Pepperidge Farm, Sunbeam, Wonder Bread, etc.
Jesus in the "wonder" of ALL breads. He is the "Bread of Life." He is the "Soul Food," food for the soul.
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