“Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them.” (Rom. 11:9, NKJV)
It should be a revelation to readers of these teachings how an innocent word like table can have such immense spiritual resonance in Scripture. From the previous teachings we’ve learnt that the implication of this is that the prophets “eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19), and also what the typological meaning of the covenant meal is. It has become more clear what Paul means in 1 Cor. 5:11 when he notes that “I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.”
But then it is also true that Jesus did indeed eat with a number of questionable characters: “Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.” (Matt. 9:10). The following is also noted in Mark 2:15: “Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.”
Jesus willingly shared his table with what could be considered dark characters – He is called “a friend of the riff-raff” (as the Message states), but He does this without a bad conscience. But about the religious “brothers” of whom Paul speaks, He has the following to say: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:44). And He refuses to eat with them. No wonder they react by calling him “a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt. 11:19). Answering this accusation Jesus makes this very important remark: “But wisdom is justified by her children.” (Vindicated is perhaps a more apt translation, as for instance the HCSB and LEB translates it.)
In Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible he offers a key to the problematic verse: “The children of wisdom are the wise.” Thus: Wisdom can have children? And indeed this is so, as 1 Cor. 1:24 spells out: “Christ … [is] the wisdom of God”. Thus those who are born-again in Christ understand that Jesus needs to spend time with those who are not yet saved, but He is adamant that He should stay away from those who are the religious, as they have no understanding of what He is actually engaged with. He would literally have to say to them: “I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.” (Luke 13:27).
The word “children” is further explained in Thayer, in terms of its etymological definition: “metaphorically the name transferred to that intimate and reciprocal relationship formed between men by the bonds of love, friendship, trust, just as between parents and children”.
This argument is neatly grounded in typological terms in Prov. 9:1-6: “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars; she has slaughtered her meat, she has mixed her wine, she has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens, she cries out from the highest places of the city, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!’As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding.’”
[How amazing is this Scripture – the Wisdom that is personified as a woman, builds “my Father’s house” (John 14:2) in which He and Christ live (verse 23). The seven pillars of God as eternal refuge (Deut: 33:27) is neatly spelled out in James 3:17: “But the wisdom that is from above is first 1) pure, then 2) peaceable, 3) gentle, 4) willing to yield, 5) full of mercy and good fruits, 6) without partiality and 7) without hypocrisy.” The ABP provides a contemporary spin on it, casting it as “pure, peaceable, lenient, obeys readily, full of mercy, impartial and unpretentious”.]
We thus see that Jesus eats with “sinners” in a scenario that is completely different from the scenario in which the prophets are eating at Jezebel’s table.
The previous Scripture concluded with the Scripture from Jer. 17:1, which notes that “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with the point of a diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars …” It is interesting that “tablet” here specifically refers to a flat surface (“a polished board or plate” – Strong), and that it can be written on. In various similar references emphasis is placed on the fact that the table/tablet has to be engraved:
- “And when He had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” (Ex. 31:18)
- “And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.” (Ex. 32:15).
- “Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.” (Ex. 32:16)
- “Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart …” (Prov. 3:3)
- “Moreover the Lord said to me, “Take a large scroll, and write on it with a man’s pen …” (Isa. 8:1)
- “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before ” (Hab. 2:20).
All engagement with the table is also engraved on our hearts. It is important that you understand this in metaphoric terms – if this is a conversation where the “wisdom descends from above”, it will be as how the Bride describes it in Song of Solomon 1:12: “While the king is at his table, my spikenard sends forth its fragrance.” If the “wisdom descends NOT from above”, it is ipso facto “earthly, carnal, demonic” (James 3:15), and then Isa. 28:8 becomes clear: “For all tables are full of vomit and filth”. Be afraid.
- Selah: Pray and ask God to what type of table you are exposing yourself to.
- Read: Acts 18:19 – 9:41; 1 Thess.1-5; 2 Thess. 1-3.
- Memorise: Acts 18:25 (Living Bible).
