Give us this day our daily bread

Give us this day our daily bread

As in the previous verses, there's much more to the Lord's Prayer than just a bunch of words.  There's meaning behind those words.  A meaning that we need to understand to really do what Jesus said before giving us these words - use this prayer as a guideline - not simply for what we must pray - but rather for understanding how we should pray.

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Give us this day our daily bread is article #7 in the series: The Lord's Prayer. Click button to view titles for entire series

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Bread as bread - food that all humans need to survive

I Googled "how long can a person live without food?"  The first answer that came back is this one, from www.businessinsider.com -

A human can go for more than three weeks without food (Mahatma Gandhi survived 21 days of complete starvation), but water is a different story.

Three weeks.  That's a lot long time.

That begs another question - how long can a person live eating only bread?  Given that no one's actually done a study on this - as far as I could find - the answer is somewhat vague.  Apparently, eating only bread - with no water - will likely lead to death within 2 years.  This is based on sailors in the "old" days, when they would eventually die of scurvy.  The problem comes with the high salt content and low moisture content in the bread.  Various issues coming from too much sodium in the body would eventually lead to a most unpleasant death.

Adding water to "diet" along with the bread could prolong life, as long as one drank enough water to flush out the sodium from the salt.  Eventually a lack of needed nutrients would still lead to death.

This sets up one final question - how did the Israelites live so long on manna (something like bread) and water (and let's not forget about the quail) when they were wandering in the desert?  While there are differences of opinion as to exactly how long - it's something the neighborhood of forty years.  Certainly, this is well beyond the several years that could be expected on the bread and water diet.  Clearly, there was something special in this manna.

As far as what it really was, people have come up with all sorts of theories as to what natural ingredients manna was made from.  They range from insect scales to plant lice to plants.  However - no matter what gets tossed out there as to the "source" of this manna, the one thing that would always cause an issue for "natural" phenomenon would be its appearance exactly when it was needed - and its disappearance when it was no longer needed.  Add that to the fact that it apparently satisfied all nutritional requirements and we've got one heck of a mystery to solve, even by today's standards.  What single thing could you eat that wouldn't cause some sort of problem with your metabolism?

Apparently, only special "bread" from God can be life sustaining on a long term basis.

Bread as spiritual food - all that we need to live forever

Some of you may think that Jesus was the first to talk about man not living by bread alone.  Actually - here's the first time it appears, from the NIV -