PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 269: It’s Time to Elevate the Table, Part 2
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 269: It’s Time to Elevate the Table, Part 2
The table is more than a place to feed the hungry tummies of your children. It is where we feed the soul and the spirit. We feed the whole man. How do we do this?
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, everyone! We are back again, continuing to talk about elevating the table. My husband, Colin, is with me again. We were talking about the table last time. There are still so many things to share with you.
The Hebrew word for table is shulchan. It simply means, “a table, a mealtime, or to spread out.” I guess that means to spread out the food on the table. It can even mean to spread out the food on a leather mat on the ground. So, a table, well, the tables that we know today are sort of upright tables.
SIT AROUND THE TABLE
But sometimes, back in early Bible times, they ate on the ground. But they had a leather mat which they sat around, because that is the whole purpose of the table. Sitting around. As we remember that beautiful Scripture in Psalm 128:3, where it talks about the children all sitting around the table. That’s a picture God loves to see. It’s the picture He gives of a family that’s blessed of the Lord. If you want to be blessed of the Lord, get your children around your table. It is such a wonderful place to be.
We talked last time about nourishing and feeding the bodies of our children at the table. That’s the very beginning, but it’s only the beginning, because the table is the place to feed our children, body, soul, and spirit. We also have to come to the table with food ready to feed their souls. That’s so important. You see, we, as mothers, we are nurturing. We are nourishing. It’s who God created us to be. We can nurture and nourish our children. One of the ways we do this is with feeding them. We feed them wholesome meals for their body, but we want to feed them wholesome meals for their soul as well.
We were taught for last week’s podcast about how it’s so good to bring a question, or a subject, a topic to the table for everyone to talk about. But you can also do different things. Sometimes I have asked the children, or the folks that are living in our home, “OK, tonight I want you to bring a poem to the table.” Each one will bring a poem that they love. They will read it out.
Or, if you’ve got a big family there will be too many for one night. You may like to have each one have a turn to bring their poem and to read it out. Or to perhaps bring a Scripture verse that the Lord has been speaking to them about. They can read it and share what they believe God is saying to them. Those are other little things that you can do. But we’re seeking to nourish their souls.
Also, I think it’s important where we sit at the table. We talked about sitting last time, too. I think it’s important for the husband to sit at the head of the table. We don’t have to have a big lesson. “Now, children, we’re going to teach you about how Daddy should be the head of the home.” We don’t have to really even teach that.
If Daddy is being the head of the home, they will see it, and they will see it as he comes to the table. Every night he sits at the head of the table. Then later in the meal, he will take up his anointing as the head of the home and lead his family in reading the Word of God and leading them in prayer. So, they see that beautiful thing. What would you say about that, Darling?
Colin: Yes, I think it’s really important for the family to recognize that it doesn’t have two heads. It has one head and that is the father. His wife, of course, is involved in that leadership as a helper to it, an encourager of it. But I think the fathers need to realize the importance of being a head.
As far as the provision is concerned, you are talking about providing nourishment to the children at the table, how important that is. It’s a sowing and reaping principle, because if you want to get a good crop in your garden, you’re going to have to sow very good seeds, and plant very good plants.
The same thing applies to nourishing your body. If you’re going to be nourishing one’s body, or the children’s family’s bodies, you’re going to have to give it your best. You’re going to see improved health with your children. Spiritually speaking, the table becomes very in focus by the father taking responsibility. I think the fathers need to take their headship at the table and also their headship in the family devotions.
It’s the principle of sowing and reaping. If you sow the Word of God into your family, you are being the father that God intends you to be. You’re being the mother that God intends you to be. Particularly the father needs to take back headship of being priest in his family. Just as there is the head priest, the high priest in the children of Israel, so the father becomes the high priest under Christ, of course, Who is the High Priest of all.
But the father, as far as the family is concerned, in each family, he is like a high priest, in that he has to take responsibility and catch the vision. It’s very important, mothers, if you’re hearing this, you get your husband to realize the importance that he has to catch the vision for sowing the seed into his family. Somehow, we’ve lost this.
Sowing the Word of God! We cannot reap if we do not sow. If we sow sparingly, we’re going to reap sparingly. If we think that just by taking our children to church, that’s sufficient sowing, you’re going to reap sparingly. But if you sow liberally every day, we also believe that it’s important to do it morning and evening.
YOUR TABLE IS AN ALTAR
Nancy: It’s interesting that in one or two, I think three places actually, the Bible calls the altar a table. In the Old Testament, they had altars. They had the altar, the brazen altar. It was called a table in Malachi chapter one. Over in Ezekiel, I was just reading this this morning. It was talking about Ezekiel’s temple. That’s a temple which has not yet been built. In Ezekiel 41:22, it starts off with the altar, and talks about this altar of wood with its dimensions.
Some commentaries don’t know what this particular altar is. Some others say they think it is the altar of incense. But it starts with “altar” and ends with “table.” It says, “This is the table that stands in the Presence of the Lord.” I love that. The altar and the table combine together.
Really, I think it is so important to see our table as an altar. What did they do on the altars? They would bring sacrifices to God. Sometimes our table does become a sacrifice to us, even to prepare a meal, and to put it on the table takes time. It takes effort. It takes thought. We have to stop what we are doing, and we’ve got to put this time aside to prepare this meal. As we bring it to the table, it is an offering to our husband and to our children. But even more than that, it is an offering to God.
And, lovely ladies, I would like you to get this vision, that your table is an altar unto God. I want you to see it like that. Every meal you make is an offering to the Lord. When you see that, you’ll no longer think, “Oh, no, I’ve got to cook another meal! Oh, help!” You’re groaning and grumbling. “Oh, I hate cooking.”
No, don’t say those words! No, what you say will affect what you do, and your attitude, and everything. We are formed by our words. Be careful what you say. See your table as this altar, this place where you’re not only offering a sacrifice to your family, which is a blessing, and which God sees. But you’re doing it as unto Him. It’s an offering unto God, as you feed, as you nurture, as you nourish your children and your husband, body and soul and spirit. Yes, we were talking about this nourishing of the soul. Oh, that is very, very important.
I can remember, as we were raising our children, we would bring a subject to the table to discuss. Oh, my! I have to confess that we did not live that old adage which says, “Children should be seen and not heard.” Wow! You could hear them! They would all be trying to shout and get over their point of view.
Colin would have to be the umpire to keep them all in order, so only one person spoke at a time. “OK, Wes, now it’s Pearlie’s turn!” Because our sons had their great big loud deep voices, but little wee Pearlie, well, she was trying to get her point across in her little wee voice. Do you remember that, Darling?
Colin: I do. I do. It was funny.
Nancy: I can remember one time when Rock was up in his chair, pointing his finger, getting his thoughts across. But it was so exciting. Nobody wanted to miss family mealtimes. They were so exciting!
This is the thing, ladies. Oh, what kind of mealtime are you making happen? Is it some boring thing where nobody talks about anything? No! They can be the most exciting times of your whole day!
Oh, I remember once when Evangeline was over in Uganda doing mission work. She wrote back and said, “Oh, I just so miss the family meal table!” I thought, “Oh, I know what I’ll do.” So, one night when all the family was there, because a couple of them were married by this time, they all came home. Everyone was there and they were all talking. It was such an amazing flow of conversation. I was taping it. They didn’t know that I was. Back in the days when we just had tape recorders. I sent it over to her. Oh, she wrote back, and she said, “Oh, it was like music to my ears!” It was such a joy.
But anyway, we now move on to the most important part of feeding our children. Colin began to share a bit about that just before, about feeding their spirits, their inner man. This is the most important part of who we are, our inner man, the inner man of our children.
Now I know many mothers are beautiful, nourishing mothers. They feed their children the most wholesome food. They love them. They care for them. They nurture them. But many times, they forget that they have a spirit. There is an inner man. It’s more important than that outer man. We must feed that inner man. We must not ever let our children leave the table before we feed their inner man. Otherwise, they leave the table, and that inner man, that most important part of who they are, their spirit, is starving!
There are many children and young people who are growing up, strong and tall. Wow! They’re just growing up before our eyes. But inside, they are starving. We’ve got to grow children who are filled up, filled up on the inside. As the Bible says, we are to get the Word into them richly (Colossians 3:16). Not in a shallow way, but richly.
Colin: I one hundred percent agree. It’s very, very important. It’s true that many, many families are starving for the Word of God. They have this tremendous opportunity. We’re all feeding them, in this country anyway, at least three times a day, maybe more. Between three meals, we’re feeding the outer man.
But the inner man, the Christ nature, which is inside of us, is starving. We really have to take responsibility as parents for that. Use your meal table as a tremendous opportunity to feed the inner man. “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word” (1 Peter 2:2). So, we can desire the Word of the Lord, and encourage that appetite within our children. This will hold them in very, very good standing. It will make them strong. It will build character into their life.
So many things will come. There will be a great harvest that will come. Not only will you be blessed to see your children growing tall physically, and filling out, and coming into bloom, but your “daughters like palaces. . .”
Nancy: “Pillars in the palaces” (Psalm 144:12).
Colin: And the young men “like plants growing up in their youth.” They’re the outer man. But the inner man is the most important of all. I think we have to bring that vision back. We have to recapture it if we’re going to have a nation, if we’re going to be a people that will really please the Lord.
Nancy: Yes. What we love to use in our family is this little devotional book called Daily Light on the Daily Path. It’s only the Word of God. I know, there are some families who like to read a little devotional, especially for children, with a little story. But to me, I believe the Word, the Word of God is so powerful that we’ve got to get the Word into our children. The Word is alive and active. If the Word is in their hearts, the Holy Spirit can work upon that Word and bring it to fulfillment.
Colin: Let me just say something on that point, because it’s the same power that causes the seed in the garden to germinate, and to flourish, and to come up and to be a beautiful plant, so you can get all those wonderful tomatoes. As you say, we say, “to-MAH-to” Down Under. But to get all that beautiful crop that you’re growing, all the plants and vegetables, you really want to have a great garden.
So should we realize that that can happen in the Spirit. The same power that works in the garden is the same power of God that is working on the inner man. I think so many of us don’t realize. We wonder why we’re so shy when it comes to spiritual things. Or we’re not being effective as far as the world is concerned.
In spiritual dimensions, the world needs the whole man. It doesn’t need just the physical man, or a mentally charged man. It needs a man who’s got oodles of the Spirit of God working within him. This is what the whole world really needs.
Nancy: Yes. So, I was saying about this book, it’s only the Word of God. It has a reading, just a small reading of Scriptures on a certain theme for every day of the year. But not only every day of the year, but for every morning and every evening of every day of the year, which is so wonderful.
These Scriptures were put together by the Bagster family about 150 years or so ago. At that time, it was the norm for families to read the Bible every morning and every evening. That’s why they did the morning and the evening reading. In those days too, the men worked very, very hard, as so many also work today. They didn’t have time to, “Well, where am I going to read in the Bible to my family?” These Scriptures are put together, and it makes it so easy.
Now, I know some of you, you’re already established in having family devotions, or whatever you like to call it, family worship, family Bible time. But some of you may still be struggling. I think sometimes husbands especially struggle, because as they grew up, they didn’t ever have anything like this in their own home. They don’t feel confident about it. Therefore, they don’t want to do it if they don’t feel confident. But this is the answer, because all you have to do is just pick up this book, and look for the date, and there’s the Scriptures waiting to read. It makes it so easy.
We love it and we use it every day. Now, there have been seasons in raising our children where we would read it. As they got older, we would read a whole chapter of the Bible, and go through a book. We love this book, because it also yields itself to asking many questions.
I think when we’re reading the Word to our children, it’s very easy for them to get into a dream. Daddy is reading away and they’re all in dreamland. You know what? I have found I can even get into dreamland! Because Colin will suddenly ask a question, and I have to say, “Oh, well, what was that question?”
He will be reading a Scripture, and this is another thing that he does. This is a great thing to do, especially if it is a Scripture that is pretty well known. He will stop halfway through. “Who can finish this Scripture?” That’s a great way for our children to get to know the Scriptures, because if they can’t finish it, then we’ve got to say it all together, and say it over again, and say it over again, until they know it. They gradually get to know. But it wakes me up from dreamland!
There will be great blessing in just reading the little portion of Scripture, but I have a Daily Light which I have put together here, PLUS CREATIVE WAYS TO READ GOD’S WORD TO YOUR CHILDREN. At the beginning of every month, I have a new idea of what you can do to keep your children on their toes. Some of them are different questions that you can ask.
I just mentioned how Colin will often stop in the middle of a Scripture and see if we can finish it. He does that every day, and it’s so cool! Sometimes we don’t know, and we’ll say, “OK, give us the first letter of the word!” And then that’s a clue. Then we try and get it. It makes it exciting, and your children are getting all parts of it. They’re excited, and they’re trying to work it out. They’re not away in dreamland.
Then sometimes he will even read a Scripture, and he’ll be reading a word, and he’ll read it wrongly! He’ll read a word that says the opposite. If nobody says anything, that means none of us are listening! “Hey! What did I say?” “Well, what did you say? Read it again!” We’ve all got to come back to earth again. So, he’ll read it again wrongly. “Hey! Is that right?” And we’ve got to check out what was he saying wrongly. We get the right word.
There are so many fun things you can do as you’re reading the Scriptures, and your children are on their toes. Little children, even little ones, love to answer questions. We find that when we have our grandchildren with us, it’s the little children who have got their hands up first, before Granddad has even got the question out of his mouth! Then, when you ask them, they don’t really know what to say! But, boy, they’ve got their hands up, because they want to be involved. But it’s a wonderful way to keep them on their toes.
You can buy The Daily Light on the Daily Path in so many different versions of the Bible. You can go to a Christian book shop and get any version you like. I sell through Above Rubies the New King James Version. But then, this particular one, with the ideas for you, is in The King James Version.
Now, don’t take fright. I know there are lots of people who think, “Oh, I couldn’t read the King James Version to my children! They wouldn’t even know what it’s talking about!” Well, sometimes we dumb down our children, don’t we? We get the easiest version for them. Really, we’re just dumbing down their vocabulary. Some of these very new versions are really for people with a limited vocabulary. I read that even the NIV was written for people with a limited vocabulary. I don’t want to put myself in that category. Do we want to put our children in that category?
If, when you are reading, even from the King James, and you read a word, and it’s not quite a word that is used in today’s language, well, now we have another question. “Hey, children! What do you think this word means?” They give all their ideas, and then we find out what it really means. Then you can have little pile of other versions of the Bible on hand, which is a great idea. We often do that, too. “OK, well, we don’t understand this really well in the King James. Let’s look up our other versions.” You can look up two or three different ones. Different children can look up a different version.
You can read it. Because, although I printed this in the King James Version, I’m not a King James only, by any manner of means. I am a King James lover, but not an only. I do love to read other translations of the Word. Sometimes I find that they can even be closer to the Hebrew or the Greek. That’s where I mainly go, is back to the Hebrew and to the Greek. If you’ve got older children, you can even take them back to that and teach them how to find out what the Hebrew word means or the Greek word means, too. That’s what we encourage.
Colin: Yes, I was going to say, it’s just that we can’t make it boring. Don’t make it boring. The devil would try to make family devotions boring. Finally, the children decide, as they’re growing up, “Well, we’re not going to do that when we get older.” But we have to make it exciting.
What my dear wife has just been saying is actually, really truly what happened in our own home. We still do it today. We make it as exciting as we possibly can, because it is sowing the seed in a joyful way, and getting everybody interested in it, getting their comments about it, and asking questions about it themselves, and getting them involved in one way or another. I call it “rabbit trails.” I often use that expression because we get diverted off sometimes with our conversation.
Nancy: Oh, yes! As Colin is reading the Word, he’ll think of a story that happened in our lives, or I will think of a story that happened in our lives. We get to tell that. That leads onto other things. Sometimes we are still sitting for an hour at family devotions.
Colin: We don’t necessarily encourage that with people who are just starting off. But as your children get older, and you become more used to doing it, you get into the habit of doing it. We should get into that habit.
Nancy: Yes, and it’s not always going to be perfect, as you begin, especially with little ones. In fact, if you’ve got very little ones, you don’t even have to read the whole portion that is in The Daily Light. Just take a couple of Scriptures. It’s best to take a couple, and even ask your little ones some questions. Oh, that’s the most wonderful way to teach! That’s how Jesus taught. He asked questions and that’s how we learn. That’s how we get into things. It’s really so wonderful.
When we read the Word of God, that’s not the end. We also pray. That’s a big part of it, praying. I think this is one of the reasons that the devil has sought to stop families. He does everything in his power to stop families from having this time every morning and evening together in the Word and in prayer. If he can stop prayer, wow! He’s won a great victory!
And he has won a great victory. Most homes today are prayer-less homes. That’s why we go to prayer-less churches, because the families are prayer-less. What do we do when we go to church? Mainly it’s just a prayer at the beginning, a prayer at the end. Maybe in some churches they have time for a little more prayer. But really, prayer. Jesus said: “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” That’s why we call our church fellowship “A House of Prayer.”
Colin: We didn’t say “A House of Sermons.” You know, a house for just drinking coffee and having a little church buffet. It’s a HOUSE OF PRAYER. That’s what the Lord spoke about. He said, “You’ve made it into a den of thieves. You’ve made it into a house of merchandise. You’re buying and selling.” Having those kind of church sales and yard sales at church.
No, He wants His church to be a house of prayer. We have to recapture that vision of prayer. Not only a church, and not only a family, but also the individuals within the family. We are all the temple of the Holy Spirit.
He wants us to be a praying people, having that so strongly within us. When the Scripture says: “Praying without ceasing.” Jesus spoke those words. “Praying without ceasing.” Always praying. You don’t have to be showing off. You don’t have to be doing it always as a public thing.
But a lot of people don’t even like praying publicly. I think one of the reasons is that they’ve never been taught to pray.
Nancy: Yes, and I think this is where we teach our children to pray. As we have our devotions together, we teach our children right from the beginning when they’re just learning to talk. We are teaching them to pray. God gave us vocal cords with which to communicate with one another, but ultimately to communicate with Him. We need to teach our children.
I know some parents have shared with me that their children are too shy to pray. They just don’t want to pray. Well, I think we have got to work with that and bring them to that place of prayer. Even if they maybe will repeat a prayer after you so that they can learn to get into that habit. We always have everyone pray, right around the table, every person. Then my husband will pray last.
Colin: Then we will see a tremendous amount of prayers getting answered. If we’re not going to be a praying people, well, how are we going to see God coming on the scene? How are we going to see the miraculous taking place? How are we going to see God’s blessing in our families and the joy and the love and all the problems that we may be facing . . . in order to praying because we’ll see the answers come and we’ll rejoice in the answers.
MORNING AND EVENING
Nancy: I want to leave with you one thing, and then I think we’re going to have to do another one to finish this, because there are still more things we need to share. But just to remind you, we talked about how this book has a portion of the Word for morning and evening, because that is not just something they decided to do. It is a biblical principle in the Word of God.
We go back to the tabernacle to see where this principle operates. All the things that God told them to do in the tabernacle, they were to do morning and evening. They were all to do what their worship unto the Lord. Now it applies to us today. As the Bible says, the things that happened there were for examples for us today, on whom the ends of the world have come (1 Corinthians 10:11). But I think I’m finally going, so what we’ll do. We’ll share about that in the next podcast, shall we?
Would you like to pray?
Colin:
“Lord, we thank You for the privilege of the family meal table and what it really comes to. So, it should be elevated and lifted up because it is a tremendous pointer to feasting on the things of God as well as physical things.
So, Lord, we pray, move by Your Spirit upon all the families that are hearing this truth. We do desperately want to see revival in our homes. The enemy is really destroying. Bring, Lord, restoration, Lord, because of the enemy taking over our homes through TV and videos, and all sorts of computers, games, and so on. In Jesus’s Name we pray. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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