Taste and See...
Did you know we have about 10 000 taste buds on our tongue and that they are replaced every two weeks?
I learned this when my class was learning about taste. We tried each of four tastes sweet, sour, bitter and salty. The children's faces showed all sorts of expressions when they came across an unfamiliar or unpleasant taste!
The body uses taste to gauge whether what we put in our mouths is good for us to eat. Good tastes start our mouths watering in preparation for digestion and a pleasurable sensual experience. Bad tastes generally indicate decay and we spit them out!
The Jews had some very strict dietary rules, so that nothing harmful entered the mouth. On one occasion, the Pharisees criticised Jesus' disciples because they did not wash their hands before eating. This is Jesus' retort:
'Are you still so dull?' Jesus asked them. 'Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.'
Matthew 15:16-20 [NIV]
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 83:4 [NIV]
As well as thinking about what we take into our bodies, we should be concerned about what we take into our minds and hearts. What might this mean for us?
Mairi Mowbray
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment