Not by bread alone, but by word and deed

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

What does a person need to live? Take care of your body and develop your spirituality. What is more important from this? Everyone answers this question with their own way of life. Someone exists only to create comfort around them in the form of things and delicious food, while someone does not pay much attention to material well-being, preferring to develop the inner world, guided by the rule: not by bread alone.

History and meaning

The expression "Man does not live by bread alone" came to us from the Bible. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy, when Moses addressed his people, exhausted by many years of returning from Egypt, these words were heard for the first time. He spoke about the fact that the tests were not given in vain, that, having been fed all this time with manna from heaven and the word of the Lord, people now know for sure that a person should not live by bread alone. The same words were repeated by Jesus (the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew), undergoing a test in the desert, in response to the suggestion of the tempter to turn stones into bread in order to prove his strength. And since then, in a rare classical work, you will not find these interpretations in one interpretation or another.wise words: "Not by bread alone." The meaning of this expression is clear to absolutely everyone: a person, in order to be a person, must eat spiritual food. But not everyone can follow this.

Poor in spirit

What kind of food is this, without which the human soul cannot do? It is the soul, not the mind. This is a search for meaning in life and one's purpose, this is an understanding of higher justice and the desire to comply with it. This is a constant spiritual hunger. If we recall the words of Jesus Christ that only the poor in spirit are worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, then it is worth considering that the “poor” in this case are not those who do not have (or have little) the spirit, but those for whom everything is not enough. Those who are thirsty for knowledge and understanding, discovering for themselves ever greater spiritual expanses, understand both their infinity and how poor (little they know) they themselves are. Such "beggars" certainly do not live by bread alone.

Word and deed

It can be assumed that everyone agrees that man should not live by bread alone. Everyone agrees, but if you look around, the impression will be the opposite. Isn't it because words and deeds diverge in life? Why is the logical chain broken: thought - word - deed? In practice, it turns out that people think about one thing, say another, and do the third. Hence all the contradictions: having vast knowledge, including spiritual, humanity prefers material values. If for the full nutrition of man nature has created everything necessary, then for the sake of profit, man has created moremore harmful, artificial, but beautiful food. If a minimum of money and effort is required to maintain he alth in the body, then a person first does everything so that this he alth is lost from childhood, and then (again for the purpose of enrichment) sells it in the form of medicines and all kinds of paid services. If everyone understands that the beauty of a person is the beauty of the soul, then why is there so much attention to clothes and all kinds of jewelry? If everyone verbally respects and appreciates the classics (literature, music, painting …), then why do all the media plant people with completely different "food"? These “ifs” and “whys” are endless. Everything will change only when sincerity, spiritual values are in the foreground, and when they do not talk, but live not by bread alone.