Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies is on a roll right now, continually writing about that subject that is dearest to her heart, the family table. She’s made it all the way to the shew bread table, and making some pretty ridiculous claims about the bread. She claims God kept it toasty warm and fresh for a full seven days so the priests can eat it, with no explanation about how this happened without turning it into a burnt rock. Logic and science are not Nancy’s strong point. But it was this piece on making children sit that caught my eyes. Nancy claims that you must make them sit because God?

Yesterday we talked about having order at our table. Part of keeping order at the table is training our children to sit at the table. Often, that is easier said than done! It takes training. Everything to do with raising children is training, isn’t it?

Mother, you are a trainer, among the 101 other things you do as a professional mother.

Is it important to train our children to sit? Yes, God thinks it is important.

Translation for us average folks. Beat them until they sit down. Any time you see the word ‘Training’ in Quiverfull you can automatically assume the author is speaking about wailing the tar out of some poor kid for reasons imagined.

So what evidence does Nancy use to claim that you must beat the kids to make them sit at the family table? A long rambling story about Saul and David sitting at a table, and Jesus telling everyone to sit down on the grass so that He could fed them. Seriously? Thinnest premise ever.

Do you notice that He told them to “MAKE them sit down”? Do you have to do this at your table? You have to MAKE your children sit down! Don’t despair. You’re being very biblical! But as we teach them from little ones, they learn the habit.

And it is a good habit. When you eat standing or walking around you are usually doing something else at the same time and don’t really remember that you’ve eaten. You may become hungrier sooner.

But the main reason is that God intends us to sit while we eat is because eating is more than consuming food. God wants us to eat and fellowship. To sit down together and dialogue and communicate. And as we do this we get more nutritional value from our food.

So yet again we have Nancy with a personal preference elevating it to the level of a God-given command. That’s not how this works, it’s not how any of this works!!

I guess we need to be grateful that Nancy didn’t insist on an ironed tablecloth, a vase of flowers and fine china like she has before.

I am reminded of this not so safe for work song from the “Book of Mormon”

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