1 Timothy 4:5

1 Timothy 4:5. Sanctified. Better, ‘consecrated.'

By the word of God and prayer. We are thrown back upon what we know of Jewish and early Christian forms of blessing and thanksgiving. Such formulae, so far as they are now extant, were for the most part a tesselated mosaic of scriptural phrases, and so in this way the very food men ate, as e.g. at the Agape, or feast of charity, was as truly consecrated as was the bread or the cup of the Lord's Supper in later liturgies. The word rendered ‘prayer' is that translated ‘ intercession' in 1 Timothy 2:1, and implies a prayer offered by the head of the household for all members of it, that they might receive the food before them according to the Divine purpose in bestowing it.