Biblical rituals are not strange practices or obscure formalities but correspond to the stages of human life, revealing God's design for how we can emulate His ways. In From Bread to Wine: Creation, Worship, and Christian Maturity, James B. Jordan explores how sin disrupts the rhythms of human life and how biblical rituals restore us to our place in God's historical plan with special emphasis on the motifs of bread and wine throughout the Scriptures.

In the Bible, bread is priestly while wine is kingly and prophetic. Bread comes first and wine later. You eat bread in the morning and drink wine at night. Bread is suitable for children while wine is for adults. Bread is made quickly, but wine takes much longer to ferment and mature. The entire Old Creation, the childhood of humanity (Galatians 4), is the time of bread, while the New Covenant, our maturity in Christ, is the time of bread and wine. Between the two comes the breaking of the bread, the death of Jesus Christ.