A Pastry War

Our Daily Bread Podcast | Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.6 • 955 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of all the foolish things that have led to nations going to war, could a pastry be the worst of all? In 1832, amid tensions between France and Mexico, a group of Mexican army officers visited a French pastry shop in Mexico City and sampled all the baker’s goods without paying. Though the details get complicated (and other provocations compounded the troubles), the result was the first Franco-Mexican War (1838-39)—known as the Pastry War—in which more than three-hundred soldiers died. It’s sad what a moment of anger can incite.

Most human conflicts—shattered marriages and ruined friendships—are likely rooted in some form of unmanaged anger. Selfishness and power plays, unresolved misunderstandings, slights and counter-aggression—it’s all foolishness. So often, our ill-advised perceptions or reactions lead to destructive anger. Yet Ecclesiastes offers wisdom: “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools” (7:9).

It’s foolish to have a short fuse and be easily provoked to anger, especially when God offers a better way—perhaps through “the rebuke of a wise person” (v. 5). Pursuing wisdom, we can allow “the peace of God to rule in [our] hearts” (Colossians 3:15). We can live in wisdom and forgiveness as He helps us.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
0:06.9	Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 9.
0:11.6	Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.
0:15.8	Our reading, A Pastry War, was written and read by Wyn Collier.
0:24.8	Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verses 3 to 9.
0:29.6	Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.
0:35.5	The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
0:39.2	but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
0:43.7	It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person
0:46.7	than to listen to the song of fools.
0:49.8	Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,
0:52.8	so is the laughter of fools. This too is
0:56.9	meaningless. Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart. The
1:06.4	end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly
1:14.1	provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
1:24.1	A pastry war. Of all the foolish things that have led to nations going to war,
1:31.1	could a pastry be the worst of all?
1:34.2	In 1832, amid tensions between France and Mexico,
1:39.0	a group of Mexican army officers visited a French pastry shop in Mexico City
1:43.8	and sampled all the baker's goods
1:46.1	without paying. Though the details get complicated and other provocations compounded the troubles,
1:54.0	the result was the first Franco-Mexican war, known as the Pastry War, in which more than 300 soldiers died.
	...

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