King of Salem

Let us look first of all at the king of Salem in verse 18, "Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine." I believe this is a picture of what Christ would offer to the believer in his or her Christian pathway. The Lord Jesus Christ is typified by the king of Salem. Salem means "peace" and we read in Isa. 9:6, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Melchizedek was the priest of the most high God.
We find the Lord Jesus Christ is our great High Priest in the glory for us. He is the Prince of Peace, not perhaps acting in that character towards the world at this point in time, but nevertheless this king of Salem brings Christ before us. And what is it that the king of Salem would bring to Abram's attention? He would give Abram bread and wine. He does not take from Abram; he gives to Abram. That is the Christian pathway; that is what Christianity is. It has often been mentioned that Christianity is not known by what it finds, but by what it brings. The Lord Jesus Christ wants to bring Himself into our lives to give blessing, peace, joy and happiness to us.
The wine would speak of the joy that we find in Christ and the bread speaks of Christ Himself. We could trace that from Genesis to Revelation. In Genesis we find Joseph, a type of Christ, with all around starving for lack of food, but where Joseph was there was bread. (Gen. 41:54.) Where the Lord Jesus is, there always will be bread. The children of Israel went through the wilderness and they were fed with manna from heaven. This speaks of Christ in His humanity, Christ in His manhood and the privilege of feeding on Christ for the daily pathway.
In the book of Ruth, we find Naomi who had gone from Bethlehem, "the house of bread." She had gone into the world, Moab, and there was famine. Finally, in restoration she comes back to Bethlehem again and hangs her head in shame and says, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." When she returns to Bethlehem, "the house of bread," we find immediately that it's the beginning of barley harvest. And so where there is restoration, there is bread and nourishment.