The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 2 – 12
When God made man in the Garden, what did He intend for man to eat? Genesis 1:29. What did He intend for the animals to eat? Genesis 1:30. No animal flesh of any kind was originally intended to be consumed by man or by animals! Will God restore this condition in the world to come? Isaiah 65:25. In the Garden of Eden, no animals were eaten. Only “every green herb”, which presumably includes fruits and nuts and tubers and so on as well. Simply looking at your own teeth shows they more closely resemble the teeth of a cow than the teeth of a cat. They are designed to cut “green herbs” and chew them, rather than for tearing flesh from a dead animal.
Sadly, many vegetarians read only those verses and ignore the rest of the Bible. As if Genesis 1:30 is the only thing God ever said about food – which of course it isn’t. Is vegetarianism taught in the Bible? Let’s see. What did God send to Elijah to eat? 1 Kings 17:2-6. Did God command animals to be killed and eaten for sacrifices? (Read any verse in Leviticus). Did Jesus eat the Passover lamb His disciples killed? Mark 14:12. What did Jesus feed the 5,000 men? Mark 6:41-44. What did the resurrected Jesus eat? Luke 24:42.
There are literally hundreds of examples of righteous people, including Jesus Himself, eating meat in the Bible. Even after His resurrection, when He was born again and literally unable to sin, He still ate fish! Therefore, eating meat is not a sin. Period (1 Peter 2:22). However, neither was it God’s original intention in the Garden of Eden. So why did that change? Romans 5:12. Now while that verse specifically says human death happened because of Adam’s sin, it also says death entered the world at the same time. Thus, animal death began at the same time. Why? And who killed the first animal? Genesis 3:21. Why did God kill the first animal? (Same verse).
Had Adam and Eve tried covering their nakedness with something else? Genesis 3:7-11. What this means is that ALL animals were off-limits for food in the beginning! God had given man all the herbs and fruits to eat, and nothing else. Killing an animal in the Garden before the fall would have been a sin, because God had not given them to man to eat! They were created as friends and helpers for Adam (Genesis 2:18-20), not as food.
A PAYMENT FOR SIN
But after the first sin, Adam realized he was naked. He had been naked before (in a physical sense), but now his nakedness was embarrassing to him; what does nakedness symbolize in the Bible? Revelation 16:15 (see also 2 Chronicles 28:19, Isaiah 47:3, Lamentations 1:8). Ephesians 6:13-17 warns Christians of the time spoken of in Revelation and cautions them to put on the armor of God – among other things, to “gird their loins with truth” and to put on the “breastplate of righteousness”. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost that “breastplate of righteousness”, and the “pants of truth”, since God’s word IS truth.
When you have sinned, you feel ashamed. Watch a small child who has disobeyed his parents, and you’ll see he averts his eyes and tries to hide his shame. As soon as man sinned, he knew he needed a covering for his sin – an atonement. So man took fig leaves and covered himself. But of course that wasn’t enough – what is required to cover sin? Hebrews 9:22. Did God know that Adam’s shame and his need for clothes were directly caused by man’s sin? Genesis 3:11. Instead of covering his sin up, what should Adam have done? Proverbs 28:13. If you read Genesis 3:12-13, you’ll see that neither Adam nor Eve considered repenting; they simply passed the blame to someone else, and tried to cover their own sins with fig leaves. What does God say about that? Isaiah 30:1. So by not repenting immediately and by attempting to cover it with their own vegetarian covering, they added more sin to the first one!
What should they have wanted to be clothed with instead? Isaiah 61:10. Or what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:2-3. But since they didn’t repent, they couldn’t be clothed with that spiritual, NC salvation! That is only given to those who are obedient! So what did God clothe them with instead? Genesis 3:21. Man had to have a covering for his sin or man would have to die. Since man’s heart was not able to receive the blood of Christ because he was unrepentant, God gave him a symbol, a type of that blood – an animal sacrifice.
This sacrifice could only cleanse the flesh (Hebrews 9:13), it couldn’t clean the conscience (Hebrews 9:14), and couldn’t fully take away the sins (Hebrews 10:4), but it would cover enough of their sins to allow them to live a physical life without dying immediately. The animals died in man’s place, just as one day Jesus would die in man’s place, and their skins were used as a temporary covering for his nakedness just as the blood of the sacrifice was used as a temporary covering for his sins.
To eat meat, some cute animal has to die. God gave man certain animals to eat to remind us on a daily basis that because of our sins, other creatures die in our place so we may continue living. Vegetarians would deny this fact and pretend we’re back in the Garden, in a sinless state, and cover themselves with fig leaves and refuse to accept the sacrifice God gave us. Temporary vegetarianism for health reasons is not wrong; but doing so for ethical reasons denies the reality of sin and thus the sacrifice of Christ Himself. After the sin of man, God killed the first animals Himself, giving man an example to show that He wanted them to kill and eat animals. After that, animals began to kill other animals, and the cycle of death we see around us today was begun.
BUT WHICH ANIMALS DID GOD USE?
As a direct result of man’s sins, God took SOME of these animals whom He had made as “helpers” for Adam (Genesis 2:18-19) and gave them the honor of being sacrifices. These PARTICULAR animals were killed to pay for Adam’s sins in his place. God only chose certain animals. He had specific reasons for selecting the ones He did, but we won’t go into that here. Genesis 3 does not tell us which were used in the original sacrifice, but it was probably a bull, goat, or lamb, or all of the above (based on the statement in Hebrews 9:13). I want to emphasize this – not every animal was given by God as a sacrifice! God hated sacrifices of dogs, pigs, and humans, for example (Isaiah 66:3). ONLY those animals God specifically prepared for sacrifices were acceptable.
Most animals remained off-limits for human consumption as they had been in the beginning. Sacrificing and eating certain animals, such as pigs, was considered a tremendous insult to God (Isaiah 65:3-4). God called all these animals which were not permitted as sacrifices “unclean”. And part of the job of the priest was to teach the people the difference between the unclean and clean animals (Ezekiel 44:23). Most people assume the idea of not eating certain animals and calling them “unclean” originated with Moses, but the Bible flatly contradicts that. Read Genesis 7:2, 8. In the time of Noah, a thousand years before Moses, you can see that God made a clear distinction between “clean” animals (the ones which could be eaten and sacrificed) and “unclean” (those which couldn’t).
You probably heard that two of every animal went on the ark; but the Bible says that isn’t true! Two of each unclean animal went on, but seven pairs of each clean animal were saved. There is no list given here of which animals were clean and which weren’t, which proves this list was universally known among God’s people before the flood. The complete list is given later, by Moses – but it’s vital you realize Moses merely wrote down rules about clean/unclean animals which were already well known before the flood, and which righteous men had been following since the Garden of Eden!
Following the flood, Noah made a sacrifice which as always, included only the clean animals God had set aside for this purpose in the Garden (Genesis 8:20). Then in Genesis 9:2-3, God made it clear that animals were still meant to be eaten. This doesn’t mean this is the first time man was permitted to eat meat, it merely means that God was restating it for the newly un-cursed world (Genesis 8:21). It can’t be the first time God told man to eat meat, because Abel was already a keeper of sheep a thousand years earlier (Genesis 4:2) – why raise animals you can’t kill and eat?
The flood cleansed the world and washed away many sins, and men might have assumed that, once again, animals were not to be eaten like in Eden. So God made that statement to Noah to clarify His position that man STILL needed a sacrifice!
THE LIST
Nothing more is said about clean/unclean animals except passing references about sacrifices until the list of clean and unclean animals is given in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. You should read them through for yourself before continuing here. Basically, four-footed animals like cows, deer, sheep, goats, and so on – anything that has true horns, even vestigial ones – are clean. Any animals that don’t, like horses, camels, pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc., are unclean.
All birds commonly eaten in North America are clean – turkeys, geese, chickens, ducks, as well as most songbirds. Birds of prey and carrion are not (vultures, eagles, hawks, etc.). Most fish are clean, the rule being “anything with fins and scales is clean”. The only fish commonly consumed in the US that are unclean are catfish, swordfish, shark, and a few exotic fish like that – none of those have scales. All other seafood is unclean – lobster, crab, crawfish, shrimp, eel, clams, oysters, and all other shellfish.
Grasshoppers are clean, as are locusts, but most other bugs, ants, all reptiles, and anything else that creeps, slithers, and hops is unclean. Note that even though the KJV says “beetles” are clean, they are not; it is a poor translation, the original possibly refers to a cricket. It’s not a big deal since I doubt you plan to eat any of these creatures anyway. You can download complete lists of unclean animals with modern names on the internet – for the most part, this is one subject most people agree on, which animals are unclean and which are not. By far the most common unclean meats eaten by most English-speaking nations are pork, catfish, and all non-fish seafoods (shrimp, lobster, oysters, etc.).
It should be noted that if anything, such as clean food, touches an unclean animal carcass, both are unclean (Leviticus 11:31, 36). So just pulling the pepperoni off the pizza isn’t good enough for God.
HOW GOD FEELS ABOUT EATING UNCLEAN MEATS
Sure, God said “don’t eat it”, but how serious was it – was it like jaywalking or talking in the theater? See Isaiah 66:17. Get that – eating pigs, which in God’s eyes is the SAME as eating a mouse carries the DEATH PENALTY when Jesus returns. What does God think of eating these animals which He did not cleanse? Isaiah 65:3-4. And how should we feel about eating them? Leviticus 11:10-12, 20, 23. Notice the word “abomination”; that is the exact same word God uses to describe how He feels about cross-dressing (Deuteronomy 22:5), or consulting a witch, or burning your son alive in a fire as a sacrifice! (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
Eating unclean animals makes you unclean in God’s sight. And God strictly commands you not to allow yourself to become unclean; read Leviticus 11:43-47 for a quick summary of the command of God. That’s how God feels about it. He speaks about it with the same terms He uses for witchcraft, idolatry, and human sacrifice! God gave us certain animals to kill and eat, and we have a God-given right to kill them and eat them, spilling their blood on the ground to pay for our sins. We have no such right to kill a pig, or a lobster, or a crab to pay for our sins. Doing so is rather like using Arab money in modern-day Israel; it is deeply offensive to use such incorrect currency. Not only is it offensive to God, but that blood is not ours to spill for our sins.
Read Genesis 9:4-6; God makes it clear that whoever sheds blood must pay it back with his own blood! God gave life to me; it belongs to me and to Him. If you kill me, and shed my blood then God will come to you seeking a payment (Genesis 4:9-11). Killing someone – or something – whose life is not given to you is murder. Breaking the 6th commandment! Likewise, God gave life to a pig; it belongs to God and the pig. It doesn’t belong to you! And if you spill that blood and eat it, God will come to you seeking a payment for the murder of that pig! His life was not given to you for a sacrifice; the lamb’s blood was! Eat that which belongs to you, and leave that which doesn’t to live in peace!
So what if you didn’t, personally, kill the pig? You’re innocent, right? Let’s go back to the golden rule; if I murder someone, rob them, and split the money with you… aren’t you still guilty? You’re “an accomplice after the fact”, in modern legal terms. If you directly benefit from their death, then you are guilty of their death. The command not to eat unclean animals is derived from the golden rule via “love thy neighbor” and “thou shalt not kill”, and “thou shalt not eat unclean meats” and also via “love God”, “thou shalt have no other gods before me”, “keep thy temple clean” and “don’t defile your temple by eating swine!”
So killing an unclean animal to pay for your sins is not jaywalking. It is derived from murder, and God takes it very seriously. I do need to make one thing clear however; this doesn’t mean you cannot kill a predator attacking your sheep (1 Samuel 17:34-36), a spider under your bed, a poisonous snake or a scorpion (Luke 10:19). This doesn’t mean you can’t kill unclean animals. It means you can’t kill them to eat them. God has given Man dominion over all the creatures of the Earth (Genesis 1:26, 28). So you can and should kill unclean animals to protect others, to protect your clean animals, or even for their own good; but you cannot kill them to pay for your own sins by eating them.
But most people kill from fear, which stems from a lack of faith in the promises of God, such as Psalms 8:4-8, Proverbs 28:1, Isaiah 54:14-17, Psalms 105:6-15, Mark 16:17-18, Genesis 9:2, Job 5:19-23, etc. As a righteous judge over all things, killing them should be a last resort you choose only reluctantly – because all life comes from God, and is precious (Luke 12:6-7, Psalms 147:8-9). Every time you step on a roach, God notices – so make sure you are doing unto all things as you would want them to do to you.
SO DOES THIS APPLY TO US TODAY?
Most Protestant Christians dismiss all Old Testament rules as “done away in Christ”. But that logic cannot apply here; first, unclean meats did not come into existence with Moses. We have unarguable evidence that they were around at least as early as the time of Noah – therefore, what didn’t come into being with Moses’ covenant can’t be done away with Moses’ covenant. Second, let us suppose for a moment the sacrifice of Christ replaced the need for the clean/unclean animal laws. Following that logic, ALL animals would be unclean! Remember, in the Garden of Eden, no animals could be eaten! Specific animals were cleansed, not made UNCLEAN!
The red wasp is very aggressive, and his sting is quite painful. But if a man’s ways please the Lord, even his enemies are at peace with him (Proverbs 16:7), and “the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee” (Job 5:23). But you can’t be at peace with them if you fear them, and kill every one you see. So if Christ’s sacrifice replaced the need for clean animals, all animals would once more be unfit for food – as they will be again when the Earth is truly restored to its pre-fall condition! (Isaiah 11:6-9). So Jesus’ sacrifice cannot have done away with the unclean animals. It could only have done away with the clean animals, which no one claims that it did.
Third, remember the rule; if God wanted something changed, God told us clearly and concisely, not cloaked in symbolism. He wouldn’t make a clear command “thou shalt not eat pork”, then later make a symbolic statement which leaves us wondering, “So can we eat pork or not?” That said, there are a few apparent objections found in the New Testament; all of which are solved as always by simply reading the context.
“RISE PETER, KILL AND EAT.”
Start reading in Acts 10:1-8. The background here is that Gentiles had not yet been allowed into the church without converting to Judaism, which involved circumcision and other OC trappings not a part of NC Christianity. But God had made promises to open the gospel to the Gentiles (Isaiah 11:10,Jeremiah 16:19-21), and now He was going to fulfill them starting with Cornelius. So start reading in Acts 10:9-14. Right off, this gives us the simple fact that Peter and the early church strictly kept the laws of unclean meats AFTER Jesus died! Second, notice the context! God sent Cornelius to Peter FIRST – then while the men were on their way, God sent a VISION to Peter. Then sent Peter to Cornelius! The vision happened in the middle of that because the vision was ABOUT Cornelius!
Now read the rest of the vision in Acts 10:15-16. The second clear fact is that God cleanses unclean things; God doesn’t make clean things unclean! Only sin does that! I say that because there is a tendency to look on the unclean animals as something God “took away from us”, making them off limits so we can’t eat them – and that isn’t what happened at all. At the risk of repeating myself, God took away nothing! He GAVE us the CLEANSED animals; GOD NEVER MADE A SINGLE ANIMAL UNCLEAN! God GAVE US certain animals we could legally eat, and left the others as they were – unfit for sacrifice and unclean for human consumption!
Now what did this vision mean? Acts 10:17. Peter had no idea! Then Acts 10:18-26 tell of Peter’s trip to Cornelius’ place. Now do we need to guess at what that vision meant, like all of modern Christendom does? Was God telling Peter that all those rules about unclean meats were abolished? Was that what the vision meant? Let Peter tell you! Acts 10:27-28. Do you SEE! What was that vision about? What did God show him, when he saw a sheet full of “unclean things” that “God had cleansed”? God showed Peter that he should not call any man whom God cleansed – any MAN – “common or unclean”! If God had cleansed that man, then even if he was a Gentile, he was no longer unclean! THAT was the moral of the vision Peter had!
The Jews had decided anyone not a Jew was unfit to associate with; it was considered a sin to eat with Gentiles, who were called “unclean” by the self-righteous, holier-than-thou Jews of the day. So God sent this vision to Peter to set that straight! To show that if GOD cleansed a Gentile, then Peter had no right to call him unclean! To show them if GOD could associate with a person, SO COULD THEY! When Peter recounted the story to the other Christians in chapter 11, how did they interpret it? Did they run right out and start eating pigs? Read Acts 11:18! They, too, concluded this vision was about the GENTILES BEING GIVEN SALVATION, not about making dogs clean to eat!
And yet every modern Christian interprets it the exact opposite of what the context clearly, unarguably says! Based on one symbolic vision with, to them, an uncertain meaning, they are willing to dismiss the clear command of God to satisfy their lust for unclean foods! Are you?
“WHAT YOU EAT DOESN’T DEFILE YOU.”
This is based on the words of Jesus in Matthew 15:11, 17-18. Guess what I’m going to tell you to do now? That’s right – read the context. You’ve had enough practice now you should be able to explain this without my help, so go ahead – put the lesson down, read the chapter, think about it, see what YOU think Jesus meant, then continue reading here.
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Is unclean animal flesh of any kind the subject here? Think about this! Jesus was speaking to Jews, ultra-strict Jews at that. They would NEVER have eaten anything that had been within a MILE of an unclean animal! Would He really have been talking to them about unclean animals?? No, the subject was given very clearly in Matthew 15:1-2. The Jews washed their hands to the elbow before eating. They – not God, THEY – had deemed that all dirt was “unclean”. Jesus explained to His disciples in verses 16-20 that what mattered was obeying the commandments of God, not obsessing over how clean your hands were!
He concluded by saying, “to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” That’s the subject here! That’s what Jesus was talking about, dirty hands, not pork! The same story is told in Mark 7. The point is that obeying God’s commands is what counts. And one of God’s commands is not to eat unclean animals!
“NOT MEAT AND DRINK”
The third objection comes from Romans 14. Read the whole chapter to get the context in your head before you continue. First, let’s ask the simple questions; in ANY of that, did Paul say “unclean meats have been abolished”? Did he speak of eating pigs, mice, dogs, or any other unclean animal specifically? What was the subject of the chapter? What is the context? These questions should always be your first thought when you read ANYTHING. Now starting inRomans 14:1-2, Paul speaks of two types of people; those weak in faith, and those who are not. But what are they “weak in the faith” about? What is the SPECIFIC subject Paul speaks of here? Those who eat meat and those who don’t eat meat! Not a question of swine vs. sheep, but beef vs. beets!
As with any part of the Bible, if you read only a few verses in this chapter and ignore the rest of the Bible, you will surely misunderstand it. In this case the problem is very pronounced because in Romans 14, we walk into the middle of an argument, and Paul doesn’t say – here – what the real origin of the argument is. But he does elsewhere! To properly understand this chapter, you must first read the other main passage that discusses this same topic, 1 Corinthians 8. Again, read the whole chapter and get the context. Here, Paul starts at the beginning and lays the foundation for the argument in both chapters; 1 Corinthians 8:1 sets the context very clearly “as touching things offered to idols”, and1 Corinthians 8:4 specifies specifically “the eating of those things offered in sacrifice to idols”.
See, in most pagan cultures around the world it is customary to place a sample of food in front of an idol before eating any yourself. This “offers” it to that god, and then the rest of the batch is sold in the markets. Sometimes a piece is also burned or eaten by a priest. Pagans are very superstitious and won’t eat meat that hasn’t been offered, considering it a sin.This is still done today – go to any Thai, Chinese, or Indian restaurant, and in some corner you will find a shrine to a statue with food and water and candles in front of it. All food served there has been offered to an idol. Fortunately, idols don’t eat much.
In 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14, the problem was that new Christians were trying to leave behind their pagan habits and were avoiding eating meats that had been offered to idols. This was a good sentiment – the problem was, it was very difficult to find meat that hadn’t been offered to idols. So some, the mature ones, realized eating a steak that had been blessed by a shaman, or had chicken bones shaken over it by a witch doctor, or was placed before an idol of Buddha, was not a sin. Because the idol was nothing, and they were not eating it to honor that god, nor partaking in the pagan customs, so it made no difference.
But 1 Corinthians 8:7 brings up a familiar theme – some with a “weak conscience” – a weak faith – are eating this meat as a thing offered to an idol. They were still so fresh from paganism they didn’t feel comfortable skating that close to the edge of it. Now let me make a modern analogy so you can understand this perfectly. Suppose you had grown up eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Eve. You believed this brought good luck, the greens brought money, and so on. But these are simply pagan superstitions dating to the Middle East at least 1500 years ago! And once you learned this, you would surely stop eating them.
However, the peas and beans are, of themselves, nothing; not good luck or bad. They’re just food. While I would never make them for New Year’s, I often don’t even notice when the holiday comes around so I might well have them on that day without realizing it. And if you were to remind me, I would still have no problem eating them because the tradition means less than nothing to me. On the other hand, you might wish to be SURE that you were avoiding your old idolatrous ways and not eat them. This is the exact situation Paul was addressing. If you, with a weak conscience, eat this meal for good luck, as a thing offered to an idol, you shouldn’t eat it (Romans 14:23). Because if you think it’s wrong, it is wrong to you. And if it disturbs you that I eat it, I won’t eat it “while the world stands” (1 Corinthians 8:13). Because eating it won’t make me any better, and not eating it doesn’t make me any worse – it is simply a non-issue (1 Corinthians 8:8).
But if my eating it hurts your faith, I would be sinning against Christ (verses 9-12). Do you SEE? This has NOTHING to do with unclean meats! The context is STRICTLY about “meats offered to idols”, and like any writer once having explained the topic, he abbreviates the thought in the rest of the discussion and simply says “meats”. Now, to prove that Romans 14 is talking about the exact same subject (and thus, qualifies as “context”), compare the following verses: Romans 14:15, 21; 1 Corinthians 8:9-12. Notice particularly how 14:15 and 8:11 have the identical quote “for whom Christ died”.
The only difference is, while Corinthians was primarily about the eating itself, with the Romans the problem was more about the bickering of the church members about it. Some were mature in the faith and KNEW it didn’t matter – and they were criticizing those who were weak and didn’t eat them. It was this criticism or “judging” that was condemned here. Do you see how much you miss when you don’t read the context? To just seize Romans 14:14 and use it as proof that unclean meats are abolished is unethical when the context is so clearly about meats offered to idols, and whether it’s better to be a vegetarian or eat meat blessed by a priest of Apollo!
Throughout Romans 14, the context is never unclean meats, but rather whether clean meats offered to idols BECOME unclean! And Paul’s conclusion in verse 14 is that nothing God permits you to eat canbe made unclean by being offered to an idol unless you believe it does. So does Romans 14:17 nullify all the other words spoken about food in the Bible? Or does it say that eating meats offered to idols or not eating them doesn’t matter – what matters is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the holy spirit? Compare it to 1 Corinthians 8:8 before you answer!
And now conclude with Romans 14:20-21. Does the statement “all things indeed are pure”, mean that we can now eat foods God has forbidden? Does it mean we can drink blood, eat human flesh or fried feces? I’m serious! If ALL THINGS ARE PURE, then so are those things! And if all things are NOT pure, then Paul meant only SOME things are pure; only things GOD PERMITS MAN TO DO ARE PURE! And if using that “liberty” to eat meats offered to idols offends your brother, it’s better not to do even those “pure” things than make your brother compromise his conscience!
TWO MORE OBJECTIONS
Another verse that seems strange is in Genesis 9:3. This appears to contradict the rest of the Bible by allowing ALL animals to be used for food. On the one hand, this verse isn’t relevant because after Noah came Moses, and after Moses came Jesus and the Apostles, all of whom kept the clean/unclean meat laws. However, if God had special rules for Noah and different ones for us today, that would be very strange indeed (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8). If ALL animals are given to us for food, then we should eat skunks, rats, and cats. But did God really mean ALL?
It says God gave us “all” animals to eat, JUST AS He gave us “all” plants to eat. Back in Eden, He told man, “EVERY green herb have I given you for food”. Yet in spite of that blanket statement, He had elsewhere forbidden men to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! And He expected us to know that when He said “all plants”, the ones He had already forbidden were excepted! Likewise, God had told Noah only two chapters before, to make a DIFFERENCE between the clean and unclean animals. Noah KNEW God’s laws about which animals were for food and which weren’t.
So when God said “ALL animals… just as I gave you ALL plants”, He knew Noah understood this did NOT include the animals God had already forbidden us to eat! Any other answer is wishful thinking from people who resent God meddling with their eating habits. This verse cannot contradict every clear prohibition against eating unclean foods, nor can it change the plain fact that God gave us certain animals for sacrifices for our sins – and eating any other animal is an abomination. The other objection is similar; this time in the New Testament, in 1 Timothy 4:4. If you pull this verse out of context and scream it really loudly from the pulpit, it does indeed sound convincing. However, if you read the context, it proves the exact opposite conclusion! So read 1 Timothy 4:1-5.
Paul was arguing a certain false doctrine here, specifically people who commanded other people to “abstain from meats”. Now considering what you just read in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, this almost certainly means “meats offered to idols”, not meat in general. Now read what Paul said about these meats in 1 Timothy 4:3. He said it was WRONG to refuse to eat any meats “which God hath created to be received…”! Not wrong to refuse ANY meat, just wrong to refuse those meats which God created to be eaten! Did God create pigs to be received? Did He create skunks as food for man?
Now down in 1 Timothy 4:5, it says these creatures which we are not to refuse were “sanctified by the word of God”! “Sanctified” literally means “set aside”; were pigs ever “sanctified” for our use? Does the word of God ever set them aside and give them to mankind as food? So which of these “creatures of God”, does the “word of God” say are “sanctified” for our use? The CLEAN animals! Which foods did God “create”, or “cleanse” for our food? The ones listed in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14! It is WRONG to refuse to eat clean animals for ethical reasons! If you really are such a loving person that you can’t handle the idea of a sweet animal dying, then stop sinning so they won’t have to die for your sins anymore! Think about this: if you cannot accept the sacrifice of a mere animal to pay for your sins, how can you accept the sacrifice of the most righteous Man ever to live to pay for your sins?
NOT HEALTH LAWS
The few people who teach that you shouldn’t eat pork do so under the heading “health laws”. They reason that God didn’t want you to eat catfish and shrimp because He knew that they are bottom feeders, and that eating them is unhealthy. That’s not true. God allows us to eat carp, which are also bottom feeders. They’ll say God knows that pork carries trichinosis and worms, and so told us not to eat it. Chicken also has worms, and beef has mad cow disease. This has absolutely nothing to do with why God doesn’t allow us to eat them. Claiming that these laws are given merely for physical reasons belittles them and hides the glorious truth from you.
So I want to make something very clear. These are not health laws. These are just laws, derived from the 1-2-10 law like everything else. We’ll explain why God chose those particular animals to cleanse and not others another day. Because knowing why, while nice, isn’t really important for now. God said not to eat pork because He said so, and that should be good enough to start. If that isn’t enough to get you to stop breaking His law, then who is your god? Philippians 3:19. It’s your god if you obey it and not the words God gave you (Romans 6:16).
This will be inconvenient to most people. Most of us like at least one type of unclean meat, be it pork chops, catfish, or shrimp, and giving those up might be hard; but it’s a simple thus-saith-the-Lord. You either do what God said, or you don’t – it’s your choice. Be a Christian or don’t, but don’t rewrite the Bible so you can have your sin and be a Christian, too – more than enough people have done that already. Once you make the commitment to get rid of all unclean meats, you’ll find a list of of places you wouldn’t have thought to look for them in your packet history (“How To Avoid Unclean Meats”).
Unclean foods hide in things like marshmallows, some kinds of sour cream, some yogurt brands and most jell-o (these all often have pork gelatin), refried beans and Mexican food (often have lard) and Dr. Pepper and Snapple and any drink or cake that looks unnaturally red (they are often dyed red with beetle juice – literally). As with all the other lessons, this is about getting you out from under a curse you didn’t know you were under. Even though you didn’t know about them, these things are still bringing a curse on you and keeping you apart from God; see Leviticus 5:2-4. Even if you’re ignorant, you’re still unclean; and as soon as you know, you become guilty and need to do something about it right away so you can be forgiven and cleansed. That means you’re guilty right now (you’re welcome).
Read Luke 12:47-48. Ignorance is some excuse, but not a complete excuse. Sin still brings a penalty, regardless of why you sinned. Someday, somehow, someone will have to pay for it – and you are far better off having a cow, a goat, or (better yet) Jesus pay the price, than to pay it yourself. The only way to achieve that is to repent of your sins and keep the commandments of God.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
You can be a wonderful person, take care of widows and orphans and go to church every week, but if you eat pork you are unclean in God’s eyes. You can’t obey God in all points except one and expect that to be good enough for Him (James 2:8-12). To extend the metaphor and paraphrase it a bit, He that said “thou shalt not kill” said also “thou shalt not eat catfish”. Now if you obey the one and disobey the other, what is the point in being a Christian? You’re still guilty of breaking the whole law, because God’s law is a package.
The true Christian lives by EVERY word of God (Luke 4:4). That is the problem with Christians today – they live by 10% of the word of God, or 50%, or even 85%; but that isn’t enough. You can live by 99.99% of the words of God and rebel against that one tiny word – and that tiny little .01% of the word of God will keep you out of the Kingdom of God! This doesn’t mean you have to be PERFECT, but it DOES mean you have to do your BEST to obey all the words of God. If you knowingly rebel against a single word in the Bible, there can be no sacrifice for that sin (Hebrews 10:26). If you steal a PENNY and then stubbornly refuse to repent, God will lock you out of His Kingdom!
If you’re going to do most of what God says, why not go all the way? It’s well worth it, to inherit the blessings God promises in this life and in the next. If you’ve been studying these lessons, you know “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18), and you, too, will be happy to give up a few things that your belly wants, in order to gain the riches of God. I mean, think about it; you’re trading the freedom to eat catfish now, the freedom to eat blood sausage and pork chops and shrimp… you’re trading that for the blessings of God now and for eternity. Is that really such a bad trade? If it is, then maybe your belly really IS your god. And no man can serve two masters.
For more lessons enrol in the Comprehensive Bible Study Course by Nathanial Burson The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.