"CLEAN AND UNCLEAN FOOD" THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

The Old Testament is clear about “clean and unclean” food: animals that we should and should not eat. Do the forbidden animals mean that God is harsh: do not eat this and only eat that! Having pondered it, my deduction is that it was the Creator telling us what He created and why and what animals his creation should eat for their good. Think about it: many of the animals God designated “unclean” in the Old Testament are scavengers, predators, bottom feeders.

There is, in the New Testament, freedom to decide what you will eat. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." I Corinthians 10:31. Take it seriously, think twice about habitual food, then someday when you grow old, just hopefully, you will have invested in yourself wisely. Of course, God has the final word on the number of our days, the health of our bodies.

As our three sons, Joshua, Josiah, and Zachariah were growing up, we visited the State of Maine one Summer. Eric traveled to many Naval Bases in the United States as a Logistics Manager for the Naval Air Warfare Center. A few times during the summer months our three sons and I traveled with him on his official trips. My husband would nudge me in a restaurant, “Go ahead, get lobster.” Fried clams and lobster were part of happy memories. I ate lobster.  

Eating lobster and clams in Maine brought back memories of my childhood: my father, mother, and grandparents, ran a Bible Conference on the ocean front in the summer. They owned several acres across the street from the Atlantic Ocean with a big, three hundred seat tabernacle and thirty summer cottages. Years later, when our little family drove over the border into Maine again, I cried.

The New Testament gives each person freedom to decide about food, the Sabbath of total rest, and other practices forbidden under the Law, in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Today much of the fast-food industry with its accompanying harmful processes, added chemicals, devitalized flour, processed oils, sugar, and corn syrup look like a modern-day rendition of “unclean food.” Reading labels is an effective way to stay away from ingredients that do not nourish you. Also, I prefer to stay away from the “Biblically unclean” food most of the time.

"All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eats with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby your brother stumbles, or is offended or is made weak... Happy is he that condemns not himself in that thing which he allows." Romans 14:20-22.