FREEDOM AND GOOD DECISIONS

Food is a source for thinking about God. We go to Him, “Give us this day our daily bread…”

Jesus "took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.’" Luke 22:19.

Scripture does not guarantee perfect health just because we find our resource for food in the Bible. However, it is the ultimate truth. "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." Proverbs 30:5. Food is important in the Bible, closest to leading the way to good health.

The Old Testament dietary law is clear. Leviticus 7-11 is one description of the laws about food. There is a different focus in the New Testament.

"After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come...And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you..." Luke 10:1,8

Later Peter had a vision in Acts ten: "And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, that call not thou common." Acts 10:13-15. Peter was sent to Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band. 

The vision demonstrated God including every person through salvation in Jesus. When Peter went on the mission to tell them about Jesus, he would be in their environment. He would be fed by a Roman Centurion’s hospitality.

The Book of Romans comments on these differences in people, "Him that is weak in the faith receive, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believes that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eats herbs. Let not him that eats despise him that eats not; and let not him which eats not judge him that eats: for God has received him." Romans 14:1-3

When I am in the home of a friend who serves pork, I eat it. But personally, I stay away from pork, (swine have one digestive tract. Pigs will eat you if you “are disabled” in their pen; this was told me by a farmer who raised them.) Crab, lobster, and other bottom feeders seem risky, so I think of them as reason to understand why God would forbid eating them in the Old Testament. When we visit the State of Maine, where my father and grandfather ran a Bible Conference in York Beach, Eric, my husband, urges me as we visit a restaurant located by the ocean, “You like lobster. Go ahead, get it.” I do.