Growing up our family of ten traveled on a mission for years. The vision of my evangelist father, Dr. Arnold Pent was to challenge and encourage families to read the Bible every day together and out loud.
To the glory of God, if you are interested, may it encourage and challenge you.
Love,
Elisabeth Pent Julin
LINK DR. ARNOLD PENT FAMILY MINISTRY
There were “unclean” animals listed in Leviticus eleven: the clean eaten, the unclean to avoid. But in the New Testament God told The Apostle Peter,
“What God has cleansed, that call not thou common.” In Acts 10:15 Peter was
sent by God to the Gentiles. Now they were “clean”: it is a spiritual and physical
lesson.
But is our culture of “fast food”
today the new “unclean food”? Food that is good for you, eat that! The modern,
processed, bleached, bioengineered food is a risk to our health.
Bread, when it is bleached, degermed,
chemicals added, and the bran used elsewhere is not only not health building, it
is harmful. Like fast food available everywhere, it is easy, quick, cheap,
habit forming, addictive. Today, important nutritional value from the whole
grain (the bran, endosperm, and germ) are often taken out; chemicals are added,
and the food value is gone.
Nearing my eighty-second birthday,
the importance of eating wisely is more interesting than ever…below are excerpts
exposing why wheat flour is bleached… with the link below.
“Bleaching wheat
flour is a common process that involves the use of chemicals such as chlorine
dioxide or benzoyl peroxide to whiten the flour.”
·
One
of the main risks associated with bleached wheat flour is an
increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
·
Another
potential risk associated with bleached wheat flour is an increased risk of
heart disease.
·
The
Shocking Truth: Why Is Wheat Flour Bleached? Find Out Now! - Flavor Insider
The additive “Natural Flavor” on
food products does not come clean with its claim. This Link describes
the deceptiveness of Natural Flavor on food labels:
Natural Flavors: What are they and are they safe to eat?
(foodrevolution.org)
“At the end of the day, many Natural Flavors
are highly processed and contain a host of chemical additives. In fact, there
could be as many as 100 chemicals in a single
natural flavor.”
Modern fad diets confuse and
frustrate us. When they are a fad, they work against our power to think for
ourselves, do our own research, find dependable resources: study their value. A
better Way is right in front of you in the Bible. From the Old Testament and
through the New Testament are mentions of many foods.
What’s even more intense about the
mention of food in Scripture is that there are deeper lessons for us: the
literal food is there stated on the page (on many pages) and the figurative
teaching will touch you when you know a powerful lesson is right before you. "And
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never
hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:35.
Food, but not too much. The challenge of a lifetime!
When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life…” that is a literal truth
going spiritual. There is physical health and life, there is spiritual health
and life: and that is eternal. Bread, not the bleached, devitalized, degermed,
white bread. The bread Jesus stands for is made from a powerful whole grain. In
wheat there are three parts: the bran, endosperm, and germ. This is a picture
of Jesus, “The Bread of Life.”
Health has been a lifelong interest, and the Bible is profound
inspiration on this subject. What has been a surprise as I study it is that food
is physical and spiritual. One teaches about the other; it is useful and
powerful in our lives and future if we believe it? There is a lifetime of
benefit if we do.
The Bible has profoundly influenced my life from the
first day I was born. Every day, my father and mother and their family of ten read
the Bible aloud together. All eight children learned to read this way. It
influenced me, even before I realized and directed my life. By my twenties, my
health pursuits became an adventure primarily because of Scripture. About this
same time, I traveled with my brother, Arnold, to Texas where he and his new
wife, Esther lived. I could type well and got a job at Transicold Trucking
Company in Dallas, Texas. There all the ways of the big city came up.
Instead of going rogue, I decided to follow the Bible already
planted in my head and heart. My spirit, soul and body needed to be fed. I felt
pointless and after six months drove home (in the new little Volkswagen my
brother cosigned for). I look back now and wonder at God’s protection and
leading, even when I was directionless.
“Don’t go home,” my friend advised, “nobody will come to your
doorstep.” As it turned out, Eric Julin proposed on my parent’s doorstep. And
our marriage started me thinking about not only feeding myself but my new
husband. He amazingly approved of the budding “health nut” experimenting on
him.
All of us can get valuable information wrong. For years, my understanding of clean and unclean food came from the Old Testament. Then our fourteen-year-old granddaughter helped me see something. Her love of exotic food from her family’s traditions surprised me until…I happened to see that I was wrong. Sure, pork was forbidden to the children of Israel in the Old Testament Law and so was octopus…which our granddaughter, Lilly loves. Then I saw what I had missed one evening in I Timothy 4:
“Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the
latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their
conscience seared with a hot iron. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to
abstain from meats (food), which God has created to be received with
thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature
of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with
thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”
I was wrong.
Our son, Zach introduced a topic at the dinner
table. He, his wife Roxy and children, Eric, my husband, and I were finishing
dinner together, “What do you think about women preachers?” He looked right at
me, knowing I would have an opinion on one of my favorite subjects: the respect
and happiness of women taken from the Bible. “I don’t like them.” Was my immediate reaction,
obviously not carefully thought-out. What happened next was a surprise. Roxy,
our daughter in law spoke up with passion…that women are emotional, quarrel,
argue on theological topics about women in the Bible.
For years I studied this question that is a hotly
debated subject in our culture. Is the Bible dismissive of women? Does God
demean the female gender? He, in fact, created them in His own image, Genesis 1:27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them.” Why is there so much debate?
There is fear, I believe. It is a deep
misunderstanding of the gifts and calling of “male and female” …made in God’s
image.
Strengths of women are emotional sensitivity,
a good trait. Creativity. Wisdom is one more powerful gift to women (consider the wisdom in
the Book of Proverbs), “Wisdom cries without;
she utters her voice in the streets…” Proverbs 1:20.
When we know that we are valuable, precious,
important to God and to men, we can summon confidence and focus. Begin with
your female biology, your beautiful self! Yes, your body and female point of view and personality! The layer of fat
which adds beauty, softness to your features. Go to the way you care. You love. You
automatically do…feel responsible for!
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, "If you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed: and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31,32.
If only Eve had known. We know now! Eve, the first
woman created at the hand of God was deceived. She believed a lie, and she did
not recognize this Deceiver, Satan himself.
Eve with Adam had firsthand access to God; "And they heard the voice of the
LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…;" Genesis 3 relates
that sad day early on!
If the first woman had known the awful trap by the
enemy of God and rejected the lie, what would have happened? We cannot know.
What we can know is that God is Truth. “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life…,”
said Jesus. He told Adam and Eve ahead of time and the command God had
given was clear in
Chapter 2. "And the
LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die." Genesis 2:16,17.
The liar, “You shall not surely die…” paraphrasing
Satan, God knows that you will be like gods knowing good and evil…God lied to
you.
Eve was deceived. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Genesis 3:6. Adam was not deceived: he defied God. I Timothy 2:14.
My simple deduction: we can look to God in the
Bible for His powerful message in the creation of our bodies, in nature, in our
sense of fairness and right and wrong, of good and evil. We can know the truth
and be free.
