It is a well-known fact that Jews have a lot dietary laws, and are not allowed to eat the
following: Among other things – we will look at these
in another video- Christians on the other hand seem to be able
to eat near enough anything despite the fact the roots of Christianity come directly from
Judaism.
In this video, we will be seeing why that is and whether Christians actually have dietary
laws.
So firstly, let’s ask the question; why can Christians eat pork and other meats deemed
unclean by Jews?
Well naturally it is due to the key difference between the two religions which is that the
Jews are still waiting for the messiah, while Christians believe the messiah has already
revealed himself.
For the Christian, the change in law stems from the life and ministry of Jesus as well
as Peter and the apostles.
One specific incident in Jesus life is usually used to show the change in dietary laws.
The incident in Jesus life takes place in the gospel of Mark chapter 7 – in this chapter
Jesus is rebuking some Jewish religious leader’s knowns as Pharisees, who were complaining
that Jesus disciples did not follow a practice of ritual cleaning, for being hypocrites,
as they are were careful to follow the outward laws and yet were not living in line with
God.
In verse 18 he says that what goes into the body does not defile a person as it does not
go into the heart but (verse 20) rather what comes out of a person defiles them – then
listing a number of sins.
In most translations verse 19 comments on this by writing in brackets that “by saying
this he declared every kind of food acceptable in Gods eyes”.
This seems like the case is closed and Christians can eat meat, but note that I said this is
in most translations and that is because old handwritten scriptures sometimes contained
footnotes and some scholars believe this statement to be just a footnote and not part of the
text.
But even without this comment it is clear that this argument about eating other meats
could be made from this text.
The next and possibly most important event in the removal of the dietary laws is found
in the book of Acts chapter 15.
The book of Acts follows the lives and work of Jesus followers and the transition of Christianity
from being a Jewish sect into a wider reaching religion.
By chapter 15 many gentiles, or non-Jews, were becoming Christians and this was becoming
a real problem as the Jews wanted them to be circumcised and follow the Jewish law.
Naturally this was a real stumbling block (I mean would you want to give up bacon and
get the snip?), so the council needed to decide what was the right thing to do.
but before this in Acts 10 Peter had a vision of “unclean” creatures and a voice telling
him to eat them.
Peter having been brought up a Jew told the voice he could not, but the voice told him
not to call something unclean if God has made it clean.
Peter could not understand what this vison was meant to mean until gentile believers
came to see him, and he understood the vision to mean that the gentiles were not to be looked
at as unclean.
In Acts 15 the Christian council decided to make a set of guidelines for the gentiles
and intrestingly did not tell them to stop eating previously unclean foods such as pork.
There are a couple of other places in the new testament which also state the same thing
(1 timothy 4) but essentially after this council over time in the early church the distinction
between the Jewish Christians and the gentiles faded away and the pervious mosaic laws were
dropped.
At this point I will note that there are still some Christian denominations like the seven
day Adventists and messianic Jews who still follow the dietary laws, stating that the
gentiles were never explicitly told they could eat unclean meat; but such groups are in the
minority.
So you might be thinking well then Christians can eat whatever they want right?
And well you would be wrong.
Ah, you could say Christians are not meant to eat meat on a Friday: and while that is
true in some traditions, that is all it is a tradition.
Christians actually are forbidden to eat a couple of types of food in Acts 15 – food
offered to idols, meat of strangled animals and blood.
The purpose of the ban on food offered to idols was to show publicly that they did not
worship idols, not that dedicated meat was supernaturally harmful.
In certain towns this would have been very hard and may have meant not eating meat at
all for certain people.
Naturally this is not an issue today, at least not in the west.
Strangled animals do not have the blood drained from their bodies, and thus break the restriction
on blood and blood was not to be eaten because god said in the book of Genesis 9:4 ‘But
you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it’.
Why was this command given?
Some have suggested health reasons, treatment of animals, symbol of the sacredness of life
or a symbol of the messiah.
But we are not 100% sure.