Vineyard Church North Phoenix | Should we abstain from eating certain meats?

Adam

The short answer is the Old Testament Dietary laws aren’t something that we as Christians need to follow. Jesus in Mark 7:19 declared all foods clean, thus abolishing the Old Testament dietary laws. Whatever the reasons were for the dietary laws was had become irrelevant. This had to be a difficult thing for Jesus’ followers to get their minds around and even Peter was a little confused by this. He had to be reminded that the dietary laws had been abolished in Acts chapter 10, verses 9 – 16 and that therefore all food had been made clean.

The reasons for the regulations, found in Leviticus and elsewhere, about clean and unclean animals are difficult to figure out. Reasons given by theologians for why certain animals were declared to be “unclean” include; some animals were unclean because of their role in foreign cults, their loathsome appearance, their repulsive habits, or perhaps because they were carnivorous, eaters of carrion, or inhabitants of desert places all of which are associated with the underworld. All of these arguments have limitations. Probably the simple answer is the best, that God set certain rules for His people to differentiate them from the pagan world around them.

Why did Jesus do away with these restrictions? Perhaps because no longer would His people need to be differentiated by what they ate or wore, but they would be different because the Holy Spirit would transform their lives making them different then the world around them. That is why it is so important that we let the Holy Spirit transform us into the image of our Lord Jesus.

Tom Quaid