Other cultures think differently and we get stuck in only our own logic.  If WE westerners had written this passage, we would have said, "For every creature [that God said we could eat] is good. . . "  This understanding was present without the saying.  To the Hebrews, unclean animals SIMPLY WERE NOT FOOD, any more than we would consider bear scat as food.  It just did not enter into their thinking that there was any debate or consideration of unclean animals as food.  This was never an item of discussion in the New Testament.

 

Did you note that in this same chapter there is a verse that I could use to do away with the notion of staying fit?  "Bodily exercise profiteth little. . ."  But do you think that is what Paul is here saying?  Nope.  Paul is concerned lest physical austerity or exercise of any kind should be made an end in itself, to the detriment of godliness of character.  In our day, we might say, "Physical regimens with intent to subdue the flesh by strength of self-will profit nothing to spiritual growth."

 

Okay, I digress. . .

 

Your quote below comes from verse 4, but did you not notice that verse 3 has already qualified it?  These false teachers (gnostics) who are coming into the *church are bringing in various heresies such as "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, [and take special note WHICH meats they were saying to abstain from] WHICH GOD CREATED TO BE RECEIVED WITH THANKSGIVING . . . ."  As you pointed out, Leviticus 11 shows which ones are clean and unclean.  We are not in doubt about which ones God created to be received.

 

(*We should go into this at length, sometime, because Christians today follow so much "proof-text" false teaching that is derived from failing to understand the issues in the fledgling church of Paul's day. . .we totally lift it out of context and make it say that which is never intended. . .Peter himself, even at that time, commented on how Paul's teachings are hard and the unstable would twist their meaning. . so be careful in reading Paul. . he is an intellectual, philosopher, theologian, 'all things to all people' kind of guy)

 

The Gnostics believed all matter was evil, and that the human body, being material, must have its passions repressed and denied.  According to this theory, marriage became a concession to the lusts of the flesh, and was therefore sinful. 

 

For ceremonial, ritualistic reasons these ascetics considered the total prohibition of certain foods to be spiritually desirable.  The prohibition of certain foods on particular religious days may also be included in the apostle's warning.  [by the way, "meats" in the KJV, generally means "food," not animal flesh].

 

The study of these ascetics and their developing Gnosticism is quite interesting and once you know what is going on, a lot of stuff in Paul's writings makes perfect sense and the apparent contradictions are cleared up.

 

There is really no quarrel anywhere in the early church about eating foods declared unclean by Scripture.  The problem in Corinth was food offered to idols (1 Cor. 8), and before that, eating with unwashed hands (Matt. 15:17-20).  It was a question of ceremonial, ritual purity.  The false teachers' theories were "but rules taught by men" (Matt. 15:9).  The Jerusalem council addressed the problem of food candidly (Acts 15:20, 29).  It should be pointed out that the cross made no physical change in human beings or animals.  What the cross did for believing Gentiles was to purify "their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9).  Peter gave an inpired interpretation of his vision of a sheet let down from heaven containing "all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles" (Acts10:12).  He said, "God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean" (vs. 28).  Paul's counsel to Timothy had to do with the food restrictions of the Gnostics of his day, not with Jewish food restrictions.

 

The foundation of every man-made religion is the attempt to gain merit toward salvation through human effort.  It was not the Holy Spirit that actuated the false teachers' prohibitions but their desire to establish their own righteousness apart from Christ.  The Bible says not to be overscrupulous or make a fetish of wisdom (Eccl. 7:16) and this is exactly what the false teachers at Ephesus were doing.  This made them haughty, overbearing, arrogant, and authoritarian.  They felt quite competent to prescribe for others, even to commanding people to conform to their beliefs and practices.

 

On the other hand, the obedient, thankful child of God is full of gratitude for all God's marvelous gifts.  He is not indifferent about diet and health.  God's faithful peole live by the NT injunction, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).  Christians are sober and self-denying, but never OVERLY so.

To Market to Market to Buy ...a Fat Hog?

by Katy Chamberlin
...It’s amazing how much confusion there is out there today regarding what is healthful food

The world is full of individuals who have fallen prey to all manner of infirmity, sickness and disease-sometimes merely uncomfortable, but more often crippling or even fatal-who, either in ignorance or with supposed superior knowledge, have disregarded the unchangeable health laws.

...Hogs! They were created as scavengers; as a rule they are meat-eating animals that clean up anything that is left dead in the fields, etc. If any animal should die in the field and lie in the sun until it is broken open and the maggots and putrefaction have set in, the swine or other scavengers will come and eat up the filth and putrid matter. Scavengers were never meant for human consumption.

...Scavengers, such as the swine, are the filthiest and most abominable creatures. In their very nature they are poisonous, diseased and deadly. The flesh of the swine is said by many authorities to be the prime cause of much of our American ill health, causing blood disease, weakness of the stomach, liver troubles, eczema, consumption, tumors, cancer, trichinosis, etc.

...The swine’s anatomy has but one poorly constructed stomach arrangement and very limited excretory organs generally. Consequently, in about four hours after the pig has eaten his polluted swill and other putrid, offensive matter, man may eat the same, second hand-off the ribs of the pig.

...John Johnson, a farmer of Williams, Iowa, speaks on this subject. He states that the swine in Iowa are principally fed on corn, but “will eat anything we give them. If anything dies, we throw it to the hogs. I have actually seen hogs chewing at the cancer of other hogs and these hogs are shipped to market. Many times cattle are infected from the incurable diseases of the hog called the ‘mad itch.’ It is transmitted by the hog’s saliva left on the corn, which cattle eat. The itching in the cattle becomes so intense they will run from stump to stump until they rub their skin from their mouths and soon die. When the saliva from the hog’s mouth will poison cattle in this way, how can hogs be fit for man to eat?”(1)

...Farmers know that when they are feeding cattle, it pays for them to keep hogs, so that the hogs can follow after the cattle, eat the filth from the cattle, and thus turn it into pork for the public market.

...Swine have “running sores” under their hoofs. If you ever get the opportunity to visit a farm that raises hogs, lift the front hoof of the hog, and, with just a little pressure, greenish matter will ooze out from between the toes. This is one small outlet for the various heinous poisons that the hog takes into his body. Occasionally this artery becomes stopped up, the poison backs up into his system, and greenish growths are formed in various parts of his body.

...“On a close analysis of this filthy scrofulous serum, or the ‘culture’ of its bacilli under varied conditions, it is seen to contain the elements of many dangerous diseases and combinations; yet how toothsome is pickled pig’s feet to ignorance, unbelief, and disobedience.” (2)

...Some may be led to conclude that if the hog was kept in clean quarters and given nothing but pure food to eat, its flesh would then be just as desirable for human consumption as the flesh of any other animal, but that just isn’t true. The naturally filthy hog could be forced into the most sanitary conditions, nourished upon delicacies, and still would be unfit for food due to the basic physiological functions of it system. For this reason, God states in the Scriptures, “It is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat.”

...The Scriptures warn us about the diseases lurking in these unclean animals, (they are scavengers of the earth). These signals have been placed there for very good reasons. They are flashing red lights to keep us from impending disaster.

...During recent years discoveries by the medical establishment has brought to light reasons why God, thousands of years ago, condemned the hog as unfit for food. The microscope has revealed that the flesh of hogs is often infested with trichina worms, which when taken into the human body, multiply and begin to work their way through the entire system, even into the brain and heart This condition is known as trichinosis. Even today in America, the public is warned and advised to cook ALL pork well done. This is to make sure that the only trichinae worm you eat is a cooked one. But it is a known fact that heat does not guarantee the killing of all pork worms, The larva are very tiny and you can unknowingly swallow several hundred of them. Then when the natural warmth and even temperature of your body envelops them, they dissolve and become free to go about the task of growing and breeding further in your body. To suffer the symptoms of pork worm poisoning you need not eat but one pregnant parasite. If the number of parasites is sufficient, the body responds with symptoms similar to reactions to food poisoning. Later rheumatic-like pains may begin, or the worms may settle temporarily in the heart. Inflammation in the cardiac region may follow. In some cases the brain or nervous system may be disturbed, as though worms had invaded brain or nerves, which possibly they do. Even invasion of the muscles may be fatal if the worms are numerous enough.

...“In the pork which we Americans eat, there too often lurk myriads (countless numbers) of baffling and sinister parasites. They are minute spiral worms which scientists call Trichinella spirals. A single serving of infected pork-even a single mouthful-can kill or cripple, or condemn the victim to a lifetime of aches and pains. In the flesh of a pig, the trichinae are often so minute and so nearly transparent that to find them, even with a microscope, is a task for expert scientific inspectors…

...“Remember this: When you see stamped on a pork product the words, U.S. Government Inspected and Passed, those words do not mean that any official inspection whatever has been made as to whether this pork has trichinosis or not. It has merely passed the routine inspection given meat in general.

...“The trichina is just one worm found in the swine. There is a large round worm, the gullet worm, three kinds of stomach worms, a tiny hairworm, a hookworm, and the thornheaded worm, in the small intestine. There are several species of nodular worms and one species of whipworm in the large intestine, and the kidney worm. The large round worm can be as big as eighteen inches.

...“A special report given to medical personnel at a Doctors and Nurses Conference on Communicable Disease at the Wesley Medical Center, Wichita, Kansas, in 1962 said that one out of three people are infected with trichinosis.” (3)
“In a Colorado town pork sausage showing the trichina worms was taken by the federal pathologists from a peddler of fresh pork sausage after a family had been made severely ill from eating his product. One girl, age 18, was so ill that she was taken to the hospital where, on account of the heavy infestation of her diaphragm, her breathing was so bad that she had to receive oxygen inhalations three times a day to keep her alive. A small piece of muscle taken from her deltoid, or shoulder muscle, showed trichinae infestation. The family was at first diagnosed as having influenza, or muscular rheumatism. This mistake is probably often made in light cases of trichinosis, which probably affects about one person out of every four in this country.

...“In an effort to cull out the trichinae-infested hogs, or the worst of them, an attempt was made for a time to examine microscopically the tissues of each hog, by having a room full of microscopists examining bits of muscle tissue. The difficulty of this can be better understood when it is known that in Chicago alone there are two packing houses that can kill, dress, and pack six hundred hogs an hour each, which means an average of one every six seconds. This effort had to be abandoned as impractical and expensive, and so the Department of Agriculture, in a bulletin on trichinosis, says that ‘no practical system has yet been devised by which persons who eat raw or imperfectly cooked pork can be protected from the danger of trichinosis.’

...“In this same bulletin it is pointed out that in Germany, where microscopical examination of pork for trichinae is systematically carried out, there occurred in seventeen years 6,329 cases of trichinosis, 32 percent of which were from inspected meat that had been passed as free from trichinae infestation. To safeguard the consuming public, the government has prepared a poster for the use of the meat trade, warning the public to ‘cook pork and its products thoroughly.’ The reason is not given on the poster, but it offers to send an explanatory leaflet on request. It would not add to the attractiveness of pork as a food, nor would it tend to increase the sale of pork products, to inform the public bluntly that among garbage-fed hogs trichinosis infection is common, with a slightly decreased frequency among hogs in general. Garbage-fed rats have their tissues loaded with the trichina worms. Hogs eating such rats quickly become heavily infested with this loathsome disease.

...“As in all the wonderful instruction given by Moses, there was an excellent reason for his warning against the filth-eating hogs; and certainly those who do eat them should follow the government’s warning, for dead trichinae worms are preferable to live ones.” (4)


REFERENCES:

1. Elmer A. Josephson, God’s Key to Health and Happiness, (Fleming H. Revel Co., N.J., 1962), p 48.
2. The Defender, published in Wichita, Kansas
3. Laird S. Godsborough, Pork, Reader’s Digest, March, 1950
4. O.S. Parrett, M.D. Diseases of Food Animals, (Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, TN), pp 8-11.
5. (Also) Shahrazad Ali, How Not To Eat Pork, Civilized Publ, Philadelphia, PA, 1985.


Copyright 1999 - Katy Chamberlin. View more health articles by Katy's at Freeedom of Health.

back to bible evidence links page