~Revelation 18.3

For all the nations have fallen because of the wine of [Babylon's] passionate immorality. The kings of the world have committed adultery with her.

~Revelation 18.13

[Babylon, the great city] also bought cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots, and bodies—that is, human slaves.

In Revelation, Babylon represents world systems which are against God. I think wine is used here to symbolize how intoxicating those systems can be.

Cinnamon, spice, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep are listed among the luxuries enjoyed by Babylon.

Limiting for Love

~Romans 14.1-3

Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them.

~Romans 14.6b

Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.

~Romans 14.14-16

I know . . . that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. . . . For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

~Romans 14.20-22

Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble. You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right.

Paul expounds again here for Roman readers some of the same points he made to Corinthian readers in I Corinthians 8, 9, and 10. "No food . . .is wrong to eat," yet believers are urged to limit their freedom out of love. So if I am a in a setting where something is disapproved of, something which I believe is ok, rather than flaunt my freedom or engage in arguments, I am to "keep it between myself and God."

Eat for God's Glory

~I Corinthians 10:3-5, 6-7, 15-22, 25-31

~25-26 So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

~31 So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

In this chapter Paul covers several food-related topics (see labels), but there is nothing specific about a particular food. I print only the key verses 25-26 and 31.

Another interesting point here is the connection between idols and demons. Surely it's possible to make an idol of food. Be careful, Ruthie!

"God doesn't grade us on our diet."

~I Corinthians 8.1,4, 7-8

The question keeps coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend meals where such meat is served, or not? . . . . Some people say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, . . . [that] there is only one God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live for him.

In strict logic, then, nothing happened to the meat when it was offered up to an idol. It's just like any other meat. . . .

verse 8 The Message

But fortunately God doesn't grade us on our diet. We're neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can't stomach it.

~verse 8 NIV

But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

~verse 8 Good News Translation

Food, however, will not improve our relation with God; we shall not lose anything if we do not eat, nor shall we gain anything if we do eat.

~verse 8 Amplified Bible

Now food [itself] will not cause our acceptance by God nor commend us to Him. Eating [food offered to idols] gives us no advantage; neither do we come short or become any worse if we do not eat [it].

~verse 8 New Living Translation

It’s true that we can’t win God’s approval by what we eat. We don’t lose anything if we don’t eat it, and we don’t gain anything if we do.

Eating meat that's been offered to an idol isn't really an issue for twenty-first century Americans. The important point for me here is in verse eight. But how do I balance this verse, which seems to say (at least in the Message Translation) that anything goes and God doesn't give a hoot about what we eat, with the teaching in chapter six that our bodies should be cared for as God's temples? Maybe the Amplified Bible gets closest to the heart of it saying that anything goes as far as meat offered to idols. That wouldn't necessarily extend to other things we choose to ingest.

I will keep plugging along through these mysteries. :-]

Jesus, the Passover Lamb

~I Corinthians 5.7b-8 For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

John 2.29 and 36 also refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, that is the lamb sacrificed for the Passover meal. Why lamb? I expect to look at this more when I get to Exodus.

No Blood

~Acts 15.19-21 “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood.” ~Acts 21.25 repeats this.

~Acts 15.29 This decision is shared.

After Noah, God allowed for the killing of animals for food with one restriction: no consumption of blood. Subsequent Hebrew practice is that animals be killed in a humane manner, swiftly, throats slit, and immediately hung so the blood drains before the meat is processed. Apparently, if an animal is strangled the blood can coagulate and remain.

~Deuteronomy 12:23 explains "never consume the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the lifeblood with the meat."

Kill and eat.

~Acts 10.9-16 About noon the following day . . . Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

~Acts 11.1-18 This story is repeated as Peter tells it to the leaders.

Kill and eat. It's a heavenly mandate. From the story we clearly see that the message to Peter is not just about food; however, again a food analogy is used. I conclude that, at least since the fall of mankind into sin, God is ok with killing animals and using them for food. The Bible in no way recommends a vegetarian diet.

Furthermore, I think we can deduce here that since it says "all kinds of four-footed animals" this would include even pork. Peter is not comfortable with the idea. In fact, it's so radical, so contrary to all that the law of Moses has taught, that God shows him the same vision three times to be sure he gets it.

Perhaps Peter remembered Jesus saying it's not what goes into the mouth that makes someone unclean, but what comes out (Mark 7).

Fried chicken?

~Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

When I was a child fried chicken was the classic after-church Sunday dinner. Did Jesus ever sit down to a meal of fried chicken? Who knows? It seems the verses here are the only referrals to chicken/hens in the Bible (more on fowl later). Apparently they were around, so I'm guessing they were eaten.

Here's the Beef

~Luke 15:14-19 After [the wasteful son] had spent everything, there was a severe famine, and he began to be in need. So he hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will go back to my father and say: Father, I have sinned . . ..’

What we learn about food here is that in our world, sometimes it doesn't grow, and sometimes people are desperately hungry. Jesus is well aware there are famines when the situation is so bad that a Jewish kid considers eating the lowest thing imaginable: pig slop. The Lord does not answer our "why?" here, but does show a positive result. Falling into hunger and failure brings this young man to the knowledge of his folly and the realization that his best course of action is to humbly return to his father and repent.

~Luke 15.22-24 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! . . .Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again....’

The New Testament doesn't have a lot of references to eating beef. I don't think it was a daily food like the oft-mentioned bread. But clearly here, beef is the "let's celebrate" menu item of choice. Good eating for special times--more desirable than eating goat, for example, which is part of the complaint below.

~Luke 15.28-29 “The older brother became angry and . . . answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you . . . . Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ’

Ham

~Mark 7.18b-19 “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

One more thought before I leave this passage. The really big news here to the followers of Jesus must have been the idea that they no longer had to worry about whether a food was defined as "clean" or "unclean" according to Jewish law. This was radical. Now Jesus has okay'd ham sandwiches.

Fish: a good gift

~Matthew 7.9-11 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

~Luke 11.9-13 What father among you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts [gifts that are to their advantage] to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!

Here's bread again. Jesus sees bread and fish and eggs as good gifts, advantageous food to give kids. Fish sticks is the only "seafood" Steve or I remember getting as we grew up. I baked actual fish for our kids but they didn't care much for it until they became adults. Now two of the four live on the coasts and love fish. Obviously fresh fish, like Peter and John would have caught maybe the same day, is tastier than the frozen-then-thawed varieties we customarily get here in the Midwest. Just about any health recommendation nowadays will say to eat more fish and less red meat.

Footnote: We were amused that the daughter of some Korean friends loved to munch on very fishy tasting and smelling seaweed wafers. She was two or three and loved them like cookies.

Most Important Entry: Bone Density & Food Fixation

~Matthew 6.25-33 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink . . . . Is not life more than food . . .? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? . ... So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ . . ..’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

~Matthew 6:31-34 Peterson's Message Bible What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Jesus says not to worry about what we will eat, but I give thought to this constantly. You can evaluate my reason for doing so. Some years ago, although I felt fine and had no symptoms, I flunked a bone density test. The doc started me on some high powered drug and instructed me to take multiple calcium pills daily and to drink lots of milk. I did this for five years with little improvement in my score. Then I started studying the issue. I learned some bad things about the prescription and the mega-doses of calcium and dairy, so I stopped the drug and the supplements; I cut back on the milk. I read more about nutrition and started eating a lot more fresh vegetables and fish and way less red meat, white flour, and packaged stuff with mysterious ingredients. I feel good about all this, but scientists have conflicting opinions on what to eat to best help bones (and for health in general), so I'm still always studying food.

Jesus seems to be talking about worrying over whether one has enough to eat. No credit to faith, but because of my current situation of abundance, I don't do that. BUT I do worry about whether I'm getting enough of this or that mineral or nutrient or fiber which is probably the same thing. I think that if I can just get this figured out, make myself some reasonable food guidelines to live by, then I can stop thinking about it and just do it. But I'm not at that point yet. And in fact, that's why I'm doing this study of what the Bible says about food. I figure God should know what makes a body work well. (No locusts tho, thanks!)

Father God, if I'm going over the top with this, please show me. If I'm on the right track, please encourage me. And if the things I learn are of value to anyone else, kindly make that connection.