Dietary Laws: Can a Christian Eat a BLT? (Expanded and Updated)

The Mosaic law attached great importance to meats and drinks: the Christian religion attaches none.-Charles Spurgeon ¹

Many of us have similar stories about our first time reading through the Bible. Genesis and Exodus feature lots of action. When we get to Leviticus, however, things tend to get more challenging. Many of the laws and purity codes do seem strange to western eyes. Often, the dietary laws especially stand out. After all, many of us do enjoy a good BLT (just hold the mayo on mine, please).

God’s original diet for man was, in fact, a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:30). Even after the fall, man continued to simply eat wild plants (Genesis 3:18,19). It was only after the flood that meat began to be used as food (Genesis 9:3). Later, the Levitical Law continued to allow the eating of meat, but with strict guidelines concerning “clean” and “unclean” animals (Leviticus 11:3-22, Deuteronomy 14:4-9). These are known as the Jewish laws of kashrut, or kosher, which means”fit.” In order to be suitable for food, a land animal had to both have a divided hoof and chew cud (partially digested food). Scavenger birds were prohibited. All aquatic animals had to have fins and scales.

In other words, “clean” or kosher animals included beef, lamb and poultry as well as fish such as cod, flounder and trout. Examples of “unclean” meats would be pork, shellfish and catfish. Granted, other animals on the “unclean” list such as bats, camels and vultures would not be appetizing to most of us anyway.

In addition, all meat animals had to be slaughtered in a swift, humane manner (Deuteronomy 12:21), and the eating of blood was strictly prohibited (Leviticus 7:26-27; 17:10-14). The apologetics site GotQuestions.org states:

Much scholarly debate has gone into the question of why God declared some animals clean and others unclean. Some believe it was to avoid pagan practices and set Israel apart as holy in matters of food and worship. Others emphasize the health and hygiene benefits of these regulations. ²

There does appear to be some truth to both of these conjectures. From a practical standpoint, a kosher diet does indeed offer certain health benefits. For example, an animal that chews cud generally has more than one stomach (or multiple compartments within its stomach). This means that its food is more thoroughly digested and more nutrients are extracted. A divided hoof provides an outlet for toxins and impurities to exit the animal’s body (think of how badly your foot smells after you have been wearing a boot for a long time). For fish, having scales provides protection against toxins and bacteria. Fish with fins are continually mobile, while those without them are scavengers which eat waste and debris.

Yet these laws also served a ceremonial purpose rooted in ritual purity .When the Law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19-20), it established a theocratic style of government for the children of Israel which would be in effect until the coming of the Messiah (Matthew 11:11-13; Luke 16:16). Clear cut moral laws such as the Ten Commandments are restated in the New Testament and are still very much in force today. However, other laws served a more temporary purpose. In short, the Law served as a “schoolmaster” or “tutor” until it was ultimately fulfilled in Christ (Galatians 3:24). Nonetheless, it was merely a “shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1).

This is why we begin to see a move away from these dietary laws during the life of Jesus:

And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean-Mark 7:18-19 ESV).

In Acts 10:9-16, the Apostle Peter sees a vision of a blanket coming down from Heaven covered with animals that had been declared unclean under Jewish Law. To his surprise, God instructed Peter to freely kill and eat of these animals (v.13)! When Peter objected that nothing unclean had ever entered his mouth (v. 14), God reassured him that “What God has cleansed, do not call common (v. 15).”

Although the context of this passage deals primarily with the Gentiles coming into God’s Kingdom, it does clearly show us that God no longer classifies meats as “clean” and “unclean.” All of God’s creatures are good and may be freely eaten as long as they are received with thanksgiving and prayer (1 Corinthians 8:1-13).

Nonetheless, this remained a matter of contention for the infant church. Incorporating Gentile believers led to controversies over how much, if any, of the Jewish Law they were required to keep. Did they need to be circumcised? Did they need to keep the Sabbath? These and other issues led to the monumental Jerusalem Council found in Acts 15. After much prayer and deliberation, the church leaders instructed the Gentile believers to observe the following:

…that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” (Acts 15:29 ESV)

In other words, Gentile Christians were expected to abstain from:

Food that had been sacrificed to idols- That is, food that had been used in pagan religious ceremonies. This was very common at the time.
Things that have been strangled-In other words, they had died on their own without being slaughtered properly.
Blood– Contrary to what a certain cult claims, this is not a prohibition against blood transfusions. Nor is it referring to eating a rare steak. Per U.S. government regulations, all blood must be drained out of meat animals before they can be commercially sold. Rather, the red liquid found in rare meats is a protein called myoglobin, which aids in oxygen distribution. Rather, the Torah forbade eating blood because “life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). This carried strong implications for their sacrificial system which, of course, pointed to the perfect sacrifice later made by Jesus. For a more detailed explanation, see this article.
Sexual immorality-Self explanatory

Commands against sexual immorality are binding at all times for all people. That being said, the food regulations seem to be general guidelines to avoid unnecessary tension between Jewish and Gentile believers rather than absolute commands. For example, the Israelites who were originally under these laws were prohibited from eating animals that had died on their own (i.e. “things strangled”), but they were permitted to give or sell them to their non-Hebrew neighbors for food (Deuteronomy 14:21). Regarding meat offered to idols, the apostle Paul later explained how an idol was nothing in itself. The real concern was causing a weaker brother to sin by violating his/her conscience (1 Corinthians 10:27-29).

In conclusion, Romans 14:17 tells us that “…the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” The New Testament teaching on holiness deals with much more than outward things such as food. Just like Jesus taught that evil comes from the inside out, so does God’s grace in our lives through the wonderful process of sanctification. Similarly, 1 Timothy 4:4-5 tells us how our food is also sanctified by prayer and the Word of God. If God can sanctify a sinful human heart, then surely He can sanctify a ham sandwich.

Keep It Real,

James

1. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. The Clean and the Unclean. Sermon
preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, England. 1863.

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