Fix,

Think I need to correct a misunderstanding, too. I don't believe, or teach, that eating of all red meat is a sin against God. Nor does my denomination. In fact, about half of us eat the red meats identified as those "which God hath created to be recieved with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth", specifically the clean meats identified in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Jesus ate red meat before his incarnation when he stopped by Abraham's tent with the two angels in His pre-incarnate "Before Bethlehem" form on His way down to deal with the evils of Sodom and Gomorrah. He ate red meat as a practicing Jew at Passover as well. In fact, He even ate at least fish and provided the same for His disciples after His resurrection. So, no sin in eating those meats identified as clean in the Bible. There is no indication, however, that either Jesus or the disciples ever ate meats prohibited by divine law as unfit for food.

The Biblical laws concerning what meats were "clean" and therefore, edible, and which were "unclean", and there for to not only be not eaten, but the carcasses of these creatures not even touched is pretty straight-forward:

Mammals--must have a "split hoof and chew its cud", with the pig specifically being prohibited.

Water Creatures--must have "fins and scales" whether it lived in fresh, or salt water.

Birds--the list is identified bird by bird, but all fall into three basic classes: a. birds of prey that eat primarily other birds, mammals or reptiles b. fish-eating species of birds c. carrion devourers--with any bird that ate primarily seeds, fruits, insects, and vegtables on the menue

Insects--only the insects in the locust, grasshopper, katydid, cricket family were allowed as food

Further, even clean meats were subjected to two further conditions before being allowed as food. They must have the visible fat removed. They must be properly bled. (The kosher laws for bleeding were a great deal stricter than are currently practiced in most American meat markets and fast food outlets.)

So, the Bible certainly does allow the eating of red meat, fish, fowl and even insects--with the above restrictions guiding that use.

That being a given, is it also Biblical to choose not to eat red meats, fish, fowl, or grasshoppers without being included among those Paul warned Timothy about? The Biblical answer, of course, would be "yes". Paul was warning against certain austerities practiced by the Gnostics, a heretical group of quazi-Christians, who held to Plato's concept of all matter being inherently evil and the realm of perfection being solely on the plane of the mind and spirit.

This dualistic Greek philosophy of Gnosticism collided with Christian/Jewish teaching to produce an off-shoot group that went one of two ways, both wrong:

1. Some Gnostics held that the body was evil, therefore one was to subject it to as strict of severities as possible, and consider all normal human drives--both appetites and sexual urges--to be also evil.

2. Other Gnostics said that since there was such a vast separation between the realm of the physical world, and the human body, and the realm of the spiritual world, where perfection of thought and concept existed, it really didn't matter what you did with your body, because it had nothing at all to do with your soul's health. This group often fell into gross sexual indulgence, immorality and basest depravity simply to prove they could do whatever they wished with their bodies, yet be perfect (allegedly) in their minds and spirits.

In Paul's day, the austere Gnostics were already forbidding marriage, preaching that it was a sin to eat even the "clean meats" allowed by the Bible, those which God had created to be recieved with thanksgiving by those who beieved and knew the truth. That strand continues in our day in those forms of Christianity that forbid marriage to at least some of their members (your priest and nun, for instance), and forbid the eating of meats God allowed (no fish on Friday, even ones with fins and scales which God said were okay).

Seventh-day Adventists are not among that group. Our dietary choices do not arise from Greek philosophy, nor a despising of the physical realm and the bodily appetites and passions, nor the belief that we can indulge these at will because anything we do with our bodies wouldn't affect our souls. In every area Paul addressed in his remarks concerning the Gnostics, we are in full agreement.

The next question, of course, is "Is it possible to choose a vegetarian diet as a Christian and as a believer in the God of the Bible for sound Scriptural reasons?" The answer to that cannot be limited to Paul's comments to Timothy concerning the abuses of the Gnostics. There are, after all, many other equally inspired passages in the Bible that deal with this same subject, and help us put Paul's comments into a balanced Scriptural perspective.

One of those is to note the original diet God gave man before sin ever entered, the "ideal fuel" for the human frame. Genesis 1:29 tells us exactly what this ideal fuel was. It says:

"Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food."

How about the animals? What did they eat as God originally designed them? The next verse gives the answer:

"And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food."

So both man and animals as God originally made them were vegetarians. None ate meat in any form. Man ate fruit, grains, nuts and other seeds. Animals ate herbs, grass and vegtables. Man also ate from the Tree of Life, which apparently had some agent that prevented human aging. Quite a world! It was Earth's Golden Age, before sin entered. That's the world God created and said, "It is very good!"

After sin, man's diet changed in two significant ways immediately. First, he was driven out of Eden and an angel was posted guard at the Tree of Life so he might not gain access to the fruit that prevented human aging. As God had promised, "dying, you will die". Death had entered not only human existence, but had touched all the animal and plant world as well due to human disobedience to our Maker. Weeds, thorns, thistles, fangs, claws, poisons, predator and prey, the survival of the fittest all increasingly made themselves apparent. The once peaceful realm had become a Darwinian "law of the jungle" jungle.

To slow the degenerative effects of sin that dragged man toward death, God gave a second alteration in human diet. Genesis 3:18 says that God now also gave the herbs and vegtables--once reserved for the animals--to man as food as well. We know now that these food sources contain potent anti-oxidants and nutrients we need to slow such things as cancer. This alteration in diet was for man's best good. It would be more difficult to obtain food at all as Adam had to begin fighting weeds and thistles for his daily bread earned by the sweat of his brow. The new class of God-given foods were a positive benefit.

It wasn't until the time of Noah's flood, when the entire surface of the now violent and twisted animal, human and plant world were churned up planet wide and buried enmass as fossils, that God first permitted man to eat foods from every available source: fruits, nuts, seeds, vegtable, herbs, animals, birds, water creatures and insects. There were at least two reasons for this: First, finding food enough to simply survive would be far more difficult on a flood ravaged planet. More sources would be essential to provide enough for man to stay alive on a vastly altered earth. The fossil record shows only 15% of both the plants and animals that once existed on earth at the time of Noah's flood still exist today.

A second thing that occurred following the flood was that with the altered environment and the introduction of meat as a food source, mankind's life expectancy went from nearly 1,000 years to 175 years within a few generations. The introduction of meat both allowed humans to survive, and also cut short the duration of their lives.

It should be noted that the distinction between "clean" and "unclean" creatures was already apparent in Noah's day. The "clean" animals came aboard the ark by 7's, while the unclean came on board by 2's. (See Genesis 6-9 for the details of this story. It reads like history, not myth.) That meant one bacon breakfast, and there would be no more swine. But Noah could eat and sacrifice several of the "clean" varieties, which by their numbers were given a head start in repopulating the post flood world.

By Moses' time, when God was giving dietary instructions to His chosen nation, the Israelites, after their 400 years of Egyptian slavery had ended, the specifics of which animals were, in fact, "clean" and "unclean" and how even the clean were to be prepared for consumption was clearly spelled out to be studied by "those who beleive and know the truth" and to be "recieved with thanksgiving". That is the Bible standard for human diet. Neither Jesus, the apostles, or Paul himself ever taught the elimination of the "clean" and "unclean" distinctions, or suggested violation of the very clear regulations God gave concerning these matters in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. In fact, in the very last book of the Bible written, John speaks of end time Babylon as the haunt of every "unclean bird". Plainly he considered these distinctions still in effect. Many Christians, however, citing the single text you mention where Paul warns Timothy against the Gnostic abuses of austerity and indulgence due to their Greek philosophy used as a grid for attacking the body, or excusing its most twisted appetites and lusts, as a reason to throw out everything else the rest of the Bible has to say on this same subject. That is a misuse of I Timothy 4:1-5. This passage needs to be interpreted in the light of the Bible's full teaching on this subject, not the full Bible's teaching being negated by a misapplication of this particular verse.

Now lets deal with the matter of whether one can be a Christian who both eats a vegetarian diet (and has regular sex with his own lawfully wedded wife, as I do) and recommends this course as a benefit to others. Is it possible to be a vegetarian, a believer in the God of the Bible, to acknowledge the right of people to choose a meat, fish, fowl and grasshopper pie diet without sin (when these are within the guidelines of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, of course), and not be a kool aid grinning fanatical Jim Jones psycho?

Let's ask Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over where we first meet these most worthy worshippers of the God of the Bible--in the first book of Daniel...

You may recall their story. Daniel (one of two major figures in the entire Bible other than Jesus of whom absolutely nothing even smacking of wrongdoing is ever said), and his three Hebrew friends are taken to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar as captives of war. Instead of killing them, or making them slaves, the young king places a golden opportunity for advancement in the most advanced civilization on the planet at the time. They are to be enrolled in the royal college to recieve training in all the wisdom, language, and court customs of Babylon. Then, they are to enter into King Nebuchadnezzar's personal service.

The king even provides them wine and meat to eat from his own royal table during the three years of their studies. Daniel and his friends, God-fearing young men, knew that the king's wine was not only first offered in Babylon's temples as libation offerings, but was also forbidden to rulers and to kings (See Proverbs 31:3). They also knew that the meats on the king's table, which were also from animals offered to the many gods in Babylon's temples, was from creatures God's law forbade for human consumption. We know pork and horse meat were a staple of Babylonian table fare from historical records of the time.

To eat and drink from the royal table would be wrong for two reasons: First, those who saw them eating these things would assume they were participating in the idol worship the devouring of such sacrifices entailed in the minds of the people around them. Second, these foods were specifically forbidden by God's own instructions given through Moses.

So Daniel and his three friends resolved they would not eat from the king's table, even though doing so meant jeprodizing their precarious position and possibly forfieting their own lives. (Jews who fell into captivity in other times and refused the unclean meats provided them by their captors died of starvation at other times in history, according to Josephus.) What did these God-fearing young men do? They requested a vegan diet of fruits, nuts, seeds, grain, herbs and vegtables to eat, and only water to drink. This is the same exact diet that was the original human body "fuel" given back in Eden.

The man in charge of being certain they were fed was as fearful that such a diet would prove somehow unhealthy and lacking in essential nutrients in his day as many are in our own. How can a person be healthy in body on a purely plant diet? Ever look at an elephant? Or a horse? Or a giraff? Or a bull? The largest critters walking the earth got as they are on a purely vegan diet, the same one Daniel and his three friends requested. Plainly, enough nutrients from purely plant sources can be obtained for vital human function. I'm proof--a third generation vegetarian from a long lived ancestry.

The first official Daniel approached turned them down. He was afraid he would be killed by the capricious Nebuchadnezzar if he gave these four young royal students nothing but vegan food and water to eat, and they looked and performed less ably than the other students.

So Daniel lodged a second request with a lower down official in the form of a wager. He said, "Give us zoim to eat (that's the word from the early chapters of Genesis used for the original Eden diet, which was strictly vegan) and water to drink for ten days. Then test us and judge by what you see." So the lower ranking official took them up on this "scientific experiment" concerning the suitability of a vegan diet and water as compared with a meat diet and the king's wine.

What were the results? I quote directly from the Bible itself...

"At the end of ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegtables ("zoim") to eat instead."

No need to take the Good Books word for it. Anybody reading this can make the same scientific experiment themselves. Ten days is a short time for such a marked beneficial effect. A lady came into our Community Service Food Bank just this last week. She'd lost 75 pounds. I asked her how she did it. She said, "I began a vegetarian. We keep a ready supply of apples and carrots on hand at all times. I can munch down as many as I like, and lose weight, and feel healthy!" That's the sort of "scientific experiment" that actually does some good--one you put into personal practice and feel the results and gain the benefits from.

But maybe the benefits would only be short lived. What if it were all some sort of fluke? Wouldn't long term loss of vital nutrients only found in animal food sources eventually creep up on vegetarians?

The story with Daniel and his three vegan water drinking college buddies goes on. Again, I quote the Bible...

"To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of liteature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds."

Marked intellectual advantage due to a diet chosen from among foods God had originally given in Eden--omitting meat and wine entirely.

The Bible goes on to note that at the end of the three years of their royal training king Nebuchadnezzar himself tested them. It says:

"In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom."

They not only surpassed their fellow students, but even their teachers.

So that's the three year benefit of a vegan diet with water to drink. What about the lifetime advantage?

In a day when life expectancy was no more than 70 years, with many living less, Daniel was still active and vigorous into his 90's. He outlived Nebuchadnessar, Nebuchadnezzar's son, and Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. He even outlived Babylon itself, and was promoted to the highest ranking official in the Medo-Persian kingdom that replaced it. Daniel was in his 90's when he spent the night in the lions' den. He was a vital, highly respected, beloved of God, potent power for good at an age far past that which most people live even now.

There was a direct connection between Daniel's health and his holiness and the diet he chose. The chapter makes that link very clearly.

It is not sin to eat the meats specified as clean in the Bible. You might wish to consider God's personal word on the matter of eating unclean meats spoken through the prophet Isaiah before determining it is of no consequence if we violate God's dietary laws. Isaiah, as God's mouthpiece, says:

"...those who eat the flesh of pigs and rats and other abominable things--they will meet their end together, delares the Lord." Isaiah 66:17

Hmm... Maybe there is more to consider in a fair and balanced reading of the entire Bible on the subject of a diet and God's expectations than some are deriving from I Timothy 4 alone. That a vegetarian diet is suitable for the maintinence of human health at at even higher level than a meat diet is quite plain from the teaching of God's Word. That I Timothy 4, as commonly interpreted in our day, is sufficient to understand the full mind of God on the matter of diet for the believer, is "nutritionally inadequate". It might be better to sink one's teeth a little deeper into the Word of God, and get the rest of the story.

Then whatever choices a person makes, they at least are doing so from a solid base of knowledge rather than partial information badly interpreted, or faulty information altogether.

I've got no problem with people making choices quite contrary to my own in these matters. I do not "forbid people to marry". That's the pope. Nor do I command people to abstain from meats which God created to be recieved with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth". That's the pope, too, at least the former popes who forbade perfectly acceptable "clean meats" on Friday of his own authority in contradiction to the Scriptural teaching on the matter.

Furthermore, there are specific instances where I have eaten meat specifically because God instructed that I should in that particular setting. Specifically, when I was invited to teach a family who had just lost a father in a tragic accident in my last pastorate. These people were not of my faith, and many of the 25 present attended no church at all. It was a time when I was doing missionary work, and the Bible instruction in that situation is to eat what is set before you. They wanted to know why the man who had died, who had been taking Bible studies that pointed out some of the same things as this post, had chosen not to eat pork during the last month of his life. I showed them the passages in Deuteronomy 14 and Leviticus 11 briefly before turning to matters of what the Bible says happens when a person dies, what heaven will be like, and the evidence God actually exists.

While I spoke, the woman was healed of a large dark facial mole that had been troubling her deeply for over two years. I happened to glance over and saw her rubbing at her cheek where something was glowing with a silverish light, but I was so intent on speaking with her son, that I paid it no more mind until she broken in. "It is gone!" she said. "What is gone?" I asked. She said, "I had this terrible mole growing under my eye for the past two years. My husband said, 'Don't worry. You have beautiful eyes. I will pull a strand of your hair, tie it around the mole, and it will fall off." He had been killed before he could do so.

The woman was correct. The blemish hadn't simply fallen off, it had disappeared entirely. The skin where it had been was a unmarred and supple as under her other eye. Not a trace of where the mole had been was left.

I told her, "God performed that mircle for you for two reasons: First, to let you know that everything I have been teaching you from the Bible is true (that would include the Bible's dietary regulations of Deuteronomy 14 and Leviticus 11, as well as the other things I had been showing her from its pages). The second reason He performed that healing for you was because the Bible says He is the husband to the widow. He did for you what your husband would have done, but couldn't."

This lady still serves in our community service center in Payette, Idaho every week as a translator for the Spanish folks who come to get help. And her eyes are still beautiful.

When that was over, the woman's sister came from the kitchen. She said, "Pastor, I know you don't eat the unclean meats forbidden in the Bible. So I have made you a nice soup with chunks of beef to eat instead. Will you have some?"

I ate the whole bowl and had a second helping. Why? Because God said not to refuse the food hospitality offered when we are engaged in missionary work. To do so would deeply offend the woman, who had gone out of her way to do me a favor in keeping with all she knew of my Bible-based beliefs. There would be time enough later for her to learn more. And it was, and still is, no sin before God to eat meats the Word allows.

It just happens to be "Daniel-wise" to choose the equally Biblical option of returning to the original diet in Eden. When we do, we not only "pass the class", we get "extra credit" in the form of clearer minds, increased physical well-being and longevity, and deeper spiritual insight than we would otherwise. Those seem good enough reasons for me to choose a vegan diet under most circumstances and to recommend this to others interested in achieving more than the "minimum entrance requirements to slide into heaven".

The guy passing the kool aid in the story of Daniel's life was not Daniel, the vegan and water drinker, but Belshazzar, the drunken glutton and blasphemer. Lets not confuse them...

Thanks for making me think, Fix. Keep doing so yourself.

Skip

P.S. Once I was questioned on this subject by a church group, who feared what I might preach from the pulpit we hoped to rent from them on Saturday mornings. They were pretty much of the same opinion as those who influenced your thinking on these matter at the point they asked me why Seventh-day Adventists restricted their diet in regard to certain meats. After all, didn't Paul disagree? When I finished walking them though the Bible's actual complete teaching on the subject, the weight of evidence was plainly in another direction than they had at first thought. Then I told them, "We Seventh-day Adventists live 7 to 14 years longer than the average population because of our adherence to the Bible's teachings concerning health. What I want to know is why you aren't teaching these things from your Bibles to your own members?" I still think that is a valid question.

Last edited by Skip Johnson; 04/21/07 02:38 AM.