AMEN to that!
(media.gab.com)
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“Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.“
Romans 14:20
“Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 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.)
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.””
Mark 7:16-20
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules”
Isaiah 29:13
Eating from unclean animals is considered ceremonially unpure for seeking God and in past times was dangerous for health reasons (pork can have parasites). Jesus declares its sin not food that really gets between you and God. The formality of those laws is teach the sin and mortality that makes you a different being than God. But Jesus came to cleanse our hearts from the inside out.
There are parts of the Bible that are there for "faith" and parts that are there for "life". The "unclean food" was because for long parts of human history eating certain foods had a high likelihood you were going to die.
Old Testament God didn't care about pigs or shellfish, but a law against them was created because it saved lives.
Later, when those foods were no longer dangerous, they tried to get rid of the law forbidding it, but since they had used God as the excuse the first time, people pushed back.
It's possible that Jesus said those things about those foods, but it's also possible that the Church added them in the 100-200 years after Jesus before the Bible was written.
The point of "divine inspiration" is not that everything in the Bible happened as described, but that it exists (or existed) for a good reason. The difficulty sometimes is determining what is or is not necessary.
A good example there is tattoos. Back in the day, people got a tattoo, it got infected, they died. Thus the Lord says: no tattoos. Today, getting a tattoo is pretty safe in most places. Should we allow tattoos? Probably? But "my body is a temple"... sure, most temples have images and artwork that glorify God, so why not decorate your temple in His name?
I don't have tattoos and don't plan to, but it's a good example of the gray area and original cause/effect intention for these rules.
This is true. And that is why God gave those guidelines. People love to be legalistic but that’s never the point. God has always been intentional and purposeful with good reason. Jesus often pointed out nuance and real good conduct. Because it’s about the heart and doing the right thing, not strict thoughtless behavior.
No. Pork causes cancer.