Skip to main content

What Can Christians Eat?

In 1 Cor. 8 Paul discusses meat sacrificed to idols. Here we find that some immature believers were concerned that to eat such meat engaged them in idolatry. Paul’s main point is that there is no such thing as an idol; they are only wood and stone. Thus our consciences are at liberty to eat the meat. However, should there be present a “weaker brother” who has not yet grown beyond the point of superstition (v. 9-13), one should defer to him or her and not eat. 

 

A theological term that arises in connection with Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor. 8 is adiaphora. It comes from the Greek, ἀδιάφορα— “indifferent things.” Adiaphora in Christianity refer to matters not regarded as essential to the faith, but nevertheless as permissible for Christians or allowed in church. What is specifically considered adiaphora tends to depend on the specific theology of a Church in view.

In our day much is said about foods, especially in America, where a growing movement is a foot and that teaches abstinence from meat. People say that since God created Adam to eat food from the ground, and we are restored in Christ through salvation, and thus to our pre-fall condition, that the consistent Christian will eat only foods that come from the ground, as did Adam.

The argument is flawed on more levels than I will take the time to innumerate. However, the Bible, rather than restrict our diets, permits foods of all sorts (Acts 10-11; Col. 2:16; Gal. 4:9-10), bearing in mind that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit—a fact that ought to caution us against over indulgence regarding food. The world imposes many rules on us. But Christianity liberates our conscience. Nonetheless, our freedom ought not to be used as an opportunity for the flesh. If the choice is between acting according to our freedom of conscience and offending a brother or sister, we must decline the use of our freedom and think more highly of others (“Love your neighbor as yourself”).

Comments

  1. The following is DOCTRINE: "If it's dead and red, you are well fed."

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spurgeon Doesn't Help Us With Trump

“ Of two evils, choose neither ." Spurgeon's quote has been posted numerous times on social media by Christians who find themselves in a moral conundrum at the very thought of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Here’s the problem with Spurgeon’s idea. Biblically there is no such thing as a choice between two evils. Let me explain. Moral philosophers and theologians have long spoken of the problem of "tragic moral choice", also known as the “incommensurability in values.” The man on the street simply calls it “choosing between the lesser of two evils.”   The best known example of tragic moral choice is the one about the Nazis during WW II. Do you handover the Jews knowing that your choice makes you complicit in their deaths? Or do you lie and violate the Ninth Commandment? The Lutheran scholar, John Warwick Montgomery, has argued that such choices are unavoidable and of necessity cause us to sin. The Bible, however, takes a dim view of the

Tullian Tchividjian Bounces Back?

It is unfortunate but every so often a Christian, including a pastor, wanders away from the sheepfold and finds himself perilously ensnared by sin and in grave danger. In keeping with the duty of the church, especially its elders, it becomes necessary to vigorously seek the full repentance and restoration of the lost sheep. As in the case of the prodigal son (Luke 15:3-8) the contrite heart is one both heaven and the faithful saints celebrate.  In the case of Tullian Tchividjian we have an example of a lost under-shepherd. Having admitted to adultery, the South Florida Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) deposed  Tchividjian on August 11, 2015, ruling him unfit for Christian ministry. Tchividjian followed his removal from the pastoral office by filing for divorce from his wife, Kim, on August 27 th . They were married in 1994 and together have three children. Deposition from office is a serious infliction of church discipline. The goal of all church di

Andy Stanley and the “NEW Hermeneutic”

The problem of faith and reason is longstanding in the history of theology. Augustine held that faith aids reason ( credo ut intelligam ) and that reason aids faith ( intelligo un creadam ). The church father is, however, inclined to stress the later over the former. It was with Thomas Aquinas, and his Summa Theologica , that the effort to reconcile faith and reason reached its apex. Rejecting the medieval doctrine of double truth, he placed natural reason prior to faith in effectively every area of the Christian life. The restrictions are the mysteries of the faith that reason cannot penetrate. Thomas’ affirmation of the high role of native reason in Christian belief is linked to his stress on dialectical method in study, seminally set forth by Peter Abelard. The form of study is dependent largely on logic to argue both sides of a theological question. Christian belief is thus the proper result of process or synthesis. Faith then assents to the final proposition arrived at by