Does Jesus Say The Law Of Clean Or Unclean Foods Dont Apply To Gentiles

QUESTION: Does God want us, even today, to obey his laws nearly which food nosotros may and may not consume?  Deuteronomy 14:3-21 (NLT) states conspicuously what those are.  Delight direct me to verses in the New Testament that acknowledges that law and/or what He says well-nigh that for these times.

ANSWER: Thanks for the question.  The curt answer is no.  We can say so with authority because Jesus himself gave united states clear direction on this very issue.   Jesus said in Mk 7:18-nineteen "Are you so tedious?" he asked. "Don't you meet that nothing that enters a human from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his eye just into his stomach, and then out of his trunk." [And so, Mark adds this editorial comment so nosotros don't miss the implication of Jesus' words:] (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "make clean.")

The early on church building took a while to follow the implication of Jesus words, because information technology's first members were all Jewish.  But it became an issue when the gospel needed to go to the Gentiles.  Would the church building make all new believers follow Mosaic law, including Jewish dietary codes, or would they only be required simply to believe in Christ and follow him?  The respond from God himself was the latter.  Hither's how it happened:

Jesus' pb disciple Peter, who had a actually hard time accepting Gentiles every bit Christian brothers (Gal. two:11-12), got a vision from God.  In that 1 vision, God taught him two things:  1, that all foods were clean, that the sometime Jewish dietary code was now obsolete, and two, that God was freely accepting "unclean" Gentiles into the Kingdom of Christ – WITHOUT requiring them to go Jews first.  This vision was of unclean foods which God tells Peter to impale and eat!  and "practice not declare unclean, what God has made clean."  This is a key moment in church building history, where the first Gentiles are welcomed into the Church – Acts 10.

At present, the implications of that vision vision for ceremonial law observance in the Church was confirmed by Peter at the Council of Jerusalem a few years later.  In Acts xv:ten-11 we read him standing upwardly to say to his Jewish brothers, "At present so, why practice you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke [the Mosaic police] that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!  We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, but as they are." NIV

So they did non crave Gentiles coming into the church to detect Jewish ceremonial constabulary, specifically circumcision, but all Mosaic law including the nutrient laws.

Now, at the end of that word, the Gentile churches were asked to not consume meat with blood left in information technology, which is a formalism food law (15:29).  Simply most scholars agree this was non about making those laws binding once more on Christians.  Rather, they retained just those few (out of the hundreds!) in lodge to facilitate fellowship between the Jewish and Gentile believers.  They could hardly consume together if the Gentiles were violating a primal food police in forepart of their Jewish brothers.  And eating together was necessary to express Church unity, in their many shared meals, and especially the love banquet.

And then Romans 14:14 states the principle again very clearly – "no food is unclean" for a believer.  Merely once again, the principle that follows is that we should not seek to put a stumbling block in anyone'south path.  If sure foods violate a person's scruples and he feels he cannot eat them, then nosotros should abstain in front of that person to not upset them or violate their conscience.

So in Christ, in the New Covenant period, all ceremonial laws of the O.T. are not-bounden on Christians, including the dietary code of Deut 14:3ff.  They were shadows highlighting the holiness of God, the sinfulness (uncleanness) of men, and our need for grace and purity.  Simply Jesus is the reality toward which these shadows pointed.

At present, we tin can enquire, was there Whatever value in those food laws other than a spiritual principle teaching the Jews to value what is clean over what is unclean?  Really yes there was, particularly for an ancient, pre-scientific, agrarian tribe.

If y'all look at the forbidden foods, the unclean animals are usually omnivores, and scavengers.  Pigs, shellfish, vultures etc.  These animals eat almost anything, ofttimes the decaying mankind of animals or other material, and therefore, could frequently transmit illness if non cooked properly.  Pork and shellfish still behave this risk today, only modern cooking minimizes it.  God is always concerned with his people in the constabulary – even the formalism parts of it.

The same could be said of the hundreds of times God calls for regular ceremonial washing, 3500 years earlier the discovery of bacteria!

Source: https://ac3.org/2016/10/are-o-t-food-laws-binding-on-christians

Posted by: conklindeabinder.blogspot.com

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