Bible Synapse
May every kind of animal be eaten?
Hard question · Salvation and the Christian life · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God gives Noah every moving thing for food, but forbids eating flesh with its blood.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Israel may eat animals that part the hoof and chew the cud; the camel, coney, hare and pig are unclean.
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat. Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. …
God separated Israel from the nations, so they must distinguish clean animals from unclean and be holy.
But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.
Jesus says nothing entering a man from outside can defile him, because it goes into the stomach, not the heart.
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
In Peter’s vision a voice says, ‘Kill, and eat’; what God has cleansed, Peter must not call common.
And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Paul is persuaded in the Lord that nothing is unclean of itself.
I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
The objection
God told Noah that “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you”. The law of Moses then forbade pigs, camels, hares and other unclean animals. Then Jesus and Paul say that no food is unclean. Which is right?
The answer
Each command belongs to a stage of God’s dealings with people, and the law itself explains why the middle stage was different. To Noah, and through him to all humanity, God gave every animal for food, forbidding only the blood (Genesis 9:3-4). At Sinai he gave Israel a distinction between clean and unclean animals, and he says why: “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people” (Leviticus 20:24), and he goes on: “Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean” (20:25). The food laws were a daily sign that Israel was set apart as God’s holy people. They did not teach that pork was evil in itself.
When Christ made Jew and Gentile one people, the sign of separation was no longer needed. Jesus taught that food entering the body cannot defile a person, because it does not reach the heart (Mark 7:18-19), and Mark adds what this meant: “Thus all foods are clean” (BSB). Peter’s vision of unclean animals carried the same lesson about people: “God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). Paul could therefore write, “there is nothing unclean of itself” (Romans 14:14), while asking believers not to wound the conscience of those who still kept the old rules. The food laws were right for Israel in their time and were set aside when their purpose had been fulfilled, so the passages do not contradict one another.
Other answers Christians give
The King James reading
The KJV takes the end of Mark 7:19 as part of Jesus’ own words, “purging all meats”, describing digestion; most modern versions take it as Mark’s comment that Jesus declared all foods clean. Either way, Jesus’ point that food cannot defile a person stands.
Still kept
Some Christians, such as Seventh-day Adventists and some Messianic Jewish believers, still avoid unclean meats, whether for health or as continuing obedience. Paul’s counsel in Romans 14 is that such choices should not divide believers.
From the classic commentators
the different ‘meats and drinks’, clean and unclean, allowed or forbidden by the law, were emblems of the two people, the Jews and Gentiles, the one clean, the other unclean; but since these are become one in Christ, the distinction of meats is ceased, these shadows are goneJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Colossians 2 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
the whole law is enforced by an appeal to the calling of the Israelites, as a holy nation, to be holy as Jehovah their God, who had brought them out of Egypt to be a God to them, was holyC. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Leviticus 11, at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Leviticus 11, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Colossians 2, at Bible Hub
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Mark 7, at Bible Hub
- Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary: Acts 10, at Bible Hub