The Dietary Laws In the Biblical Family Part 3
These laws are easy enough to follow, but the degree to which God's ideas about clean and unclean are ignored by so called Christians is striking nevertheless. Pork is the most obvious of the forbidden foods that is a substantial part of many Christians' diet these days, but also mussels and other seafood, snails and turtle soup, horse flesh, ostrich, and other animals people consider fit for eating in modern society, including cats and dogs, depending on where you are on this planet.
We trust that God made these laws "that it might be well with them [that is, us], and with their children for ever"(Deu 5:29, and in many other verses), and follow His commandments concerning clean and unclean foods. In fact, since we see clearly that the way animals are raised nowadays makes all of them unclean - animals that, when God created them, chewed the cud and had a cloven hoof, are now fed sheep brain - we are vegetarians, and as far as fish is concerned, prefer fish we caught ourselves to that bought in a store. If we were to raise animals ourselves, it would be a different story, but we were rather so soft hearted and aren't actually able to kill the chicken or the calf we named and fed for a year or longer.
If you look for people talking about the dietary laws, the best you can find is people observing it because it obviously coincides with what science has currently deemed healthy to human beings. Interesting, isn't it ? But let me close this article with a quote from R.J. Rushdoony, whose ideas on dietary laws in "Institutes of Biblical Law", vol. 1 also reflect the health aspect, but who, in the third volume of the same book, hits the nail on the head precisely:
" God gives us guidelines to make life simpler and better for us, but we like to complicate everything and then whine about it. If you don't like the dietary laws, perhaps you don't like the God who gave them."
(R.J. Rushdoony, "Institutes of Biblical Law", Vallecito, CA 1999, p.86)
Go back to the beginning here:
Go back to Part 2 here:
