Mac-n-cheese and ketchup!  My young cousin ate little else in his early life.  I was sure this was permissive parenting.  Then I had my own olive shoot who ate only things in the yellow food group.  While we did not indulge ‘picky eaters’ the lad would pick at all else for days until something crunchy and yellow would appear.  The pediatrician assured us that no child will starve if food is available.  And in this we found some solace.

Then there were the mealtime scriptures.  Passages such as Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians, “eat whatever is before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.” And 1 Timothy 4 where Paul warns Timothy about asceticism and “abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” Another favorite was “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Seems clear!  God called us not to be picky eaters.  Except, of course, when love for the conscience of a brothers and sister requires temporary veganism.  But knowing my lad was a capable scholar, I waited anxiously for certain other scriptures to enter the conversation.  But Dad, “what about Leviticus?  Why are some foods ok and others not?   Why did God command some meat, seafood, and poultry to be eaten? And forbid so many others?  Dad, doesn’t the Bible say not to eat those bacon wrapped shrimp?”  Didn’t God command Israel to be picky eaters?

This is always a tricky one for expositors.   Theologically, we have a tidy tripartite view of the law as moral, ceremonial, and civil.  Our confession of faith in Chapter 19, entitled, Of the Law of God, describes the demands of each category on contemporary Christians this way.

1. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament.
2. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
3. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.

The food laws of ancient Israel, given in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, are connected to the category of ceremonial law, and yet, they are concerned with the ritual condition of members of the community and not the officiation of worship.   They are a call to reflexive holiness and obedience in response to the grace of God.  Conditions that, in and of themselves, have not been “abrogated under the New Testament.”  And we must acknowledge that the ceremonial laws fulfilled by Christ’s finished work have continuing value for us as “Scripture … breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

But what is the continuing application of these dietary laws?  What was their value for our forefathers in Israel?  What makes some foods clean and others unclean?  How does Leviticus 11 teach, reprove, correct, and train us in righteousness?  What obedience is required for us today?  What sweet savor of Christ are we to find in these ancient warnings against pig roasts and shrimp on the barbie?

Join us as we examine Leviticus 11 and consider the dietary laws of Israel and the distinctions we are called to make as Christians called to be “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [Christ’s] own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  We meet on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.