[Steve Myers] A question came in from one of our viewers about a program I did about God's food laws, and they were pointing out a passage that they said I intentionally overlooked. So, as you begin to think about God's food laws, the Bible has a lot to say about food. And the point that they brought up was what the Apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:4. They pointed out that that scripture says, "For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it's received with thanksgiving." Of course, I had gone through and talked about how God delineates certain foods are good to eat and others are not, according to Scripture. 

Well, what they did is they pointed out this passage and said, "Well, wait a second, it says here nothing is to be refused. So, if I pray over my pulled pork sandwich or I pray over my crawfish, it should be just fine. That's what the Apostle Paul was telling Timothy because, after all, we're New Covenant Christians and we don't have to keep that old law." Well, they thought I intentionally skipped over that passage, but when you begin to put it in the context of what Paul is saying, in the very next verse he says something powerful. Notice what he says. This is in 1 Timothy 4:5. Once he says it's to be received with thanksgiving, he says it's sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.

So now we have a second aspect that's added here. Not only should we pray over our food, give God the thanks for providing for us, but we see very clearly here what is it that sets apart food for us. What is it that makes something acceptable or unacceptable when it comes to us? Well, God does. God is the one who says this is what you should do, here's how you should act, this is even the food that you should eat. So, here, we see this food is sanctified or set apart by the word of God and thanksgiving. So we should be thankful, but what does the word of God have to say about food? 

And you see, that's the critical part. We have to go to the Word of God to see what is set apart as good food. And that's why we have to turn over to Leviticus 11 or we have to turn to Deuteronomy 14. And when we turn to those passages, it delineates very clearly what is good food to eat and what is not. So don't be taken in by just taking one little passage and not seeing it in the entire context of Scripture. So you can check out these passages. We've got other literature that you can check out to find out what exactly is good food that is sanctified by the Word of God.

That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.