God's Dietary Laws, Part 1

Well, good afternoon. Happy Sabbath to everyone. I usually give a title at the start, but I'm going to make you wait today. A few weeks ago, I stopped in for lunch at a family restaurant in Lombard. I didn't have any family with me, but they still let me in. When I placed my order, the waitress asked if I wanted soup or salad with my selection. I asked, what are the soup choices? And one of them was bean soup. So naturally, I had to ask a question. It's a question most of us in the Church of God are used to asking, so you probably know where this is headed already. The question was, is there any meat in the bean soup? Now, I know from experience that many restaurants do slip bacon or bacon grease in bean soup, or baked beans, or similar dishes. Some put diced ham or crumbled pork into bean soup. The waitress leaned in close to me, which was a little disconcerting at first, and whispered a reply, well, if I go ask the cook, he will always say to tell you there is no bacon in it. But just between us, I see him put bacon in the bean soup half the time. It's really hit or miss. She then informed me that she had friends who don't eat pork or ham, so she thought I ought to know that. Well, I thanked her for her honesty and ordered the other soup, which of course was clam chowder. No, just kidding. But did you see what I did there? I gave away the topic of today's message. So today, I'd like to speak on the topic of God's Dietary Laws. So the title is God's Dietary Laws, Part 1. We have not had a sermon on the topic for some time, and yet it's a topic that concerns us all on a daily basis. So today, we'll have Part 1 on the topic, and we'll look at the foundational issues involved. The next time I speak, which is currently scheduled for September 13th, I'll talk about Part 2 on the topic. We'll look at some of the New Testament concerns regarding these issues. But it is beneficial to review the fundamental doctrines of the Church of God on a regular basis. So as I speak with you today, I'm going to be assuming three things. First, we are all here because we love and respect God and wish to please Him. Two, we believe that the holy scriptures are the revealed words of God. And three, we seek to obey God by following all of God's commandments. So we'll move forward under those assumptions.

When we interact with those outside the Church of God community, and they first perceive that we are somehow different from other people, we are likely to be asked to explain our religious views on one of two probable topics, either God's Sabbath and Holy Days or clean and unclean meats. Those of us in the Church of God for several years can likely do a good job of explaining why we believe what we do on these two topics.

However, not everyone here has been in the Church of God for several years. We also have some new members who have a basic understanding of God's dietary laws but may not be sure how to explain those to someone else. We also have several young people who have just reached or will soon be reaching adulthood. Are you able to explain from the Scriptures God's dietary laws, if asked to do so by someone outside the Church? Even for those of you who are old pros on the subject, I suspect there may still be some things we'll discuss today that you may not have thought about before.

Sometimes there's a tendency to think that we know all there is to know on a certain topic, and that can lead us to overconfidence. There's also another concern. In past decades of the Church of God, some people have become superzealous on the topic and have caused division among God's people over food-related disputes, seeking to impose their personal interpretations of certain scriptures on others. I remember hearing as a child in the Church of God that some actually left the Church of God over whether or not bananas have seeds.

Now let's be clear. Disputes that arise over disagreements about how best to obey God should not be taken lightly. Devout Christians can have very principled and heartfelt convictions on these topics, and we do not all come to the same conclusions when applying God's principles to foods and activities that are not specifically named in Scripture. However, there is also the possibility that in our busy lives, some of us may have moved too far to the opposite extreme, and may not be as diligent as we should be in considering if what we are eating is acceptable to God.

After all, isn't it easier to have a don't ask, don't tell policy when we are dining at a restaurant? For example, if we don't know that we are eating unclean things, then we're off the hook, right? If we choose not to read the label before we eat the treat, or don't ask the waiter in the restaurant, what's in this stew? God cannot hold us accountable, right? Ignorance is bliss. I'll share a personal example. The cafeteria where I work is a very challenging place to eat.

I rarely even go down, because it is almost impossible to know what is being put in the dishes that are served. One of their frequent offerings is pasta with meat sauce. The belief is, apparently, that this designation is sufficient, as it will warn vegetarians to go to the salad bar, and no one else will care what meat is in that sauce.

It seems that they probably don't even know. They simply grind up whatever meat is cheapest that we can serve it as meat sauce. And, of course, there are dozens of other recipes that have with meat as an additive. So I've given up on asking what the meat is, because the servers don't know, and they don't have time to leave the line and go find a supervisor who will go find the box and read the ingredients and figure out what's in it.

Over the years, I have put in the suggestion box, which I'm not really sure why they have that, a little notes. Wouldn't it be good to label the meats that are used in your menu choices, because some people do have dietary restrictions. No change, of course, has ever been made. Now, should I just hold my nose and eat the pasta with meat sauce, hoping that it is all beef and say a quick prayer asking God to bless whatever might not be appropriate to eat?

That's one approach. Do we just eat the bean soup or the refried beans at the Mexican restaurant following a dietary philosophy of don't ask, don't tell? It's easier to be sure. After all, we don't want to make a scene or draw attention to ourselves, do we? Furthermore, in today's society, we have many more variables in choosing what to eat than people did in biblical times.

Our foods are far more complicated today, and most of us are far removed from the sources of our foods and completely unaware of the processing, refining, and modification of the foods that we include in our diets. We have the advantage of and the disadvantage of food labels that list the ingredients for us. But food companies often conceal what we are really eating by giving bad things very long and confusing names.

Do we check those labels when we're purchasing prepared and processed foods? Or don't we want to even look for fear we might not be able to continue eating our favorites? Maybe I've already struck a nerve. In fact, some of what I say today may upset a few people because it may make your next shopping trip more complicated, more time-consuming, and maybe more expensive. So let's begin with the Church's official statement on God's dietary laws from the fundamental beliefs of the United Church of God.

It reads as follows, We believe that those meats that are designated unclean by God in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 are not to be eaten, period. There it is. Fairly straightforward. Thanks for your attention today, and see you next time. If only it were that simple. The thing is, God's dietary laws and principles of healthy eating are not just found in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. They are actually scattered through the Scriptures.

Also, as we probably know, there are various scriptures that people use to claim that the dietary laws of the Old Testament are no longer in effect. We need to know how to answer such challenges, and that, in fact, will be something I'll address in Part 2 of this message in several weeks. But let's start out in Matthew 23. You thought we were going to Leviticus. We'll get there. Let's start in Matthew 23, verse 23.

Now, some may say that the topic of clean and unclean foods is a minor issue. There are far more important doctrines for us to focus on. Do I have to sit here for 50 minutes and listen to everything I already know about not eating pork? The world is crumbling. The country is falling apart. Dozens of people are being killed every weekend in Chicago. There are wars and rumors of wars, droughts and floods and polar vortexes. Does God really care if there is lard and the pie crust? Matthew 23, 23 Jesus says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.

See, we need to focus on the weightier matters of the law, not on the ingredients of our crackers or what might be hiding in our soup. But notice the end of the verse. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. You see, both things relate to the laws of God. You're not to ignore one part or the other. The weightier matters, as some might put them, or those that some might think are less significant, but really aren't.

God's law is God's law. And if we are to be representatives of God, God the Father, Jesus Christ, we must take all due diligence in seeking to obey all the laws of God to the best of our ability. And that's the key to the best of our ability. We shall also see that God's dietary laws are not lightweight laws by any means. God gave these laws for a reason. He expects His people to diligently follow them. So let's go back to the beginning. Let's go back to Genesis. Genesis 1, 26 to 30. If we want to learn about the origins of physical things, it's usually good to look in the book of Genesis. So let's do that.

Genesis 1, 26. Here's the account of the creation of Adam. And we find our first biblical reference to a dietary law. Genesis 1, 26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth. And notice verse 29. And God said, See, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed.

To you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.

And it was so. Hmm. Well, we do need our fruits and veggies, but there seems to be something missing from this list. Where's the beef? The passage does not mention any. And that raises an interesting question. Did God originally intend humans to eat meat, or to only be vegetarians?

Many have speculated on this topic. Some look at the Scripture and believe that originally, perhaps, even animals were not intended to eat flesh. Some believe humans were not authorized to eat animal flesh until after the Flood. However, there are some other scriptural indications this is not the case. So let's look at those. Let's go to Genesis 3.21.

Genesis 3.21. This is the first example in the Bible of killing an animal to benefit Adam and Eve, and it's after they had sinned by taking of the forbidden fruit. So that fruit thing wasn't working out so well for them. Genesis 3.21. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin, animal hide, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, to no good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and placed caribium angels at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Now we still don't see any meat eating going on. Adam is going out to become a farmer. But we do see the first example of the slaughter of animals to cover the consequences of Adam and Eve's sins. I don't think God just spontaneously generated furs to make clothing from Adam and Eve. He killed animals to do it. Some of these very creatures Adam had just given names to, and now they were dying because of their sin. So that clothing had to be made, and it's very likely that God here showed this process to Adam so that he and his descendants could learn to make garments from the skin of animals. We are not told what happened to the flesh of the animals that were killed in this process. Let's move ahead then to chapter 6, the account of the flood. It gets more interesting. Genesis 6, 17. We know the story that God had determined the world was too corrupt, people were too violent, that it was necessary to start over with Noah and his family.

Genesis 6, 17. And behold, I, this is God speaking, I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring to of every sort into the ark. To keep them alive with you they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind. To of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. Notice verse 21. And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten. Interesting phrase. And you shall gather it to yourself, and it shall be food for you and for them. So they're going to bring provisions into the ark before the flood. This is before the flood. Thus Noah did, according to all that God commanded him, so he did. Now that word for food is intriguing. It is the Hebrew, ma'akal. I'll give you Strong's number if you want to look it up. H3978. H3978.

And it refers to both plant food and animal flesh. They are both included in that term.

It is used in other scriptures to designate both types of food. Now that doesn't prove that Noah and his family were eating meat, but it does prove that possibly meat was brought on for some of the animals to consume. The best indicator, however, that people before the flood were eating meat is from Genesis 7. Now, of course, we also have archaeological evidence that seems to indicate pretty clearly people were butchering animals. But Genesis 7 verse 1, Then the Lord said to Noah, Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female. It would indicate a pair to each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female, and seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of the earth. So what appears here is what it means is pairs of animals.

So that would indicate perhaps seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean animals related to mammals. Now, how did Noah have any idea which animals were clean and which were not unless, one, God had already revealed his dietary laws to humans, and two, people were already eating animals as a part of their diet. Otherwise, why would God care to make this point?

Another question arises after the flood. So let's go to Genesis 9. Genesis 9. We'll start in verse 1.

So the flood is now passing, diminishing, and they're about to go out and start the world anew.

So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all fish of the sea.

They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Now some believe that God here is saying that humans can now eat any creature they want, right? So it seemed in the beginning they weren't eating animals at all, and now suddenly after the flood, smorgasbord. Right? Is that what's going on here?

The only restriction seems to be on the surface, don't consume the blood of animals.

However, we have to remember the context. Why did God give Noah specific instructions on the preservation of differing numbers of clean and unclean animals? If after the flood he was going to eliminate the distinction completely. That doesn't make a lot of sense. But notice that God does give a clarification in Genesis 9.3. The eating of meat is to be, quote, even as the green herbs, end quote. Now we know that not all plants are good for human consumption.

Some are very poisonous, just as some animals are poisonous or toxic. So clearly God didn't intend that people could go out and eat poisonous plants and animals. So there must be something else here that's more complicated than first appears. But this is all that God reveals to Moses about dietary laws prior to the time of Abraham. Moses, of course, being the traditional author of the book of Genesis. There are still some valid questions here that are very interesting to ponder. But we won't know the answers to those questions until we can ask Christ about them.

As a result of these verses in Genesis 9, some people believe that we should only eat plants and fruits that bear seeds because of what we read in Genesis, in the book of Genesis, the prior verses that we looked at. For example, some in the Church of God community, if you check out the websites, and there are many of them, some insist that we should not eat mushrooms based on these verses, arguing that fungi do not fit under the description of seed-bearing plants. They have spores. Some do not believe that bananas qualify because the seeds of humanly engineered commercial bananas are infertile.

What about seedless grapes? What about seedless oranges? Et cetera, et cetera.

The policy of the United Church of God is that these issues on which the scriptures do not give a clear indication are up to you as individuals and families to decide for yourselves. But if I decide not to eat mushrooms, and you see no problem with consuming mushrooms, we still need to be able to respect one another's convictions. It does not mean that we should be at odds. What we do know for certain is that when God delineated his dietary laws to Moses and the Israelites, his focus was on meats, and he did not emphasize fruits and vegetables.

So before you go home and flush the mushrooms down the toilet, please keep that in mind.

Now let's turn to Leviticus 11. Probably there already. Leviticus 11. And we'll look at the laws of clean and unclean meats, which is the emphasis of a considerable chunk of scripture.

Leviticus 11, verse 1. Now remember who's speaking. This is God's voice.

This is God's voice. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, speak to the children of Israel, saying, These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Among the animals whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud, that you may eat.

Verse 4. Nevertheless, these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves. The camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, it is unclean to you. The rock hyrax, probably at the zoo, I'll have to go find it, but it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves. It is unclean to you. The hare or rabbit family, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you. And the ever popular swine. Verse 7. Pigs, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, it is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses, this is important, their carcasses you shall not touch, they are unclean to you. Now the word unclean is the Hebrew, taw meh, and it does not just mean dirty, these aren't just creatures that roll around in the mud. It means defiled and polluted.

Defiled in a religious sense and polluted in a physical sense. Now God devotes big chunks of scripture to this topic. And then it's all repeated again in Deuteronomy 14. And when God repeats something in the scriptures, it means take special notice. He clearly wanted ancient Israel to understand these laws and to observe them. The peoples around Israel, of course, did not understand these distinctions by this time. So following Noah's generation, most of his descendants either had lost that knowledge about clean and unclean meats or simply didn't care about them.

Animals that chew the cud, in most cases, have a different digestive system than those that do not chew the cud. Animals like pigs have a fairly rapid digestive tract, much like humans, and toxins and other pollutants are not as thoroughly eliminated in the digestive tracts in those animals as they are in cows, sheep, and clean animals. It seems that in cows and sheep and other clean animals, toxins tend to settle in the fatty tissues. We'll look at that next time, rather than in the muscle tissue. But in pigs, bears, and other unclean animals, toxins are rapidly absorbed into the body and dispersed throughout all the tissues. Their flesh is, in fact, more polluted with environmental toxins than is the flesh of clean animals. Now, how did God know that? Unclean mammals also tend to eat more than vegetation, including the decaying flesh of other creatures. As a result, the flesh of unclean mammals is also much more likely to harbor flatworms and nematodes, which can pass alive into the bodies of humans if meat is not thoroughly cooked. Now, of course, we may not yet understand all the physical reasons why God designated some animals as clean and others as unclean. And there may be far more reasons than we can even imagine now. The important thing for us is to know that He did so, and He expects His people to take care in discerning the differences. Let's think about these dietary laws from a spiritual perspective. As humans, we need to have constant reminders of God and His way of life in order to help us avoid returning to sin. One day in seven, we must pause and set aside our worldly pursuits to remember God and His creation. Hopefully we do it more often than that, but once in seven we do it officially.

But two, three, or more times every day we put food into our mouths.

Most people in the world around us don't think twice about eating anything they desire.

But God made things more complicated for His people. Every time we order from a restaurant menu, every time we put something into the shopping cart, every time we choose something from the buffet line, we have to stop and think about God and His laws. We have to remember that God has separated us from the world and that we are now His and must behave in a way that pleases Him, and not just ourselves. Unfortunately, today's world presents many challenges when it comes to food choices. Even if we are diligent about making good food choices, the very environment in which we live has become so polluted that the ill effects of man's contortion of God's creation has a profound impact on our health. Carcinogens or cancer-inducing agents are in our food, our beverages, our clothing, the materials used to make our homes.

It is no longer possible to escape all of these dangers.

But if we take time to educate ourselves, there are things we can do to reduce the pollutants that come into our bodies. And some of those pollutants in our foods come from unclean animals. Now, here is where I may start to irritate some of you. That's those of you who aren't always irritated with me. Let's take pork products, for example. I hope you've heard of them.

Clearly, if we go to the store, we are unlikely to accidentally buy a rack of pork ribs, and then accidentally cook them up, and then accidentally eat them all.

But if you like, here it comes, marshmallows, flavored yogurt, jelly bears, gummy bears, jello brand products, many types of ice cream. You may be eating pig products and not even know it.

Look for the word gelatin. Gelatin. It got quiet.

It got quiet. If you are eating a product that contains gelatin, it is most probably derived from unclean animals. Not always.

Commercial is mostly the case. Now, we've already heard from the flawless source Wikipedia today, and the sermonette, I'll return to that awesome tome. Wikipedia article on gelatin.

On a commercial scale, gelatin is made from byproducts of the meat and leather industry.

Recently, fish byproducts have also been considered because they eliminate some notice some of the religious obstacles surrounding gelatin consumption.

Gelatin is derived from pork skins, pork, horses, and cattle bones or split cattle hides.

The raw materials are prepared in different curing, acid, and alkali processes, which are employed to extract the dried collagen hydrosolate.

I got lost somewhere in there, but that sounds icky.

So you take animal bones and hides, cure them with acid, then create a byproduct to stuff in other foods to give it a fatty, rich texture, just like God intended.

Now, some argue that by the time gelatin has been created, there is so little of the original animal parts remaining in it, it's not worth worrying about. So if only 1% of it is still pig or unclean fish, has it now become clean enough for eating?

Now we do have alternatives. You can purchase items made with beef gelatin, taken from cow hides. I would not recommend fish gelatin because you just don't know what fish are being used. Same problem. There are some vegetarian sources available as gelatin, but you have to look for them. They're hard to find. It takes more effort and they cost more money. But the question is, how many of us are even thinking about this?

Are we investigating the things that we eat? The things that we're serving our children?

Or have we become complacent following the don't ask, don't tell approach to our foods?

With a little extra time and research, we can find viable alternatives to foods that contain byproducts of unclean animals. But it takes effort and time and a little more money.

Many foods, especially bread products, contain something called L-cysteine.

Now I'll spell that for you. Capital L-C and then Y-S-T-E-I-N-E.

L-cysteine. This is an amino acid derived mainly from animal byproducts. It is used in some meat products to add flavor, but mostly used as what's called a processing aid in baking. So back to Wikipedia. L-cysteine. You'll find it in a lot of foods.

The majority of L-cysteine is obtained industrially by hydrolysis, adding water, of poultry feathers, okay, or human hair.

Human hair. And large quantities of this are harvested in barber shops in China. I kid you not.

Synthetically produced L-cysteine. Well, good. There's an alternative.

And this is just bizarre. Compliant with Jewish kosher and Muslim halal laws is also available, albeit at a higher price. The synthetic version involves fermentation using a mutant of E. coli. Other sources indicate that swine hair is often also used. Right? Yummy.

Now, when we're dining at a restaurant and they serve bread, nobody at that restaurant is going to know, does this contain L-cysteine? The waiter is it going to know? Maybe the cooks aren't even going to know because it comes in packages already. Right? But if you're at the supermarket, you can read labels. Should we take the time to look? Should we take the time to think about what we're buying? Does it matter to God if we don't mind regularly eating bread with human hair in it? Humans aren't on the clean list. Did you notice? They're not there!

Here's another lovely item to look for on your food labels. Alpha amylase.

Amylase. A-L-P-H-A, like the letter. Amylase. A-M-Y-L-A-S-E. Alpha amylase. Now, that doesn't seem too scary. Alpha seems good. Sounds like alfalfa, maybe?

Amylase sounds like mayonnaise. Right? Must be good for you. We'll know. It's not. Alpha amylase is from hog pancreas. It's used in the flour of many baked goods to break down starches.

They don't put hog pancreas on the label. They put alpha amylase. You read over that? Cool. I'm getting this because you don't know. How about the flavoring ambergris? I'll spell that for you. A-M-B-E-R-G-R-I-S. Ambergris. Now, this is just a flavoring.

This lovely flavor is derived from whale intestines.

But they don't put whale intestines on your label. They put ambergris.

Whale intestines might turn people off.

Now, it used to be that you would have to go to the library to look up what all these things are.

But today, most of us, we've got the smartphone. It's there in your pocket. If you're looking at the label, do I buy this bread or this bread or this product or this product? I don't know what that is. Maybe I'll see. Do a search. It takes a little more time. But if you don't want to eat whale intestines, it could be worth it. Here are a few more. Castoreum. C-A-S-T-O-R-E-U-M. Castoreum.

This one's special. People are so ingenious. This comes from two glansacks near the anus of a beaver.

This is almost too good to be fiction. It is used as a flavoring substitute for vanilla.

Beaver ooze.

It's put into ice cream and soft drinks. It's also added to cigarettes. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that one. Quite often, and this is scary, it is not even listed as a separate ingredient because the Food and Drug Administration allows it to be listed under natural flavorings. Think of all the things we eat that say natural flavorings, and we don't even know what people are doing to us. Here's one. I'll add one more. Civit absolut. C-I-V-E-T. And then the word absolute.

Civit absolut is a yellowish secretion that comes from a gland between the anus and reproductive organs of the civet cat. Before it is processed, it smells like cat urine, which is its purpose. This lovely secretion is used to flavor some, not all, some raspberry desserts, butter, caramel sauces, grape and rum flavored beverages, candy, baked goods, gelatin desserts, so you get a twofer there. And some of you probably have it right now in your mouth chewing gum. Don't swallow it. Now, look, I could go on for some time. But you probably still want to be able to enjoy dinner tonight. If you would like a more complete list of these food additives, these are just food additives and flavorings, I'll give you a website where you can look at a longer list. www.kosherquest.org www.kosher, Q-U-E-S-T, .org. Then search for food additives and it'll bring up a list of several pages. Some are all right, some are like these. And there are worse ones that I couldn't share in church. As you can see, when humans ignore the laws of God, there is no end to their creativity in lacing what would seemingly be healthy food with what God calls an abomination.

What rational person would take a secretion that is used to scent cat urine and put it in a fruit flavored dessert? Is that the mind of God? Or is that the mind of Satan? There are also concerns about clean meat in our society today. Many businesses pump up their cattle with all types of growth hormones and feed cattle with animal byproducts that God never designed for cattle to eat. That's not what their digestive system is meant to handle. When you have a choice, and again this is about choice and taking opportunity, when you do have a choice in selecting what meats you're going to eat, it's wiser to try to find beef or lamb or bison or something that is either grass-fed or certified to be free of added hormones. Of course, such meat is more expensive, and some restaurants don't have those options at all.

But if it's available and if you're concerned about choosing healthier things, there are those options. One can certainly see why many people in the modern world are actually choosing to be vegetarians, not for religious reasons but for health reasons.

Now, we'll pause here after discussing mammals, right? There's more to go, and as I said, there's part two coming. But before we break for today, let's move ahead and we'll look at one last passage. Let's go to 1 John 5, verses 2 through 3.

1 John 5, verses 2 through 3. There are many people, in fact, most of the so-called Christian world, who would say that everything in these verses we're discussing is irrelevant for Christians. They argue that these dietary laws are no longer in effect. Now, in part two, we'll look at the New Testament verses that they're looking at in an effort to try to discard God's dietary laws. We'll also discuss next time whether we are permitted to eat meat and dairy products together. This is an issue for many Jews. We'll also look at the idea of eating meat sacrificed to idols, which you probably don't think is an issue at all today, but it's actually becoming one in many communities.

And examine what the apostles had to say on vegetarianism. Those are still all elements that we need to look at. But for today, let's end with reminding ourselves why we as God's people in the modern age should be concerned with His dietary laws. 1 John 5, and verse 2. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and keep His commandments, for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. So we'll pick it up next time. See you at the snack table.