Sunday, July 18, 2004

But is God really a vegetarian?  My previous blog refers to Gen. 1:30 and 31 as pointing us to a vegetarian diet.  I mentioned this at my Friday morning men's breakfast, and my friend Pat Talbott started rattling off scripture in which God appears to approve non-vegetarian items on one's plate.  For example, we have the quail that the Lord sent to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and we have the loaves and the fishes  that Jesus distributed to the five-thousand.  (Notice the balance: in the wilderness manna in the morning and quail in the evening; on the hillside far out of town, loaves and fishes .)  So if originally God planned a vegetarian diet, he was soon away from it after the fall.  
 
But perhaps changing the menu could be among God's redemptive acts, those acts that allow us to live as sinful beings if only for awhile, his common grace, and his accommodation to our fallen state and us living in a fallen world.
 
If God moves towards us by such ordinary things as changing the permissive diet, are we to move toward him and away from foods that are not good for us?  Can we do this without making it a Pharasaic practice and being annoying (by that I mean unfriendly) to others?  Can we do this without being focused on ourselves, but by making such a practice a way that we love others?  

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