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NASB | 1 Timothy 4:3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Timothy 4:3 who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from [certain kinds of] foods which God has created to be gratefully shared by those who believe and have [a clear] knowledge of the truth. |
Subject: cannot eat pork,seafood? |
Bible Note: EdB, Nice to hear from you again. Let me start out by saying that I do understand that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Eating standards are not the issue with me. Im not affended but what others eat at all. I'm simply trying to figure out why there seems to be a double standard. For instance you said that Isaiah 66:17 is a Jewish prophet and is using "hyperbole", God is talking about people that are purifying themselves to "worship idols". In other words I shouldn't take this text literraly. For instance you bring up Romans 14:14. consider that in verse 2 of this chapter Paul says the weak ones are eating only "vegetables". If this problem concerned the unclean-meat regulations of Leviticus 11, there would have been plenty of clean meats that could have been had in a city the size of Rome. Additionally, in verse 17 "drink" is mentioned and in verse 21 wine. So the problems at hand did not have to do with just food and eating, but with wine and drinking. But there were no general regulations concerning wine or drinking in the "Torah". On this point, then, the weak members' concerns could not have stemmed from Old Testament unclean-meat regulations or common Jewish customs. The possibility that the subject here is conscience problems in eating "foods offered to idols" is the only clear interpretation. If the problem in Rome were "food offered to idols", then vegetarianism would not have been an inappropriate response, for all the meat available would have been "tainted," which only vegetarianism could have fully resolved for the conscience-stricken. Also, in Rome wine was offered to the gods just as meat was, which makes this the only possibility that really fits verses 17 and 21. We know conscience concerns regarding foods offered to idols was by no means a remote possibility, for Paul had to deal with this same matter in another gentile city (1 Corinthians 8). So it is far from certain that the food concern stemmed from Jewish scruples regarding the eating of unclean animals. For all we know, it may not have involved Jewish scruples about anything; it could well have been a gentile conscience issue of meat and wine offered to idols that Roman gentiles, as their Corinthian brethren, may have felt. But yet christians will use this verse of Romans 14:14 to say that Paul was calling the unclean clean. Rather I say he was talking concerning foods offered to idols. Why the double standard? A new friend in Christ, Matt |