Bible (Archive 3)

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Subject: can I eat shellfish?

Bible Note: Dear MJH,

As you said, we need to take care not to read into a passage what was not there in the first place. Fortunately we have Scripture to interpret Scripture.

If your interpretation be so, then why don't we find Paul reiterating these principles in greater, explicit detail in his epistles? On the contrary we read his words from the Holy Spirit:

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

...and on the topic of meat offered to idols he gives the general statement...

But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. (1 Corinthians 8:8)

...and the "doctrines of devils"...

Forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:3-5)

Furthermore we have the whole epistle of Galatians warning against adopting the ceremonial law as a means of righteousness, impugning the power of the atonement of Christ.

Not least of all we have the great weight of 2,000 years of a vast variety of believers interpreting the dietary requirements of the Mosaic Covenant as ceremonial rather than moral. That puts your perspective in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that the Holy Spirit was negligent in speaking this to the rest of the church, but has singled out you -- and Garner Ted Armstrong and Ellen G. White -- to receive this special revelation. (By the way, in your previous posts I've not heard you espouse the doctrines of the WWCG or the SDA.) Spiritual perception arises out of community (Hebrews 3:12-13), it does not arise in isolation. (This is the value of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.)

In Him, Doc