Isn’t Veganism Closer to God’s Original Design?
00:00:00.000 | It is Friday. Let's talk about food. Ever since a tablecloth filled with animals descended
00:00:09.480 | from heaven before Peter and a vision, the kitchen doors have been flung wide open to
00:00:14.960 | all sorts of delicious dishes we have come to love, including bacon and lobster and coconut
00:00:21.040 | shrimp and bluefin tuna sushi, on and on it goes. But there's still a lingering question
00:00:26.520 | over whether veganism more closely maps on to God's original dietary design for us. And
00:00:33.360 | it's a question that comes to us from Scott in Cincinnati.
00:00:35.520 | "Dear Pastor John, several of my friends are either vegans or vegetarians, and while they
00:00:40.080 | are mostly non-Christians, they occasionally challenge me theologically for eating meat.
00:00:45.720 | I see in scripture that God provided quail for the Israelites in the wilderness. He demanded
00:00:50.000 | animal sacrifices. Jesus, after the resurrection, ate broiled fish. Peter, of course, was given
00:00:55.800 | a vision of animals clean to eat. But before the fall, they point out that God gave man
00:01:00.520 | only seed-yielding plants and the fruit from trees for food. And in eternity, instead of
00:01:06.000 | killing animals, the lion shall eat straw like the ox and no further blood will be shed.
00:01:11.340 | The more I think about this, I am unconvinced that eating meat is sinful. But isn't veganism
00:01:16.880 | closer to God's original pre-fall and even post-fall dietary design for us?"
00:01:24.280 | What moves me in regard to eating patterns is that neither Jesus nor the apostles, though
00:01:33.960 | they had many opportunities to do so, neither of them argued from a pre-fall eating pattern
00:01:40.840 | forward or a future eschatological eating pattern backward to the way we should eat
00:01:49.200 | today. They didn't argue that way. Such an argument would have solved some serious problems
00:01:56.160 | in the church in Corinth and Rome, but Paul did not take that approach. In fact, he emphatically
00:02:03.640 | went in another direction. And I suspect that the reason he didn't argue that way and went
00:02:10.920 | in another direction is because he saw that God did not intend for either the pre-fall
00:02:19.320 | world or the post-sin world to provide the model of eating in this world. The risen Christ,
00:02:31.800 | with his new resurrection body, is the closest glimpse that we get of eating in the age to
00:02:40.560 | come, and he ate fish—dead fish. Now, instead of arguing that way, Paul argued like this.
00:02:51.720 | This is 1 Corinthians 10:24. "Let no one seek his own good but the good of his neighbor.
00:03:00.600 | Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience,
00:03:10.200 | for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." That's a quote from Psalm 24
00:03:17.360 | that Paul uses as a ground clause. The whole question of meat offered to idols would have
00:03:23.680 | been solved for Paul if he had taken the position that eating meat is sub-Christian in any
00:03:30.440 | case. He argued just the opposite. Animals which provide meat do not belong to themselves.
00:03:41.040 | They don't belong to the earth. They belong to the Lord who provides his people with their
00:03:48.280 | needs for food, so eat them. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. That
00:03:56.440 | was Paul's argument for eating meat. And lest we think that Paul was off on his own
00:04:02.160 | here, Mark, in his gospel, chapter 7, verse 19, said, "Jesus declared all foods clean"
00:04:12.080 | (Mark 7, 19). Clean, acceptable, not banned, not illegal. But here's the most important
00:04:21.360 | and urgent biblical teaching regarding the patterns of eating among Christians today.
00:04:29.120 | This is a classic and explicit illustration of what ought not to divide Christians or
00:04:37.120 | hinder our precious and close and sweet fellowship with each other. This was Paul's main concern
00:04:47.160 | in dealing with eating of meat. Romans 14 is written to deal explicitly with the conflict
00:04:54.960 | between vegetarians and meat eaters. It is astonishingly relevant for Scott's question.
00:05:03.080 | There are other issues in Romans 14, like what days should be honored and whether we
00:05:08.220 | should drink wine, but vegetarianism and meat eating are front and center. So here's what
00:05:17.160 | he says. This is Romans 12, 2, following. "One person believes he may eat anything,
00:05:24.800 | while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who
00:05:32.680 | abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God
00:05:41.160 | has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his
00:05:49.120 | own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make
00:05:56.080 | him stand." There's the central concern and the central teaching on this issue, according
00:06:02.240 | to Paul. Meat eaters don't despise vegetarians. Vegetarians don't pass judgment on meat eaters.
00:06:15.840 | On such issues, each of us stands before the Lord to give his own account. Don't become
00:06:23.760 | lords judging each other on this issue. That's the main message. Then verse 14, "I know
00:06:31.440 | and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for
00:06:38.640 | anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are
00:06:44.360 | no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died."
00:06:52.560 | Romans 14, verses 14 to 15. Then he continues on. Verse 17, "For the kingdom of God is
00:06:59.680 | not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
00:07:08.520 | Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men." Then one more
00:07:16.800 | section, verses 20 and 21, still in Romans 14. "Do not for the sake of food destroy
00:07:23.160 | the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another
00:07:32.520 | stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that
00:07:42.160 | causes your brother to stumble." Don't cause a brother to stumble into sin and destruction
00:07:51.360 | by what you eat. That's not love. So in Paul's mind, the issue of vegetarian
00:07:57.920 | versus meat eater is not an issue of health. It's not an issue of attaining the ideal of
00:08:07.200 | pre-fall or post-sin eschatological conditions. It is an issue of love. And in that sense,
00:08:19.120 | it's a great issue. But in only that sense, it's not a great issue in and of itself. What
00:08:27.200 | we eat here—hear me on this, this is going to shock some—what we eat here is of almost
00:08:36.120 | zero significance compared to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which are
00:08:45.800 | the manifestations of the saving reign of God among his people. So let's keep things
00:08:53.440 | in perspective. Manifest the reign of God and love one another.
00:09:00.360 | That's a wonderful little biblical theology of food. Thank you, Pastor John. And you're
00:09:04.880 | exactly right. It's interesting how often food is discussed in the epistles. It's surprising,
00:09:10.480 | really. Thank you, Pastor John. And Scott, thanks for the question. And listeners, thank
00:09:14.320 | you for joining us again and for ever being willing to prayerfully and financially support
00:09:18.480 | our work over the years. Appreciate it very much. So thank you. Well, you can stay current
00:09:23.440 | with the Ask Pastor John podcast on your phone or device by subscribing through your preferred
00:09:27.600 | podcast catcher app. And if you want to search our past episodes or if you want to send us
00:09:32.200 | an email, even questions about what the Bible says about food, you can do those things through
00:09:35.860 | our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, Christians struggle with sin because
00:09:42.520 | we Christians in this life are sinners still. Sin will not be eradicated from our lives
00:09:47.540 | until a glorious day when we see Jesus face to face. But until that glorious moment, we
00:09:52.420 | fight sin by faith and we can experience assurance inside of that fight. But the Reformed tradition
00:09:58.600 | has also taught that there are forms of willful sin, willful sin, that evidences a heart that
00:10:05.800 | has not been saved. So what is the difference between unwilled sin and willful sin? That's
00:10:13.560 | the question on Monday. Until then, I'm your host, Tony Rank. You have a great weekend
00:10:18.200 | and we'll see you next week.
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