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What Does the Bible Say About..Eating Pork?

What is your interpretation about what the Bible says about eating pork. Acts 10:13: "Then a voice said to him, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat them." "Never, Lord," Peter declared. "I have never in all my life eaten anything forbidden by our Jewish laws." The voice spoke again, "If God says something is acceptable, don't say it isn't." I have used these scriptures to say that it is OK but I still get dissention from Christian friends.

Answer

The New Testament doesn't say anything about pork specifically. In most of Paul's discussions about what Jewish Christians can or cannot eat he generally concentrates on the question of food offered to idols. (1 Corinthians 8 and 1 Corinthians 10) Probably the best discussion of keeping the requirements of the Law of Moses is found in Romans 14. There Paul says that each person should worry about his own conscience, since food means nothing. Yet, if eating pork causes a brother to fail in his obedience to Christ, don't eat pork in his presence. You may know it means nothing, but until he is convinced of that don't put a stumbling block in his path.

I certainly would not insist that any of my Jewish friends, or my Christian friends who are Jewish, eat anything that is not kosher. Since no such restrictions were ever placed on non-Jews, it wouldn't matter with most of my Christian friends. They aren't bound by the Law of Moses because, being Gentiles, they never were required to keep kosher, or Sabbath, or any other of the requirements of the Law. (That is one of the main points of the book of Galatians.) But if anyone, Jew or Gentile, insisted on not eating pork, I would try to teach them, including the passage you mention, but would not insist on violating their conscience. In time they will grow stronger in the word and may come to understand that God no longer makes such restrictions.