Eating for God’s Glory
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Leviticus 11:1-47
Main Idea: God rules over every part of our lives, including what we eat, and we give Him glory by our willingness to be different from the world and submitting to Him.
I. We Submit to God and His Word.
II. We Separate from the Ways of the World.
III. We Seek to Reflect God’s Holiness.
IV. We Celebrate the Fulfillment of the Law by Jesus.
A. Jesus provides redemption.
B. Jesus provides purification.
C. Jesus provides direction.
As recent as 40 years ago, the phrase “eating disorder” was virtually unknown. The only eating disorder people commonly addressed was eating too much! Of course, that problem is still with us, but we now have others. One of the newer ways the brokenness of humanity is surfacing is the proliferation of eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Our fallenness negatively affects our relationships with God, with other people, with ourselves, and with the world around us, including the food we eat.
Just as sin affects every area of our lives, God gave laws to His people governing every area of life. All His laws convey the cumulative message that God rules over all of life. God’s old covenant laws governing the diet of His people are fairly well-known. Most people who have read Leviticus know of these laws. Also, people who have read the New Testament know about Jewish dietary regulations since Jesus and Paul referred to them. Many people who have not read the Bible are familiar with Old Testament dietary regulations because observant Jews still base their diets on such laws. They eat only “kosher” food, though the word “kosher” is a rabbinic Hebrew word that does not occur in the Old Testament.
So a lot of people know about the existence of these laws, but not many people have thought about their meaning and their application to the church. Actually, Leviticus 11 applies to our lives in important and practical ways. In fact, when some readers see the title of this section, “Eating for God’s Glory,” they may think the subject will be too practical and may wish they had not eaten that second piece before they began reading! We will summarize the exposition and application of these laws with four statements.
We Submit to God and His Word
Probably the most common question regarding the Levitical dietary regulations is, Why? Why are those particular foods prohibited, and why are those particular foods allowed? Is there something about the foods that made them inherently acceptable or unacceptable for consumption? Some have answered the “Why?” question by referring to health factors. Pork, for example, is the source of trichinosis—avoid pork, avoid trichinosis. A few years after Sharon and I were married, we went through a phase of eating according to Levitical law. We never thought it was required for Christians, but we read a book that claimed a biblical diet is a healthy diet, and we probably thought it was cool. It wasn’t that difficult; we had not been eating much vulture or lizard. However, the health standard cannot be applied to all the foods listed in Leviticus 11. Quite a few of the prohibited foods are not unhealthy. It seems unlikely that health was the reason some foods were permitted and other foods were forbidden.
Other interpreters have pointed out that the animals listed in Leviticus 11 are divided into the same categories in which they were created. The first chapter of Genesis divides the animals into sea animals, sky animals/birds, land animals, and animals that creep on the ground. God’s laws in Leviticus 11 divide the animals into those four categories too. Some interpreters take their cue from that parallel and say that the forbidden foods of Leviticus 11 are forbidden because their appearance does not conform to the creation order. For example, fish that don’t have fins or scales are unusual; they appear to defy their proper form and kind. Therefore, God did not permit His people to consume that type of animal. Such a theory is interesting, but not all the forbidden foods violate creation order or form. Also, that theory seems to imply that the animals with unusual forms are somehow inferior, but God made them that way, so why would God say in Leviticus 11 that something is wrong with them? It seems likely He would not say that; God made these animals and He said they are good. Therefore, a violation of creation order is probably not the reason God commanded His people not to eat these foods.
The explanation for the existence of the dietary laws is at least two-fold. The first of our four statements supplies the first reason—we submit to God and His Word. Why was it important for God’s people in the old covenant to eat the foods God commanded and refrain from eating the foods God commanded them not to eat? The reason is that God said so. When God commands, His people obey. In order to obey, all God’s people need to know is that God commands.
Sometimes a parent tells a little child to do something, the child asks why, and the parent says, “Because I said so.” The child may stomp his little foot, but then he goes off to do what he’s told to do. Why? He recognizes the authority of the parent. However, as children grow closer to adulthood they want to know the reason for their parents’ rules. When children are older they have learned that parents make mistakes. Parents tell their children to do things that really aren’t necessary to do, or maybe the older child does not want to obey unless he agrees with the reason. However, when God gives a command, His commands are never mistakes. Therefore, the desire to disobey God is never right.
Our relationship with God matures in a different way from our relationship with our parents. The more mature we become in our relationship with God, the more we are willing to obey unexplained commands. Why are mature believers more willing to obey unexplained commands? The better we know God, the more we trust God. When we get to know God, we learn that He is always good, loving, merciful, just, righteous, and gracious. Therefore, we can trust all His commands because we know that they are for our good and for His glory.
The first unexplained command God gave was the command to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. The subject of God’s command to the first man and woman was also food. God told them not to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden. Why not? What was it about that food that caused God to forbid it? God did not explain His command to them; He expected them to obey with no explanation. When the serpent spoke to Eve, he did explain God’s command. He told Eve that God had told them not to eat of that particular fruit because “God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). In other words the serpent claimed God knew that if they ate that fruit they would become wiser and stronger. The serpent implied God did not want them to grow; he suggested that God is an insecure tyrant who wants to keep humanity ignorant and weak. Eve was faced with a choice. Her choice to obey or disobey would be based on whether she trusted God. Instead of trusting God and obeying, she believed the Devil’s lies about God and disobeyed. People have believed the Devil’s lies about God ever since. However, when we put our full trust in God, we are willing to obey His unexplained commands. God’s commands to Israel in Leviticus 11 remind us that we submit to God and His Word.
We Separate from the Ways of the World
It seems likely that this is a second reason for God to give the dietary laws. One result of this special diet was that God’s people would be differentiated from other people groups. Their diet made them different; it was part of their identity. Today, when archaeologists excavate an ancient site, sometimes they don’t know anything about the people who lived in that area. One of the questions they ask is the ethnic identity of the people who lived there. One of the ways they identify the ethnic identity of the people is to look at the garbage piles and cooking areas where people threw the bones of the animals they ate. In the area of Israel, often such piles have no pig bones. When archaeologists find no pig bones, they identify the people who lived there as Jewish. God’s people were distinguished by their diet.
For the ancient Israelites, mealtime was a time of family sharing and fellowship with friends. The poor Israelites didn’t have televisions to watch during supper, so they had to talk to each other. Mealtime was a time of forging bonds of family and friendship. The people who shared meals together were often determined by ethnicity. The book of Genesis says that the Egyptians did not eat with the Hebrews; eating with the Hebrews was an abomination to the Egyptians (Gen 43:32). So mealtime brought people together, but it also separated people from other groups.
When God gave His laws about diet to His people, they were in the Sinai wilderness, but He was preparing them to enter the land of Canaan. God told them numerous times that they were not to adopt the ways of the Canaanites. They were not to worship their gods or learn their ways. The Canaanites worshiped idols, practiced every kind of sexual perversion, and offered their children as sacrifices to their false gods. God was bringing His judgment on the Canaanites because their iniquity was complete, and the Israelite conquest of Canaan was the means of His judgment. Once the Israelites inhabited the land of Canaan, God did not want His people to have anything to do with the Canaanites because His people were prone to adopt their ways. One of the ways God was separating His people from the Canaanites was their diet. Since the Israelites had a special diet, they would not share mealtime with the Canaanites. Their diet helped to keep them separate.
Separation from the ways of the world is also a New Testament principle that followers of Jesus are to observe. God commands us to love the people of the world as He loves them. God also commands us not to love the sinful ways of the world. First John 2:15-16 says,
Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world.
If we love and worship God and follow His ways, we will not love the ways of the world. A separation will always exist between followers of Jesus and those who do not know Him. We’re separated from the world because God, His kingdom, and His righteousness are most important to us, and those are not most important to the world. We are also separated from the world by our lifestyle, just as the Israelites were separated from other people by their diet. We love every person in the world, but we don’t participate in the ways of the world.
If you’re a follower of Jesus and you’re not separate from the ways of the world, then separate yourself right now. If you’re doing something that is not pleasing to Jesus, then stop it. Maybe you’re a new Christian, or maybe you’re being confronted with some of the ways of the world for the first time. As a Christian, the Master of your life is Jesus, not the world or anything the world worships. Followers of Jesus live the way Jesus tells us to live. Take to heart what 2 Corinthians 6 says to Christians.
Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? . . . Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. (vv. 14-15,17)
Clearly God intends for us to be different, even separate from the world. Just as the Israelites observed a special diet that distinguished them from the rest of the world, we observe a holy lifestyle that separates us from unbelievers. We feel pressure from the world to conform to its ways, but we do not give in to that pressure.
Several years ago, my wife’s parents were generous to the families of their two daughters and took all of us on a cruise together. One of our ports of call was Jamaica. I was walking along a sidewalk in a city in Jamaica. Other family members were behind me; I’m a fast walker, and I had gone on ahead. A car was parallel parked next to the sidewalk, and the door to the car was open. As I approached the car with the open door, a man in the car said to me, “Do you want to buy some weed?”
I could tell by the way he was talking that he was trying to go unnoticed and unheard by other people, and I didn’t understand him at first, so I said, “Excuse me?”
He said, “Hey, man, do you want to buy some weed?”
I said, “Some what? Oh!” I said, “You mean marijuana! You’re trying to sell me some marijuana!” To be honest, I was fascinated by that. At that point, I had lived 40 plus years and nobody had ever tried to sell me marijuana. So when this man tried to offer some to me, I was astonished. I asked him, “Really? You’re trying to sell marijuana to me? Do I look like the kind of person who would be interested in buying marijuana?” He looked nonplussed, but I continued. “What is it about me or my appearance that made you think that I’m the kind of person who would ever smoke marijuana?” By this time, some family members were approaching, and I said to them, loudly enough so as many people as possible could hear me, “This guy is trying to sell marijuana to me. Can you believe it? Nobody has ever tried to sell marijuana to me.” Of course the guy closed his door and drove away.
When the world pressures us to adopt its ways, shouldn’t we ask a similar question: When you look at followers of Jesus, what about us makes you think we would ever be interested in adopting the ways of the world? Our God has redeemed us, and He calls us to be different. Do we look like the kind of people who would want to be like this culture? In this culture murder and rape are so common that ours is one of the most violent societies in the world. Families are fragmenting at an unprecedented rate. Multiple teenagers are attempting suicide every day. Depression and chronic stress are so common that sedatives and antacids are the most common drugs sold over the counter. Why would we want to conform to this culture? Before we met Jesus, we experienced that misery and sin. God delivered us, and He is in the process of transforming us so that we will indeed be different. Why would we want to go back? We wisely separate from the ways of the world.
We Seek to Reflect God’s Holiness
God did not tell His people why He chose those particular foods to be designated as clean or unclean. However, He did tell them why He wanted them to be different, holy. In verses 44 and 45 God said twice, “Be holy because I am holy.” Why are we to be holy? Because God is holy, and He wants us to be like Him. We’re to be holy as God is holy. God created us in His image, but the image of God has been marred by sin. The image of God begins to be restored in us when we’re reconciled to God by Jesus and we embrace God and His ways. As we put away sin and draw close to Him, we become holy for He is holy.
In verse 45 God says, “I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy.” Note the sequence. First, God redeemed them from slavery, then He was their God, then He told them to be holy. The sequence is important, and the same sequence applies today. First, God redeems us. He saves us from sin when we put our faith in Jesus; He comes into our lives and makes us new people by giving us a new nature. Then God tells us, Now that you’re different, act differently. Jesus has made you into new people; act like new people. Be who you are. In your daily life, live out your new identity in Jesus. Be holy.
Compare our salvation and sanctification in Jesus to a wedding and marriage. Before my wife and I were married, we read books together about how to be a Christian husband and wife. We went to pre-marital counseling. We purchased a topical Bible and read aloud all the verses in the Bible that have to do with marriage. Relatively speaking, we were prepared for marriage. However, we were not married until after the wedding ceremony. Just so, people can know a lot about Christianity, but they are not Christians until they personally put their faith in Jesus as Savior. After our wedding ceremony, we were married. We were never going to be ignorant of marriage again, and we were never going to be more married than we were at that moment. We were married, just like people who put their faith in Jesus are saved and reconciled to God. However, I quickly learned that there is more to being a good husband than good preparation and a good wedding. I had to start acting like a married person. The wedding ceremony gave me a new identity—the identity of husband—but once I had that identity I had to start behaving like a husband. I have to be what I am. It’s one thing to be married and to know you’re married; it’s another thing to act married.
It’s the same in becoming holy, as God is holy. When we put our faith in Jesus, God forgives our sin, gives us the gift of eternal life, and He makes us new people. He gives us a new identity—we’re children of God, heirs with Jesus, saints. We’re holy ones from the moment of our salvation. From that moment we’ll never be unsaved again, and we’ll never be more saved than we are at that moment. Becoming holy is the process of becoming who we are. When we come to Jesus, God sets us apart as His, and becoming holy means that we live as those who have been set apart as God’s. That’s the process of sanctification, becoming holy as He is holy. God said, “I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy.” We seek to reflect God’s holiness.
We Celebrate the Fulfillment of the Law by Jesus
In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said, “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. When we looked at the first chapters of Leviticus, we saw that Jesus fulfilled every type of sacrifice, so sacrifices are no longer necessary for God’s people. Jesus is the final, once-for-all sacrifice. How does Jesus fulfill the laws in Leviticus 11?
Jesus Provides Redemption
God set Israel free from slavery in Egypt. That is redemption. Jesus sets us free from slavery to the Devil, the flesh, and the world. Like former slaves, we are free! Jesus, God the Son, said in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you really will be free.” As John Donne, the English poet, wrote to the Lord, “Except you enthrall me, [I] never shall be free” (“Holy Sonnet XIV”). Knowing the truth of Jesus’ words also makes us free. Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Praise His name, knowing His truth gives us freedom from sin, self, and Satan!
Jesus Provides Purification
Leviticus 11 says that if an Israelite touched an unclean animal or a dead animal, that person would become unclean. However, the unclean person need not remain unclean. He could wash his clothes and would be regarded as clean the next day (vv. 25,27-28,31-32,40). In other words, in the old covenant period, God provided directions to become clean. In the new covenant period, Jesus cleanses us. Jesus described our salvation in Him as washing. One night in an upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus washed the feet of His apostles. Peter was reluctant to let Jesus wash his feet, since washing feet was the job of a slave. Jesus said to Peter, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with Me” (John 13:8). In other words, “To be right with Me, Peter, to have a share in My kingdom, you must let Me wash you.”
All of us are unclean in God’s sight. We are unworthy to be in His presence. Thank God when we come to Him in faith and ask Him to come into our lives, He washes us! That happens when God first reconciles us to Himself, and it happens in the Christian life as He cleanses us from sin. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When we confess our sins, God forgives our sins, and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He does both of those. The song “Rock of Ages” expresses that truth. It says, “Be of sin the double cure / Save from wrath and make me pure.” The double cure—He saves us from His righteous wrath, and He makes us pure. He redeems us and cleanses us. By our sin we earned God’s punishment. Jesus took that punishment on Himself when He died for our sin on the cross. When we put our faith in Him, He takes away our sin, our guilt, and God’s wrath. Then, on a daily basis, He forgives us and washes us.
Jesus Provides Direction
Leviticus 11 shows that in the old covenant period God gave His people dietary regulations—some foods were clean and other foods were unclean. In the new covenant period in which we live, those regulations no longer apply. Colossians 2:16-17 says, “Don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink. . . . These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.” Paul was telling the Christians in Colossae not to allow anybody to push them into following old covenant regulations regarding diet, and 1 Corinthians 10:27 says explicitly, “Eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience.”
So the old covenant dietary regulations no longer apply, but in the new covenant Jesus does give us direction regarding food. We don’t observe those directions in the hope of becoming one of His followers. No, He redeems us by His grace through our faith. He gives us new and eternal life as a free gift. Then, once He is in our lives, He changes us on the inside so that we want to follow His directions.
Let’s note four directions Jesus gives us in this new covenant age.
We use mealtime as a mission. The New Testament says Jesus ate with prostitutes, outcasts, and notorious sinners like tax collectors. He was criticized for it, but it was part of His strategy of drawing sinners to salvation. Zacchaeus is a famous example. As Jesus passed through Jericho, He wanted to lead Zacchaeus to faith in Him. How did Jesus do that? He invited him to lunch. Once I heard a former Muslim talk about how to reach Muslims for Jesus. Someone asked him about the best strategy to build relationships. His answer was one word: “Food.” Followers of Jesus are separate from the ways of the world, and we do not yoke ourselves to unbelievers in formal relationships like marriage (2 Cor 6:14-15,17). However, for followers of Jesus, food is not used to segregate us from the world; food is used to invite the world to us so we can reach them for Jesus. Use mealtime as a mission.
We use food to promote fellowship. Jesus gave us a symbol to help us to remember what He did for us on the cross, and the symbol He gave us is a meal—the Lord’s Supper. We often refer to the Lord’s Supper as “Communion” because during the Lord’s Supper we experience fellowship with Jesus in the context of kinship with our brothers and sisters in the faith. It is a communal meal. The second chapter of Acts records the salvation of 3,000 people on the Day of Pentecost. After they came to faith in Jesus, they began to meet together. Acts 2:42-47 describes what they did when they gathered with one another.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.
Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.
Twice those verses state that the first Christians were sharing meals with one another. They ate together “every day,” “from house to house,” and “with a joyful attitude.” If we patterned the contemporary church after the early church, wouldn’t we get together in homes to share food more often? The apostle Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians about Christians sharing meals with one another. Today, a growing number of churches are using the ministry strategy of small groups. Church members meet in homes for Bible study, Bible application, and fellowship. They share snacks or meals together. They get to know one another as they share food. They “do life” together. Why shouldn’t we do that? Jesus and the early church did it. We use food to promote fellowship.
We stop consumption that causes stumbling. In chapters 8 and 10 of 1 Corinthians Paul wrote about eating meat offered to idols. Some Christians thought that eating meat used in idol worship made them guilty of participating in idolatry. In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul explained that was not true. It was fine to eat meat offered to idols; the idols were nothing. However, he told the Christians in Corinth that they should abstain from eating meat offered to idols if that consumption caused other believers to stumble in their faith.
This is the principle: helping people know and follow Jesus is more important than whether we get to eat what we want, even if what we want is as great as a chocolate donut. People are more important. We do not want to bruise their faith or cause them to stumble. Therefore, we force ourselves to ask hard questions about our eating habits. Do we eat too much? When others see the extra pounds we are carrying, how does that reflect on Jesus and His power in our lives? Could they say, “Does Jesus have the power to deliver His people from gluttony? Evidently not.” How does our over-eating reflect on our discipline? Many church leaders are overweight, and some badly so. Shouldn’t spiritual leaders be disciplined in their personal lives? Obesity is an advertisement for lack of discipline in eating. I write such words in great humility, realizing that I fail in my eating habits regularly. Still, thinking of how our eating affects others should cause us to restrain and discipline ourselves for God’s glory. We stop consumption that causes stumbling.
We subject eating to higher priorities. The fourth chapter of the Gospel of John records that when Jesus and His disciples arrived in the Samaritan village of Sychar, Jesus sat down at a well and His disciples went to get some food. While the disciples were gone, Jesus talked to a Samaritan woman, and when the disciples returned they offered Jesus some food. Jesus told them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” The disciples didn’t know what He was talking about, and Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work” (vv. 31-34). Jesus was saying to them, “Gentlemen, you’ve been getting some food because that’s what is important to you. I’ve been talking with this woman about her relationship to God because that’s what is important to Me. Doing God’s work is what feeds Me.” That’s was Jesus’ priority. In Matthew 6 He told us to make that our priority:
So don’t worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. (vv. 31-33)
Jesus was telling us to stop prioritizing food and start prioritizing “the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Furthermore, when God and His kingdom are our priorities and food is not, the way we eat will change. We won’t commit the sin of gluttony, because food is just not that important to us. Sharing Jesus with the lost and encouraging our brothers and sisters in the faith is important to us. Eating too much won’t help that mission and may hurt it, so we discipline ourselves. We exercise by pushing away from the table. Also, when we prioritize God’s kingdom and righteousness, we won’t be obsessed with our appearance. That healthy relationship with God, others, ourselves, and food should eliminate the possibility of developing an eating disorder. Our priority is God and His righteousness, not our appearance.
The old covenant distinctions between clean and unclean foods no longer apply in the new covenant in Jesus. However, one way we will be marked as followers of Jesus is the way we relate to food. In 1 Corinthians, in the midst of that discussion about eating meat offered to idols, Paul laid down this principle in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.” We were created for the glory of God, and we were re-created in Christ to give glory to God in everything we do, including how we eat and drink.
- Why was it important for God’s people in the old covenant to obey His commands concerning food?
- Are you willing to obey unexplained commands from God’s Word? What does this tell you about your relationship with God?
- How did Israelite mealtimes bring some people together while separating other people?
- According to Leviticus 11:44-45, why are we to be holy?
- How does God enable us to be holy?
- How does Jesus fulfill the laws in Leviticus 11?
- Why do the old covenant dietary regulations no longer apply?
- How can you use mealtime as a mission?
- According to Acts 2:42-47, how did the early church approach mealtime? What can we learn from this?
- How would your eating habits change if God and His kingdom were your priorities?