We have been looking closer at 3 Overlooked Dietary Laws in the New Testament. The last installment discussed why the admonition to abstain from food that is strangled may be moral in nature, not ceremonial.
We mentioned that commentators struggle with Acts 15:20, 29; and 21:25 because the prohibition against eating strangled meat (a seemingly ceremonial law) is side by side an obviously moral law (abstaining from sexual immorality).
We gave 3 Reasons this Dietary Law may Be Moral, Not Ceremonial. Here is a quick summary:
- If the law was merely ceremonial, why command it when the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ?
- The law has moral implications: since God is the owner of animals, we are obligated to treat them as He commands.
- The law is not rooted in the ceremonial law, but in a deeper law that was established before the law of Moses.
Today we will answer the question: Was the Early Church Trying to Placate the Jews with this Dietary Law?
Commentators Don’t Want to Offend.
We noted before that this is the position of many commentators. They claim that the sole purpose of this dietary law was to appease the Jews so they would not be offended at the eating of food that was forbidden by their Jewish law.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers states of this restriction: “Here the moral element falls entirely into the background, and the prohibition has simply the character of a concordat to avoid offence.”
Matthew Henry writes:
They were counselled to abstain from things strangled, and from eating blood; this was forbidden by the law of Moses, and also here, from reverence to the blood of the sacrifices, which being then still offered, it would needlessly grieve the Jewish converts, and further prejudice the unconverted Jews. But as the reason has long ceased, we are left free in this, as in the like matters.
Based on these commentaries and the practice of the modern church, most Christians treat this dietary law as non-binding today. The widely held position is that the laws were only put into place temporarily in the early church to avoid offending the Jewish believers.
Are the Commentators Correct?
But is this the best way to understand these dietary laws?
Gill’s Exposition of the Bible admits that these dietary laws were “attended to with much strictness by the primitive Christians, who seemed to have observed this advice in the form of a law, and thought it criminal to eat blood [by implication food strangled].”
The Holy Spirit.
Why shouldn’t the early church attend to these dietary laws with strictness when the Council at Jerusalem claimed that the Holy Spirit had directed that they should be observed?
In fact, Acts records that this edict was circulated in a letter to the Christian church.
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.” Acts 15:28-29
The Essentials.
And the Scriptures refer to these four laws (three dietary and one concerning fornication) as “essentials.”
Gill admits that it was much later in the Christian church that these laws were abandoned. “In process of time it was neglected; and in Austin’s time abstinence from blood was derided, as a ridiculous notion.”
Should we call anything revealed by the Holy Spirit and called “essentials” by the apostles in the New Testament “a ridiculous notion”?
Gill goes on to suggest that “it is at least now high time that this, and everything else of a ceremonial kind, was dropped by Christians.”
However, we demonstrated previously that the restriction to abstain from food strangled did not have its origin in the ceremonial law, as most commentators acknowledge.
Are the Commentators Confused?
So on one hand the commentators claim that these laws are ceremonial with the intent to placate the Jews (which is discussed below), and on the other hand they acknowledge that these laws don’t have their origin in the Law of Moses. But here is where the confusion comes into play: if the laws don’t originate at Sinai — they cannot be ceremonial.
It is as if they are speaking of that which they don’t understand. Just because one does not understand a law, does not mean it should be ignored. So why all the confusion among commentators?
Food Sacrificed to Idols Argument.
The primary reason that commentators see this law as passé, ceremonial, and designed only to placate the Jews stems from Paul’s treatment of food sacrificed to idols in I Corinthians. We wrote more about that here: What Does It Mean to Abstain from Food Sacrificed to Idols?
There we noted that Paul desires love for others to be the main goal of all we do — even eating. He teaches that Christians are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols for the sake of
- weaker brothers
- and unbelievers
But Paul does not give his readers a free pass to eat food sacrificed to idols when a brother is not offended. In fact, he upholds the dietary law by stating that we are not to be partakers with demons. Recognizing that the food is not defiled in itself (nor can it defile), Paul instructs the people to eat whatever is sold at the meat market without asking questions. However, as soon as one discovers that food has been sacrificed to idols, they are to abstain.
Again, this appeases the conscience of the Jews, the weaker brethren, and the unbelievers. However, it also keeps one from knowingly eating food sacrificed to idols, and by implication from becoming partakers with demons.
Circumcision Argument.
But there is one more argument: circumcision. In fact, this is where it all started back in Acts. The Judaizers were demanding that Gentile Christians be circumcised in order to be saved. As a result, the first Council of Jerusalem convened to discuss the matter. We wrote about that here: 3 Overlooked Dietary Laws in the New Testament.
If these 3 dietary laws were only meant to “placate” the Jews, and were truly ceremonial in nature, why not have the early church also continue the practice of circumcision? This was the biggest stumbling block of all to the Jews.
Paul goes so far as to say that circumcision is nothing; yet he has Timothy circumcised to enhance his ability to ministry to the Jews. And he refuses to circumcise Titus. Here, again, Paul upholds the decision of the early church saying that circumcision is not necessary for Christians to practice. Yet, he is not opposed to circumcision for the sake of the gospel.
The argument against circumcision looks nothing like the argument in the discussion of food sacrificed to idols. Never does Paul say to circumcise if your brother is offended. No. He upholds the edict of Jerusalem, claiming that circumcision adds no spiritual value to a Christian. However, Paul implies that abstaining from food sacrificed to idols has moral implications. First it keeps others from stumbling and second it prevents one from becoming a partaker with demons.
Conclusion
In summary, the law to abstain from meat strangled seems to do more than just “placate” the Jews. There must be another reason that God has commanded His children through the Holy Spirit to abstain from food that is strangled. And that reason stems from an older law that God established before the giving of the ceremonial law.
In future posts, we will see that the admonition to abstain from meat strangled is closely tied to the third dietary law, to abstain from eating blood. In fact, it is this instruction that ties the whole topic together and makes an even stronger case that these laws have some kind of moral grounding that we may not fully understand. Yet the Old Testament does give us great clues. And we will also discover that there are commentators who agree with my position that Christians should abstain from eating strangled meat and from blood.
But before we look at these things, we will look closer at what is meant by “strangled meat.”
Read the next installment now: What Exactly Is This Forbidden Strangled Meat?
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Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.
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© 2017 Mischelle Sandowich
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