What St Paul actually said about eating meat
Re: “The bible has advice for vegetarians”, Have Your Say, yesterday.
The verses from Corinthians that Mr P quotes about vegetarians being weak actually refer to eating meat that has been offered to idols. In other words they warn of weakness in spirit not in health. As it was stated in the Decree of the Council of Jerusalem, Acts 15: 20: “But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.”
The question of eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols was one that was hotly debated among the early followers of Jesus, many of whom were vegetarians. Note that James, the brother of Jesus, was a vegetarian, as was the Aramaic community in Jerusalem that he led. Hieronymus, an early Christian writer, wrote:
“The consumption of animal flesh was unknown up until the great flood. But since the great flood, we have had animal flesh stuffed into our mouths. Jesus, the Christ, who appeared when the time was fulfilled, again joined the end to the beginning, so that we are now no longer allowed to eat animal flesh.”
In the modern world, the vegetarian health reformer Ellen White wrote in 1864, “God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the trees in the garden was the food man’s wants required.”
In the words of St Paul, “So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.”
Ian Martin
Bangkok
