- Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. (Genesis 9:3–4)
An important distinction needs to be made between eating flesh that is alive and flesh that is dead. Still, this verse is saying that every animal must be bled before being eaten by humans.
In all probability, even though the reason given for not eating the blood is to respect life, animals that are killed but not bled, will quickly rot, for more parasites are in the blood than in the muscle.
The restrictions that were given to the Israelites under the Mosaic Covenant, which is probably what you have in mind, appeared to serve a dual purpose. One was health and the other for devotion to God.
In the New Testament, Christians were advised to abstain from blood and any strangled kill.
- But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. (Acts 21:25)
Notice, too, the advice not to eat food that is sacrificed to idols (which are demons) and unchastity—which leads to venereal diseases. For there may have been some observable ill-effects occurring in people who knowingly ate food that had been devoted to a demon in association with temple prostitutes—a practice that was common among Gentiles.
In effect, what the Apostles did was endorse what God had told Noah. Each whatever you like, but bear in mind the dangers of the eating flesh without draining the blood. Not only did God tell Noah this, He also went further and told the Apostle Peter that everything that is cleansed by God is no longer unclean.
- Now on the next day as they were on their journey, and got close to the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray at about noon. He became hungry and desired to eat, but while they were preparing, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and a certain container descending to him, like a great sheet let down by four corners on the earth, in which were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild animals, reptiles, and birds of the sky. A voice came to him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” A voice came to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean.” (Acts 10:9–13)
Everything is alright to eat as long as it is received with thanksgiving.
- Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. (1 Timothy 4:1–4)
So which animals are forbidden to eat within the Christian Bible. Is this just another one of those ignorant questions that abound among those who think they know a lot, but in reality know very little? For the only restrictions that can be found within the Christian Bible concerning food having nothing to do with any type of animal, rather they have to do with what has happened to the animal in its preparation—was it strangled and not bled, or devoted to demons.
From what the Apostle Peter and Paul have to say, it appears that if we receive food after offering thanksgiving to God, then we can eat whatever we like—after all protein is made up of amino acids in whatever form it is found, and these are the building blocks of living organisms.
Food Is Important For Us But Not Everybody Enjoys or Can Eat The Same Food
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