Ok, so I know I’m tempting quite a few jokes, but this is a serious question:
Why don’t Christians follow Old Testament rules and laws (like staying Kosher)? Did I miss the part of the Bible where God 86’ed Leviticus?
If I recall my New Testament classes, there is something in…Acts, maybe…where Paul has a dream about a blanket full of formerly forbidden foods and a message to “eat.” I’m not sure if that was the theological reason behind the abandonment of OT dietary restrictions, but it may have contributed to it.
It was Peter rather than Paul, and it is recorded in Acts 10.
Mark 7:18-19, words of Jesus, with an added comment, are also used…
18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, it cannot defile him;
19 because it goeth not into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the draught? This he said, making all meats clean.
(American Standard Version 1901)
This was discussed recently at some length. Acts and Galatians are the key areas.
This is a fair question, and one that comes up here every once in a while. See, for example, Do the laws of the Old Testament apply to Christians? or How come Christians eat pork ? (ETA: I see Tom Tildrum has scooped me on the link.)
Judging by the New Testament (Acts, Paul’s epistles), one of the major controversies in the early Christian church was, essentially, whether you have to be Jewish in order to be Christian. That is, do Christians have to obey all the requirements and restrictions of the Jewish, Mosaic Law? And the answer that was eventually agreed upon was: No, they don’t. See Sage Rat’s links.
In other words: What goes into your mouth isn’t nearly as important as what comes out of it.
or maybe not…
Unless it’s cock.
Except c-, oh wait I just made that joke.
Thanks for all the responses!
I have a thread in a similar vein right now, if you don’t all mind taking a look-see and giving me your best…
Another take on the OP’s question.
I asked this question to a friend of mine who attended a seminary, and his answer, in brief, the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament Law were a Suzerain contract between God and the Israeli, and doesn’t apply to Christians. Much of his argument is based in what the verses/books that the other dopers have already quoted.
Don’t even Orthodox Jews not require converts to do everything? Or am I misremembering?
Yup, misremembering. From the Orthodox perspective, a convert has the same obligations as any other Jew, although he/she wouldn’t belong to any special groups with extra obligations, most notably the priestly or Levite classes.
The strictest answer is that Christians are not neccessarily Jews, although there were Jewish Christians (after a while, they mostly lost their Jewish identity and stopped the dietary restrictions, but that’s neither here nor there). It was decided that converts did not have to obey Jewish food laws.
The real question is how the “Christian” side gets to pick and choose - the heck with Kosher, but we’ll pick the most appealing “abominations” that we want to condemn from Leviticus. Oh, and we get to pretend the 10 commandments still apply and we should be able to have state monuments using them…
All very interesting, but how do people who believe in the “absolute inarrancy” of the bible resolve this question? The young earth creationists, for example, who refuse the idea that a biblical “day” might be a good part of a billion years.
Apostolic teaching in The New Testament- Peter & Paul both lift the Kosher restrictions. However, Paul seems to echo the condemnation of same-gender sex (the Levitical passage that condemns it also condemns incest & bestiality, btw- I’m waiting for the argument that those are outmoded restrictions also).
Sorry, BigT, I’m afraid I have no idea too. Perhaps some other Dopers could help?
This is one of the beef I have with Christians who use the Old Testament to enforce certain behaviors, even though some of those laws only make sense in historical context. I would just go out on a limb and said that preachers who do that are wrong.
As for the homosexuality issue, the one thing that most anti-gay protesters never touched on was that stealing, adultery, popularity cults and other issues were just as hotly condemned too in the various letters to the church.
:rolleyes: The U.S. Constitution counted Black slaves as 3/5 of a human being. Recognizing one part of a work as outdated doesn’t necessitate throwing all parts of it out.