Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Should Christians eat red meat since it may contain a trace of blood?

God stated that the soul (life) of the fleshly creature is in the blood. (Le 17:11-14) Originally, vegetation and fruit, and not flesh, was provided to humans as their diet. But after the Flood, God Himself told us that we could eat meat from "every animal".

"Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for YOU." (Gen. 9:3)

However, God specifically pointed out that the "flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat." (Gen. 9:4)

God commanded that, before eating the flesh of an animal, His people were to pour out its blood on the ground and cover it with dust, being careful not to eat the blood, on pain of death. (De 12:23-25; Le 7:27) The forbidding of the eating of animals strangled or not drained of blood was repeated by the governing body of the early Christian congregation.

So when someone carefully takes the strict precautions that God outlined by making sure that an animal is properly bled before consumption, they would not be breaking God's command of eating blood. Since God Himself has issued these directions, obviously, if properly done, God does not have a problem with eating the meat from "every animal".

However, if someone else had a problem with eating meat, the apostle Paul pointed out that flesh is not absolutely essential to man as food and he said that if his eating of meat was a source of stumbling to other Christians, he would "never again eat flesh at all." -Rom. 14:21; 1Co 8:13