Food Issues

It is so surprising to me how food can become so important to us.  I certainly understand the great taste of a piece of cheesecake or a piece of chocolate.  I guess what I don’t understand is the way we make decisions about the food area of our lives. Then we think everyone else needs to live up to our standards.  It is important to discover what the Scripture says about food.

1. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  1 Corinthians 10:31  From this verse we see the connection of food with the glory of God.  It does not tell us what kind of food (organic, processed, fresh, canned or frozen) but what it does tell us is that all of life is about God’s glory.  We can bring glory to God even while eating a candy bar if we are not worshiping it. J  God’s glory is about Him receiving our total worship.
2. “…require abstinence from foods that 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 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”1 Timothy 4:3b-4  Paul is warning Timothy about false teachers who were requiring abstinence from certain foods because they were unholy.  Paul makes it clear that everything created by God is good and is a gift for us to enjoy.  Everything we eat is made holy by God because it comes from Him.  There are lists that we make for ourselves such as:  some fat, low fat, no fat, or organic, non-organic or gluten, gluten-free.  These lists are not holy.  These lists are choices that we ourselves choose to live by not commands from the Scriptures.  You may need to make certain choices because of health issues but those choices apply to you and not to anyone else.  God’s gift of food for us is good.
3. “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.”  1 Corinthians 8:8  We cannot increase our righteousness by eating certain foods and abstaining from others.  We have the righteousness of Christ.  God does not give us brownie points for spending extra money on gourmet food.  God does not give us a smile when we overspend our budget in order to get the perfect food.  He is not impressed with this.  He is impressed with Jesus.  I think we like to impress ourselves with our knowledge of foods and what is good for us and what we consider not good for us.  Then we take the knowledge that we love so much and impart it to anyone who will listen.  As we do this we make it sound like we know something special that will be guaranteed to change lives.  This can bring about guilt in others who cannot afford the gourmet food or organic food for their family.  Food is not a gospel issue.  Our status before God is not determined by the food we eat.
4. “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.” Romans 14:20  Our preoccupation with the food we desire to eat can become a problem for others when it becomes an idol for us.  We should never seek to force our opinions on others concerning food.  We can hinder the work that God is seeking to accomplish in someone by judging them by our standard which can produce false guilt in their life.  When they begin to compare themselves with our standards it means trouble for them.  Only God’s standard counts.  His standard is Jesus and obedience.  Our obedience is to be given to God not to others and their standards.

After reading the above you may be saying, “Yeah but doesn’t God want us to be healthy?”  Yes, I think we are to do the best we can with what we’ve got.  This does not mean that there is one right way to eat.  It is interesting because I really do believe that a balance of foods and moderation is important, but then there’s my mom who proves a very important truth to me.  My mom has frontal lobe dementia disorder and has no comprehension of truth anymore.  She can tell you many stories all untrue.  At this writing she is 79 years old and has for the last 15 years eaten nothing but peanut butter and graham crackers, maple cookies, ice cream with caramel, and bananas which she washes down with Dr. Pepper.  This proves to me that God is in charge of life and death.  If I ate like that I feel like I would have been dead long ago.

The bottom line is this; you can make decisions about the food you eat determined by preference, budget or health situations and bring God glory.  This decision is yours.  This standard is yours.  This decision and standard is not God’s!  Don’t present it as the only option for life!  Food is not a gospel issue.  Don’t put your choices on the same par as Jesus!  This does not love others or promote the gospel!  Eat and enjoy for the glory of Go