Shellfish a Sin?

[heb12-2]

You can't win this argument. It has it's basis not in fact, but in belief and interpretation of Old Testament law. My advice would be "agree to disagree", change the subject whenever it comes up, and if your friend persists, find a more agreeable friend.

I disagree with this advice. The friend that believes that we are still under the old law is mistaken, but he still may be sincere. And how are you going to help him see that if you ignore this honest belief of his?

Surely Paul did not take the approach of "agree to disagree" when talking to the Jews who still believed they were under the old law. No but he spent time discussing the matter with them:
"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures" (Ac. 17:2)

This is what you need to do with your friend. You need to "reason" with him "out of the scriptures".

"And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks." (Ac 18:4).

"And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews." (Ac 18:19).

As you can see from these scriptures Paul didn't just "agree to disagree". He "reasoned" and "persuaded". And that was "his manner". You need to follow Paul's manner.

Paul said:
"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." (1 Co 11:1).

 

[SnowOwlMoon]

I disagree with this advice. The friend that believes that we are still under the old law is mistaken, but he still may be sincere. And how are you going to help him see that if you ignore this honest belief of his?

Surely Paul did not take the approach of "agree to disagree" when talking to the Jews who still believed they were under the old law. No but he spent time discussing the matter with them:
"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures" (Ac. 17:2)

This is what you need to do with your friend. You need to "reason" with him "out of the scriptures".

.

And I stand by my advice: This is an argument based on opinion and interpretation, and cannot be "won". Why is it so important to change someone's belief about a dietary law? Why is it so important to you that someone "win"? This is spending $100 worth of energy on a $1 problem. And I don't think I need to spend another cent's worth of energy on the subject.

 

[heb12-2]

And I stand by my advice: This is an argument based on opinion and interpretation, and cannot be "won". Why is it so important to change someone's belief about a dietary law? Why is it so important to you that someone "win"? This is spending $100 worth of energy on a $1 problem. And I don't think I need to spend another cent's worth of energy on the subject.

It's not about trying to "win". It's about trying to help a sincere soul (who is just misguided) find the truth on a Bible subject. It may be a "$1 problem" to you, but it is not a "$1 problem" to the friend who believes he is still in bondage to the old law. He believes he is still under bondage to the requirements of Leviticus 11 and is missing out on the liberty in Christ. Why would anyone not want to help him find that liberty?

I don't believe it is a "$1 dollar problem". In fact it is a very big problem. If it was a "$1 problem", why would Paul have dealt with this very subject himself on more than one occasion?

Was Paul "spending $100 worth of energy on a $1 problem" when he wrote the entire chapter of Romans 14? Read Romans 14 and you will see that Paul discusses this very subject and how it should be dealt with. Did the Holy Spirit just inspire Paul to waste his breath?

You have to understand something. Many of the Jews who had lived their whole lives under the old law were now faced with the difficulty of giving up much of their way of life. It was a big concern for them.

Even the apostle Peter had difficulty with it. Read Acts 10:9-17. Peter has the vision of all these animals coming down on the sheet, and a voice said, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat". But Peter could not hardly bring himself to eat what he had always abstained from because it was unclean. Peter answered the Lord and said, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean." (Ac 10:14). The voice answered saying, "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." (Ac 10:15). Then it says, "this was done thrice" (Ac. 10:15). Was the voice from heaven "spending $100 worth of energy on a $1 problem" when speaking to Peter 3 times?

Even after the vision he had, he still for a time "doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean" (Ac 10:17), and later says he "thought on the vision" (Ac. 10:19). So you can see that this was an issue he had to grapple with and ponder on. He had to spend some time on the issue.

But here's another point I believe you are not considering. The importance of this issue doesn't stop with what to eat. It goes much deeper than that. Peter later recognized that there was an even bigger thing that he needed to learn from the vision when he finally put it all together. When the light in his mind finally came on, he concluded this from the vision: "And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any MAN common or unclean." (Ac 10:28).

The friend also has a bigger issue to learn if someone will just be kind enough to spend some time with him and help him see it. And it may not happen over night. It didn't with many of the Jews that struggled with the same problem. People are still struggling with it today.

If you listen to the advice to ignore the friend's concerns, and if you should even go so far as to get rid of the friend over this issue, then you are not being a friend to him.

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Ga 5:1).

Those words are worth far more than $1, or $100, or even $1,000,000.

Read the context of that verse. The "yoke of bondage" referred to is the old law. You're friend is "entangled" in it. Don't leave him that way. If you do, he will miss the "liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" and he will have "fallen from grace" (Gal. 5:5)

I sure am glad that Paul didn't consider it a "$1 problem". And I'm thankful that he spent much more than a "cent's worth of energy on the subject".

 

[leecappella]

You can't win this argument. It has it's basis not in fact, but in belief and interpretation of Old Testament law. My advice would be "agree to disagree", change the subject whenever it comes up, and if your friend persists, find a more agreeable friend.

me: I would agree here. Although, I must say, each one of us interprets the bible. Reading is interpreting. One's method of study and how one comes to their conclusions based on everything they have read and learned is all a part of interpretation.

 

[Spimman]

I am just curious of your friend still feels the need to make animal sacrifices or keep the sabboth Holy? Does he stay home, keep the lights off, not work on Saterday? If he thinks you should still follow the dietary commands of the Old Law, he should keep them all.
-Matt

 

[western kentucky]

Good point spimman!

Christians cannot go through the OT and pick and choose items to add to religious worship according to their personal taste. If a man is going to accept the OT as his authority for one item, he is a "debtor to the whole law" (Galatians 5:3). One must practice all of the OT or none of it.

 

[lyzard914]

Somewhere along the lines of this discussion, my acquaintance has turned into a friend… in real life, I don’t know if I can say this is the truth. I think that it may be that God has put him in my life to heckle me and in turn cause me to grow. He is a vegetarian anarchist… and in my opinion, worse than a non-believer since he was an ordained minister some decade and a half ago. He got fed up with the church he was at because he couldn’t get them to stop going out to eat on Sundays and eating shellfish and pork… as well as other various issues, I’m sure.



I am very thankful to everyone who posted here. Not only could I provide him with a solid, factual answer from my side, but understand why those who believe that what you eat can upset God.



"Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")
20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "



I have received various private emails telling me that God wouldn’t have given us these laws if we weren’t meant to keep them… And my last and final response is:



“16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”



He doesn’t add to this that if you eat bacon for breakfast you’re gonna burn in hell.

Thanks again everyone!