In the new testement the Apostle Paul says that everything created by God is good, and is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. There are some other verses in there.
In regard to 1 Timothy 4, are those teaching obedience to God's law really giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils (
1 Timothy 4:1)? Is obeying God departing from the faith (4:1)? Would such teaching be considered lies and hypocrisy (4:2)? Are the same teaching others not to marry (4:3)? What things are stated to be consecrated by the word of God and declared to be food and to be received in thanksgiving (4:4-5)? Is
Leviticus 11 no longer good doctrine (4:6)? Are God's commands old wives fables (4:7)? Are God's commands profane? (4:7) Are God's commands in
Leviticus 11 not Godliness (4:7)? Is
Leviticus 11 no longer Scripture and thus no longer instruction in righteousness or a basis for rebuking and correcting (
2 Timothy 3:16)? If you think that
1 Timothy 4:3-5 is abolishing the teachings of
Leviticus 11, then answering these questions becomes problematic.
2 Peter 3:14-18 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother
Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.
There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved,
knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
In other words, Paul letters plus being ignorant and unstable equals the error of breaking God's law.
1 Timothy 4:3-5 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created
to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for
it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
What does it mean to know the truth in verse 3? God's law, which includes dietary restrictions, is declared by Scripture to be the truth (
Psalms 119:142). If all animals are clean and suitable for eating, then
Leviticus 11 is no longer the truth, but Paul said that all Scripture is true and instruction in righteousness (
2 Timothy 3:16-17). Those who know the truth are those who know what animals God has given as food to eat, so verse 3 is talking about people who are teaching to abstain from eating meat that God has already said is good to eat according to the truth of His Word (
Leviticus 11). So these false teachers were not telling people to abstain from eating pork, which is not defined as food in Scripture. Keep in mind that when this letter was written to Timothy, "Scripture" meant the OT. In verse 3, the greek word for "food" is "broma" which is used to refer to foods that have already declared to be clean.
In verse 5, what does it mean to be made holy by the word of God and prayer? For something to be holy, it means to be set apart, which is the opposite of common or profane. If all animals are clean, then the animals would not be holy or set apart because animals that are set apart for eating must be set apart or separate from animals that are not set apart for eating. By definition, the very fact that there are a group of animals that are holy means that there must be some other separate group of animals that are not holy. If all animals are made clean, then by definition they would all be common, unholy, or not set apart. If all animals are made clean and set apart, then what are they set apart from? It is an oxymoron to say that all animals are sanctified. So those who believe and know the truth, God's law, will understand that the only creatures to be received with thanksgiving as food are creatures that have been set apart by the Word of God and prayer. This is why verse 4 uses the qualified "if" because the only animals to be received by prayer and thanksgiving are those listed as such in
Leviticus 11. We are to be thankful for clean animals as food, not for unclean things. Why would we be thankful for eating animals God told us were unclean?
If we pull in even more context, then we run into more problems. Was Paul really saying that God's commands are old wives fables, profane and ungodly? As absurd a that is, that's what must be asked if conclude that verse 4 is speaking against those teaching God's dietary commandments. In
1 Timothy 1:4,
2 Timothy 4:4,
Titus 1:14, and
2 Peter 1:16, "fables" is contrasted with the truth, the law, and God's Word. The problem in the 1st century was false doctrines, traditions, and teaching of men that were nullifying the law of God (
Mark 7:6-13). The commandments
Leviticus 11 are not fables, common, unholy, ungodly and profane, and are not doctrines of devils, so
1 Timothy 4 is actually in favor of keeping God's dietary laws.
Are you taking the old testement laws over the new ones in Christ?
Messiah did not give any laws that were brand new, but rather he taught how to correctly understand and obey OT law both by word and by example. In regard to John 13:34, there are two Greek words that are often translated as "new", one which refers to something that is brand new with respect to time, and something that is refreshed or refurbished with respect to quality, and the word that is used in respect to quality, so it was not a brand new command. Indeed, God commanded us to love our neighbor back in Leviticus 19:18, so there was nothing brand new about that command, but what was new was the quality of the example, where we are to love our neighbor as Messiah loved us rather than as we love ourselves. Another example of this is Matthew 9:17, where two different words are often translated as "new", but it is talking about pouring brand new wine into refurbished wineskins. See:
http://biblehub.com/text/matthew/9-17.htm
In regard to Matthew 5, when Jesus quoted Scripture, he said "it is written", but when he quoted what the teachers of the law were saying, he said "you have heard it said", so he was not adding new laws, but was correcting new teachings. For example:
Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
While the law certainly says to love your neighbor, it does not say to hate your enemy - that is what the teachers of the law had been wrongly teaching about the law.
Furthermore, according to Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from God's law, so if Jesus had added new laws or subtracted any old ones, then he would have sinned and been disqualified as the Messiah.
