God instructs Man to eat meat

Introduction: When trying to be too politically correct can go wrong

In late October 2009, Prince Philip convened a meeting of leaders of the world's major religious faiths ? Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, Taoist, Bahai, and more ? in order to discuss with them and work out a strategy to combat climate change.

Not wanting to offend any of them, and to be as correct as possible, the Prince had arranged for a vegan meal to be served.

Oh dear!

A vegan meal might be the preferred choice of a Hindu, but it wouldn't, or shouldn't, be the choice of a committed Christian, Jew or Muslim. Although I don't know the Koran, the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, which forms bases for all three religions, makes it very clear that meat is the correct food for a devout follower of the religions of 'The Book'. The evidence is everywhere. I have listed some of it below and am indebted to pastor and Bible teacher Stephen Van Nattan (www.blessedquietness.com, hill-country-blog-texas.blogspot.com/) for most of what follows.

All quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Biblical evidence for meat eating

The first clue as to what we should eat are found early on in Genesis with the story of Cain and Abel and the account of the first recorded offering to Jehovah.

And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.'

This story's message is obvious: meat and fat were regarded as far superior to vegetables.
Further on in Genesis 45:17-18 we learn by inference that both Jews and Egyptians thought well of a high-meat-fat diet:

'And Pharaoh said unto Joseph . . . ?Take your father and your households, and come unto me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land?.'

And from Isaiah 25:6:

'And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things . . . of fat things full of marrow.'

(That's marrow from animal bones, not the vegetable kind. You will find no praise of vegetables in the Bible.)

And after Noah rode out the flood, and after he and his family left the ark, God made things even clearer:

Genesis 9:

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Blood eating was forbidden, but this seems to be because ceremonially the blood was later to become exclusively part of the animal sacrifice after Moses' Law was given. Or perhaps it was meant to stop the eating of living animals.

In the Post Flood era, (which is still in progress) Noah could eat anything that moved. Neither Moses in his day, nor Jesus in his day, changed that except to prohibit pork and some birds. Possibly for ceremonial reasons.

The Passover-

In Exodus 12, God told Moses that each Hebrew family must kill a lamb and eat it all in one evening, and the next day they left Egypt. This Passover has never lost its highest ceremonial significance to Jews. It now includes eggs with the lamb, which was probably already the case in Jesus' day.

Christians are to kill and eat meat in the Church Age:

Peter, who was to become one of the great Apostles of the Church Age, needed to realize that God was setting aside the law of Moses so that Gentiles could believe the Gospel and be included in the Church. God chose to deal with one area only out of circa 360 laws of Moses ? food:

Acts 10

9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:
10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,
11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:
12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
16 This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.

No carbs and not veggies! Imagine that.

The Apostle Paul put it another way in a letter to the Christians at Corinth.

1 Corinthians 10:

25 Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake:
26 For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
27 If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

The 'shambles' was the market place. In those days nothing was processed. Eat it all, says Paul. We are not to let our conscience deny us from enjoying food that is offered to us. Of course, again, the food was all 'organic' and cooked without being corrupted by General Mills or Nestl?.

This 'conscience' issue Paul mentioned: Modern doctors are trained to put people under guilt to force them to change their diet. Guilt is only useful if it is based on truth and reality.

So it abundantly obvious that a devout Jew, Christian, or Muslim, particularly if he is a fundamentalist, believing in the literal word of 'The Book', can never be a vegan without denying the word of God.