Thou shalt not eat kitty cats and puppy dogs.
I find it disheartening that for 50 years, I didn't bother to dig and search to see what my Father was really saying. Oh, yes, I have all the excuses. I relied on the pastor. I listened to Kay Arthur or David Jeremiah or Charles or Andy or Craig. I participated in studies from Beth Moore, Chuck Swindol, Chip Ingram and the likes. I hung out with the church folk. But I didn't bother to read the bible from the eyes of the audience it was written to.
Let's say you and I are Israel. Lets say our great grandparents(to the 10th power) was at the base of Sinai, they were gentiles (foreigners) who came into covenant with the chosen ones and accompanied them out of Egypt. Just prior to that magnificent burning mountain scene, what would be our world view? Certainly we would have just participated in one of the most incredible miracles to have ever happened. We just walked down into a sea, across the bottom of it with walls of water reaching up farther than we can determine on either side of us. We were terrified! We were amazed! We RAN to get across before the water could decide to drown us. And then we saw our awesome God do exactly that to our enemies...the very ones who abused and oppressed us and our forefathers for the last 400 years.
But what was our life like during this time? How did we serve this God? Have you ever thought about those things and put yourself in those shoes? What we can read from the bible is that these people knew, already, the law of YHVH. The Torah had to have been verbalized, otherwise, how did Noah know what was "food" or clean/unclean animals? How did Abimalech know that adultery with Sarah was wrong? In fact, how did Cain and Abel know what sacrificing meant and which kind was acceptable to YHVH? How did the sin of murder charge Cain as guilty if he didn't know of such sin? These events were centuries before Sinai.
My point is...that we have to read the bible and ponder these questions. We have to allow the obvious to stand out and become red flags to us. If our Father identified sin to mankind from the beginning, and His word says that He never changes, then that obviously means it doesn't change both forward and backward. His instructions or His Torah are eternal because He is eternal. What does that mean to us? Well it means we've been sold a bill of goods that has a mixture of truth and a great deal of error.
Here is an interesting fact about Noah. In Chapter 9 of Genesis, he was told that now "every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you". Stop and think about that. That word translated as "meat" is OKLAH. It is used for things besides meat, like "all seed bearing plants" but it is never used for anything unclean. So the word "meat" is not really a good translation. Oklah is a Hebrew word that is only associated with "food". In other words, "food" is only what YHVH said we could actually put in our mouths and eat; only what He had determined was clean for us and it is never used for a beast or wild animal, a kitty cat or a puppy dog (or lobster or shrimp or pork). So what do you suppose is being said to Noah if Noah already understood that the Torah is eternal and doesn't change? Chew on this (no pun intended). Noah was told to bring 2 of every unclean animal and 7 pairs of clean animals. He was also told to store every kind of "food that is to be eaten for you and for them". In other words, Noah already knew what "OKLAH" was. He did not have to be instructed; we are the ones intruding upon this time in history and trying to understand.
So the flood happens and wipes everything and everyone off the face of the earth and the first thing Noah does after getting off the ark is sacrifice an animal. Wait a minute. What would be left to sacrifice if Noah had just spent over a year on the ark and the 6 pairs of clean animals were ingested long ago? And for that matter, how would the clean animals still be around today if Noah had eaten them, fed them to the other animals or sacrificed the last remaining "clean" pair? Maybe, just maybe what YHVH is saying to Noah upon leaving the ark, is not about a new definition of "food" as many of our churches teach, but more about NOW, you can eat the animals (that I already told you were "oklah", remembering that is the Hebrew word in the passage) again, since I had instructed you to eat only those things you had STORED while on the ark. It is a discussion that doesn't change the ETERNAL definition of food but instructions to allow Noah and his family to go off their vegetarian (or stored food) diet.
Does this put a whole new spin on our understanding of scripture? How about new insight into Peter's vision? Yes, the vision is confusing to us because we want to relate the clean and unclean animals, not to gentiles receiving the gospel, but to our eating of them as food. But is that what Peter understood? Did Peter draw the conclusion that we say is the correct understanding of this passage? If our theology is correct, did Peter not get the memo from Y'shua earlier in His ministry when He said "nothing that goes into your mouth makes you unclean but what comes out"? Because it seems that Peter, by his own confession, has still not eaten anything unclean even after that sermon. I'm curious why not, when all of our evangelical churches cite these verses as evidence that the law is done away with. Did Peter get up from the vision and go eat bacon? Was he shattered to think that "eternal" is no longer eternal and that YHVH's word can now change? Or perhaps we need to look a little closer into these passages. Perhaps Y'shua's sermon was about adding Talmud laws to Torah and not about changing the definition of "food".
While I know these things are definitely causing hard feelings amidst discussions these days, it is undeniable that we read the bible through the eyes of our own bias and not through the eyes of the actual audience. I hope that those of you reading this email will be curious enough to reconcile these truths. Otherwise, there are some serious issues that we will have to come to terms with about our future.
Isa 56:2 Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.
3 Neither let the son of the stranger(goyim, gentile), that hath joined himself to YHVH, speak, saying, YHVH hath utterly separated me from His people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.
4 For thus saith YHVH unto the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My covenant;
5 Even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
6 Also the sons of the stranger(gentile), that join themselves to YHVH, to serve Him, and to love the name of YHVH, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant;
7 Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon Mine altar; for Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
Isa 66:15 For, behold, YHVH will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by His sword will YHVH plead with all flesh: and the slain of YHVH shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith YHVH.
