Leviticus 11: Food Matters to God

“You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.” -Leviticus 11:47

Food matters to God. In fact, he spends all of Leviticus 11 explaining which food were okay and not okay for his people. We don’t understand all of the reasons for his choices, but he clearly cared about what his people ate.

He still does. In the New Testament, God speaks about gluttony (overeating) the same way he speaks of too much alcohol, lying, gossip, and others sins. Why? One reason is food can take priority over God. So it’s an issues of worship.

Another reason is that our body is a witness. An overweight preacher generally is seen as lacking authority or integrity when he speaks about physical health. Why? His body does not match the message. The same is true for all of us. We undermine our ability to communicate what God says about food when our body does not reflect a proper diet.

That said, I still like cookies. There was nothing in Leviticus 11 about them, so I will continue to eat them. But if I’m following God’s plans for my body, I’ll stop before they hurt my witness or my walk with God.

Let’s talk about it on Facebook! Share your thoughts, pictures, or videos on handwriting Scripture.

+++

Dillon Burroughs is the author and coauthor of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.