Make Love not War and whatever you eat or drink, do it to the Glory of God

 Read Genesis 9

Which animals did God tell Adam he could eat? If you find any listed in the creation accounts, please let me know.

Which animals did God tell Noah he could eat?  All of them.

But were there not clean and unclean animals?  For sacrificial purposes, yes.  Noah knew before the flood which animals were clean and unclean for sacrifices to God.

Were they clean and unclean for eating as well?  The question is illogical, nonsensical, and nonrational. That’s a question without reason.  God did not give Adam permission to eat anything with a heartbeat. The dichotomy for clean and unclean was initially for sacrificial purposes.

When the time came for God to grant mankind the chance to eat meat, he did not discriminate. He said you can eat everything that lives and moves about. You need to drain the blood from it, but you can eat it.

That’s going to continue all the way to Abraham.  After Abraham, it continues in Ishmael’s line today. Drain the blood.

The law that came through Moses made some changes for the descendants of Isaac.  Animals for eating and even touching were defined as clean and unclean as God separated a people for himself from all the peoples of the world.

These dietary directives separated one people from all of the peoples of the world.  God made them all but he was using one group to do special things in the world he created.

With the Advent of Christ and his death and resurrection, God returned us to the diet approved for Noah.  God chose all people to be his through Christ Jesus.  What you eat or drink would not come between you and God.

And the animal kingdom would fear us.  Maybe that’s because we might eat them or it could be because God told humankind to fill the earth.  The animals—nature would yield to us as we expanded into the world.

We still have stewardship over the world and the creatures in it, but we should not have conflict.  If we are destroying a species, it’s not up to the species to fight against us.

We as stewards of the world should see that these things don’t happen.

As for the blood of man, we received an early commandment.  Thou shalt not kill.  It’s a forerunner of commandments to come in the vein of an eye for an eye.

We see a forerunner of the law and the first time that God granted humankind the authority to kill another person made in the image of God.

The sole occasion was that the condemned party had killed another person.  They had shed human blood.

We are made in the image of God.  Killing an animal for food was fine.  Killing another person was not.  We don’t see any of the legal categories that we do today.  Malice aforethought was not mentioned.

There should be no reason to kill anyone, but if someone did kill another person, the penalty was death. The penalty would be carried out by mankind.

By the time we get to the Law of Moses, there are all sorts of special conditions on killing and injury, but for now, nobody should kill anybody, but if they did, they too must be put to death by humans.

In this, we also see the beginnings of human government.

Humankind’s mission was to make people not kill them.  It’s like the 60s all over again, except several millennia ago without the headbands and peace signs.  What?

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR!

God has rebaselined humankind.  He gave us a new diet.  He gave us the same command to multiply and fill the earth.  He gave us a directive against killing and the consequences for violating this directive.

We don’t have any directives on consuming alcohol at this point; though Noah could have used one.

For now, let’s connect with the full biblical witness.

My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

And if you are cooking ribeyes, I like mine medium.

Amen.