Perhaps One Reason God's People Couldn't Eat Pork

  Part III of a series on the Old Testament.

Bethany Laird

Did you know I write a monthly article just for email subscribers? It's true!

This month we're discussing how we Christians should apply the Old Testament to our lives. And yes, this includes a discussion about pork.

Here's how it starts:

 

If you, dear reader, have been with me from the beginning then you know I'm passionate about the Old Testament and the ways in which the New Covenant believer should apply it to his or her life. My first book, Do No Work, revolved around the Sabbath and the 4th commandment, but the subtext protruding from every page was this very issue of how a Christian should apply the Jewish Scriptures. Must we rest on the Sabbath? Must we observe the Sabbath on the seventh day?

Is it okay if we get tattoos? (Lev. 19:28)

Is it kosher to wear clothing made from mixed materials? (Deut. 20:11)

Would it be all right if I trimmed my beard? (Lev. 19:27) It's getting kind of scraggly.

What about cooking a goat in its mother's milk? (Exo. 23:19)

You get the point.

The Ten Commandments, originating in the Old Testament, elicit little controversy among Christians, and yet pretty much every Jesus freak I know trims his beard and eats bacon too. So why is it okay to eat pork but not to covet my neighbor's house (i.e. the 10th commandment)? Are we just picking and choosing which OT dictates to follow? Or is there some sort of rhyme or reason to Christianity's application of the Old Testament?

 

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See you next month!

Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible’s Most Famous Prophecy

As I seem to be doing more and more these days, I have taken on an utterly too ambitious topic for this article.

Maybe you could chalk it up to the inner masochist in me, but I don’t think such an explanation tells the (entire) story. Truth is, this subject has been in the back of mind for over three years, rattling around in there and surfacing every once in a while to see if I was ready for the task of tackling the issue of the virgin birth prophecy.

Mick Haupt

After learning that the word virgin in Isaiah 7:14 does not strictly mean virgin, I began wondering if skeptics' claims that early followers of Jesus mistranslated or misconstrued the Scriptures to suit their purposes are legitimate.

In truth, although I have done quite a bit of homework on this, I am in no way an authority on the subject. Furthermore, the web article format simply cannot do the issue the justice it merits. To say this issue could fill an entire book is no exaggeration as many authors have already undertaken and fulfilled the task.

Nevertheless, I think the issue is worth addressing and revisiting because it is important we know of deficiencies (or perceptions thereof) regarding the Bible.