Thoughts Of Shrimp & Pork

This may be considered as an A-Bomb for some, but Christians who purposely abstain from certain foods as a religious practice are practicing demonic doctrine—something as serious as departing from sound doctrine! This is not a matter of opinion.

The Great Apostasy

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, ² speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, ³ forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴ For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;

1 Timothy 4:1-4 NKJV

What makes it demonic exactly? It implies that one’s “work” of abstinence in this regard, makes one more pleasing to God. None of our works can earn our way to heaven or make us any holier than what Christ’s sacrifice has already achieved for us on the Cross.

“But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.”

1 Corinthians 8:8

This tastes much better with shrimp. After the pictures were taken, I crushed some Chicharrón (Pork rinds) and topped it on my rice noodles.

Can a Christian be considered unholy and defiled by eating shrimp and pork?

“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸ But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Matthew 15:17-20

Does eating shrimp or pork make one more of an adulterer, thief, liar or a slanderer?

Verse 20 also applies to this situation since the Old Testament refers to shrimp and pork as unclean (Leviticus 11). However, as a Gentile believer in Christ, this is what is prescribed for us,

“Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”

Acts 15:20

If pleasing God is the main reason why a believer chooses to abstain from eating certain foods prohibited in the Old Testament, the passage below gives us clarification on what it is a follower of Christ needs to do in order to please the Father,

“Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; ² for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

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