…Some say that it was not God’s original plan for us to eat meat. His original plan was for us to go around naked, but things have changed…
Dear Pearls,
We have heard that eating meat was not God’s original plan for man and that it is unhealthy. Since our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, it stands to reason that we should not eat meat. This would also seem to apply to dairy products. I also wonder about the wisdom in consuming any of the forms of caffeine. My husband thinks I am nitpicking, making a big deal over nothing, but I believe otherwise.
A reader
Michael Answers:
You heard that eating meat is unhealthy? You heard wrong. The latest, most up-to-date scientific evidence is that meat is very good for you. Soybeans and pasta will kill you, after it diminishes your sex drive and shrivels up your backbone, but meat—red, juicy meat, with a little sizzled fat, will keep you alive longer and put some kick in your love life. Have you never noticed all the bent-over, pale and sickly vegetarians?
You said it was not God’s original plan for us to eat meat. His original plan was for us to go around naked, but things have changed. His original plan called for us living in a garden with a health food tree that sustained life, no matter what you ate (Gen 3:22 with Rev 22:2). We live on a cursed earth and eat cursed vegetables and grains (Gen 3:17-18) and cursed meat (Rom 8:21), putting them into a cursed body everyday. So forget about how Adam and Eve lived. The question is: What is the will of God under our present circumstances?
Scripture throws a great deal of light on this Satanic doctrine of abstaining from meats. Read 1 Timothy 4:1-5. It tells us that “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils…commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Did you read it? God created creatures to be eaten. When he created the cow, he had Sunday roasts and Saturday night steaks in mind.
He said meat “is good, and nothing to be refused.” All meat “is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” I eat only sanctified cows, deer, pigs, rabbits, rattle-snakes, chickens, and iguanas. I once ate a parrot worth about $1,000.00. I was in the jungle, and at the time it seemed like a good idea. Tasted terrible. I wouldn’t recommend it. I even ate a long-legged crane for supper one day. We had to have two platters just to hold the drumsticks. Another time in the jungle, I caught a boa constrictor about ten feet long. Those watching said it caught me, but I barbequed it and invited the natives. About twenty showed up for the after-church dinner. It was the longest meal I ever ate. Tasted like chicken, of course. I had turtle on the half shell once. It comes with its own bowl, you know. Once was enough. I won’t gross you out with stories of the unclean things I have eaten. I prayed over all these “creatures” given by God “to be received with thanksgiving.”
My children have eaten almost everything that crawls, jumps, or slithers. My daughter has eaten live grub worms. The total doctor’s visits for sickness, of all my children put together, wouldn’t pay one nurse’s salary for a week. At fifty-eight, my immune system is so high, I’m even immune to criticism. And none of us eat toe food. Now, don’t go away with your feelings hurt. Read some more Scripture on the subject. God commanded, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” (Gen 9:3).
God commanded the Israelites to eat meat. In Exodus 12, he commanded every man to kill a lamb, roast it, and eat all of it, with no leftovers. And then he told them that it would be an ordinance that they should eat this Passover lamb every year forever.
In Luke 22:7-15 Jesus ate the Passover lamb, and promised to do so again after his second coming (v. 16). No Jew could be a vegetarian at Passover.
Killing and eating flesh was a blessing from the LORD according to Deut. 12:15-16. When God visited Abraham, he and two angels ate milk, butter, and meat (Gen. 18:1-8). Did you get that? Read it yourself. God ate meat! When Jesus had an opportunity to direct the multitude in what constituted a good meal, he fed them bread and meat, and even saved the leftovers (John 6:11-12). On another occasion, Jesus prepared a meal for his disciples. It was also bread and fish (John 21:12-13). After Jesus’ resurrection, when he was in his glorified eternal state, he ate meat in their presence (Luke 24:42-43). When we sing the song “Come and dine, the Master calleth,” it is to a table spread with meat, not celery and almond butter.
God advertised the Promised Land as a place flowing with milk and honey (Deut. 26:9). The Bible predicted that Messiah would eat butter and honey (Is. 7:15). Would you deny your son butter and honey when the Scripture so clearly says it was good for Jesus to eat both?
A Christian who feels guilty for eating meat is said to be weak in faith (Romans 14:2). Religious vegetarians had their Scriptural support jerked out from under them long ago, so they have shifted strategy, telling us that the Bible does not command us to abstain from meats, but that it is wise to not eat. Was Jesus unwise when he ate dairy and meat and fed it to others?
Don’t get your health advice from religious women or cult magazines trying to steal your liberty in Christ and bring you under bondage to the Mosaic Law. Ignore any health publication that is trying to sell you something or that is based on a “new age” worldview.
Michael Pearl
I believe in that eating meat is fine, just not the unclean meats God listed in the Bible. Trichinosis is only obtained from eating unclean meats (pigs, bears, etc). Recently I heard of a woman who was operated on for a brain tumor only to find out it was a worm, which doctors believed was caused by eating pork. There are so many books available telling how unhealthy pork and other unclean meats are to eat (non-Adventist authors). Shellfish, for example, clean the waste from the ocean (which God created them to do). I am not Adventist, so we eat plenty of meat and dairy. But I am very health conscience and concerned for the health of my children as well. I am a nurse and have seen so many patients with cancer and other chronic diseases. Before a heart stress test on one of my patients, the doctor ordered sausage for the patient to eat for breakfast (obviously because it causes stress on the heart). Thank you for your many articles on herbs. I am a true believer in using natural remedies when able. I think too many Americans are on too many drugs and a poor diet.
I am so thankful for the NGJ ministry. I remember eating this article in November 2003 at our family Thanksgiving get together. I had just begun to revisit my former vegetarian ways and had even gotten my husband and kids to shun animal products for “health” reasons.There are a lot of books that can be very convincing on the subject. But when Michael Pearl quoted those scriptures of TRUTH, peppered with his humorous straight talk I felt like scales fell from my eyes! Doctrines of devils indeed! I enjoyed thanksgiving turkey that day and have recieved God’s gifts of meat, milk, butter and honey with GREAT freedom ever since.
Many thanks Mr. Pearl!! Also because of your ministry my man has decided that reading the Bible and believing and obeying what it says is enough. He’s a new man and our family is growing in grace and truth. May God continue to bless this ministry!
Well I too fell into that trap. I was a raw vegan for a long time (and my body felt healthier for it though I quite honestly can’t say that it was my mind or my nutrition that made it that way), going back to before sin and fall of man. I based my “religious” feelings on it, knowing full well that meat was used in the bible but grew up hearing the words of liberal public school doctrines of why meat is murder. What fools, these mortals be, huh? I will thank the Lord for everything I put in my mouth, and I will be happy and healthy because of it.
Thank you NGJ for pulling the blinders off of my eyes and reminding me that if God said it’s good, then who am I to disagree?
in response to the lady talking about pork, etc. i would like to say i can’t imagine that the bible or michael are saying that ‘processed’ meats are healthful. it’s the processed pork products that cause the most disease- as well as undercooking. Not to mention, there are worms and parasites and bugs in just about everything. if we are eating healthfully our bodies can handle these invaders just fine. did the woman with the brain tumor eat a lot of sugar? i think the issue can get really overcomplicated and the point is that we as christians should not be blown with the wind by fad diets.
I totally understand what Michael is saying about praying over the food before he eats. Which I’ve done particularly ferverently on occasion and think is a wise idea, but we differ a little… Here’s where: If God said that certain “scavengers” (nature’s ‘trash men’) with pretty basic digestive systems (think “what they eat…we eat”) are not good for us to eat…and a pig is still a pig after all this time… It stands to reason that it’s still not good for us to put in our bodies. It’s not a salvation issue at all. But if he made, us, he probably has a pretty good idea on what the proper care and handling of our earthly bodies is. My family and I choose to try to avoid those specific things he told us not to eat based on trying to be as healthy as possible. Again, It’s not a salvation issue, but I respect what he knows (a.k.a. everything) and says in his word. I don’t think we as Christians should fight about it at all, because each one of us needs to be fully convinced in his or her own mind (Romans 14) and that is the place that God has brought us to at that moment in our walk/life. For me understanding Acts 10 was a key. Many understand this as God making all things clean (v. 15)but the passage interprets itself later (v. 28) that it wasn’t about food but about preaching the Gospel to the unclean Gentiles. This is where God has brought our family as we sought a healthier lifestyle believing God could and would direct us. It’s something to ponder…just because we have the “freedom” to do something doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for us to do.
1Co 10:23 “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”
The Bible does not command us to eat meat, unless of course you are Jewish and it’s Passover. If you live on a farm and raise your own meat, or personally know the farmer you bought it from and can be assured it was not cloned or pumped full of the hormones which cause our children to age much faster than God intended, you can certainly eat meat. And if you don’t, there are certainly places to buy good meat if you don’t live on a farm. Pr 4:7 “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” 1Co 6:19 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” It’s a simple choice.If the food is unhealthy and harmful, don’t eat it. If it is not, eat it.
Meat is not bad, chemicals and processing are. There is no reason to eat food you know is unhealthy because someone threatens to call you weak and demonic if you do not. Likewise, there is no reason not to eat something you know is good and tasty and nourishing because someone threatens to call you a disgusting murderer. It was never about food, it was about souls, witness, and liberty.
If you chose not to eat meat, enjoy; but don’t do it because you say the Bible says it’s bad, it does not say that and meat is not “wrong”. You cannot try to teach being a vegetarian as doctrine, shunning all carnivores as brutish and unenlightened, that’s hogwash, God gave us dominion over all animals (Ge 1:26), and gave all animals except the unclean to eat after the flood (Gen 9:3). Then he made it all lawful in the new testament (Rom 14:14).If you choose not to eat it, do it because what they are doing to the meat is bad. If you choose to eat meat, enjoy. Do not defame people who choose not to, unless they declare their vegetarianism as some kind of evolved religious doctrine. If you don’t know, do what is comfortable, and don’t let anyone, convince, belittle, bully or scare you into the other way. Ro 14:23 “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” This should be a non-issue, we have souls to reap, and we argue about what we had for dinner.
Look at our teeth. God wanted us to eat meat. It’s as simple as that. If God didn’t want us to eat meat, we’d all have big, flat teeth like herbivores, used for grinding plants, leaves, twigs and other non-meats.
God created our teeth, correct? God chose for us to have sharp teeth for tearing and blunt teeth for grinding. I think it’s pretty easy to see that meat is for man.