Depart From Me! I Never Knew You, Eaters of Bacon!

Houston - Hair Balls ^ | Feb. 23 2009 | Katharine Shilcutt

[Alex Murphy]

Did you know that Joel Osteen is kicking it old school now?  And by old school, I mean Old Testament.  Straight outta Hebron!

The new-agey motivational speaker preacher at Lakewood Church took a bizarrely old-fashioned approach recently when he advised his congregation against eating both pork and seafood, saying that "...for our health's sake, we have to be willing to make some changes."

He further explained his newfound nutritional path to salvation with deeply theological phrases like "back in the Bible days" and "this is kinda gross" before launching into a detailed diatribe about the inherent filth and evil associated with porcine digestive tracts.

He appealed to his followers, "I know some of you love pork chops.  You love ham and cheese sandwiches.  I grew up on all that.  I love...bacon."  (The marked pause makes me think Joel doesn't really love bacon.)  But that they should follow the example set by his family -- who now eats turkey bacon -- and give up pork "to honor God."

He goes on to declare that his congregation should also avoid shellfish: "Shrimp, crabs, clams, oysters, lobsters..." because they eat the "excreetment [sic]" of other animals.

One can only assume that someone inadvertently left a Bible in the men's room at Lakewood, opened to Leviticus, and Joel -- since he hadn't brought his copy of The Six Figure Speaker with him that day -- read it to pass the time.

And having little to no theological education -- by his own admission -- nor context within which to understand the Old Testament's strictly-defined dietary laws, Joel interpreted the Bible's weird front pages that no one ever reads to mean that pork and seafood should be off-limits to Christians.  Because, clearly, other Biblical scholars have been mistaken about this for years.

Good work, Joel!  I look forward to your next sermon, wherein you discuss the segregation of women into red tents during their scary menstrual cycle each month.  In the meantime, I'll be eating a SCCOLBLT.  That's a shrimp-crab-clam-oyster-lobster-bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich, Philistine.

[Tax-chick]

Actually I believe the opposite is true.

St. Paul appears to have been on your side: "There is no Jew or Greek," ... "neither is circumcision of any value, nor uncircumcision," and so on.

[Scythian]

Excellent, and thanks, I took two years of Attic Greek myself, was able to read the GNT pretty well at one time, thank you very much for that.

[editor-surveyor]

"A WHOLE PIG?!? Wow!"

My youngest daughter's husband is an avid hunter. When he bags a boar, he calls home and tells her to fire up the backhoe and dig a pit. She was once a skinny, squeemish, almost vegetarian blonde that ate little meat, and wouldn't be in the same room with a fish.

She now eats everything, and even happily digs pits with a "stinky, noisy tractor."

[editor-surveyor]

Understood, but there once was a very valid reason not to eat pork, prior to modern farming, and ready access to biological testing.

[safisoft]

My purpose in specifying “jewish” when refering to the law was to clarify that his diet was prescribed by religious law not the government’s laws.

Israel was a theocracy by Divine revelation. That is what the Exodus was, G-d taking a people, a nation, as His own special treasure. If you read Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers you will see that all those who were in this treasured nation were not Jewish, not "Israelite" alone - but there were also Gentiles who were joined to Israel first in the exodus from Egypt, and then along the way.

The fact is, the traditional enumeration of 613 commandments found in the first five books of the Bible are defined as commandments of the L-RD - not "Jewish Law." So, Leviticus 11, and the dietary instructions found therein, are not "Jewish" - but given by the Almighty Himself.

Now, it is up to us. When asked which commandments apply to us, we can be like the "rich young ruler" (Matthew 19) when Jesus told him to "keep the commandments" - we can respond: "Which ones?" Or we can assume that anything spoken by a loving G-d is for our GOOD.

[Judith Anne]

Did you get the “Bacon Explosion” link yet? If not, let me know and I’ll put it up for you.

[DouglasKC]

Seems like old Joel has simply decided to believe God and do what He says on this.

[safisoft]

You apparently hold the belief that the face meaning of a Biblical allegory can contain a false message

The "face meaning" of Acts 10 is exactly what?

1. What was the voice from heaven?
2. Did Peter eat?
3. What did PETER say the vision meant? He says it TWICE for folks that can't read "face meaning."

Do you think maybe that when Peter had this vision he remembered this little oddly similar account?

"...And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight." Then the L-RD said, "So shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, where I will drive them." So I said, "Ah, L-RD G-d! Indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now; I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has abominable flesh ever come into my mouth. Then He said to me, "See, I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it." Ezekiel 4:12-15

Eating bread baked over human waste is also forbidden. So, apparently "voices from heaven" should not be obeyed if they tell you to do something that goes against the WRITTEN WORD.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. Galatians 1:8

If the vision had been a reality, and if Peter had done as instructed and eaten against the clear and obvious commandments of G-d, then he would have to deal with this passage:

"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass... you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the L-RD your G-d is testing you to know whether you love the L-RD your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul... You shall walk after the L-RD your G-d and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. Deuteronomy 13:1, 3-4

[Secret Agent Man]

Don’t forget, people who are teaching false doctrines don’t teach 100% false all the time, they mix the error in with truth.

http://www.forgottenword.org/meyers.html

http://www.trinityfi.org/press/JoyceMeyer6.html

http://www.pfo.org/wan-star.htm

http://www.trinityfi.org/press/JoyceMeyer2.html

http://www.libertytothecaptives.net/joyce_meyer_beware.html

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/joyce_meyers-heretic.htm

[Billg64]

I disagree with that assertion, but that is okay.

[safisoft]

Inspired scripture has both the Greek "KOINOS" (impure or made common) and ARKARTHATOS (unclean) in verse 14. There is a distinction between the two or God would not have had them both included in the same sentence.

Exactly. Throughout the "New Testament" English translations appear to be PURPOSEFULLY deceitful with regard to the translation of akartathatos and koinos. When koinos is used in the "New Testament" it is used to identify very specific rules that were in use in the First Century - and it is used in order to differentiate between the biblical instructions regarding food (akartathatos), and the man-made rules of the day (koinos). In this case, koinos was the very thing that prohibited pious Jews from associating with Gentiles. Koinos was about a man-made rule. Sadly, it appears the translators must know this (the Septuagint does not use koinos at all), but the translators continue to obfuscate the clear teaching of these passages for fear of causing "theological confusion" - just like must have happened in Houston the other day. I laughed when I thought of people leaving church that day, "I thought we didn't have to obey all those commandments. Yikes, there is more to living rightly than not being an adulterer, thief, murderer, liar, idolator, or homosexual?"

And then we have "experts" on this thread who have the audacity to say that we really only need to worry about the "Ten Word" [aka the Ten Commandments] - all the while ignoring the fact that Reformation Theology obscures the clear teaching of:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the L-RD your G-d. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the L-RD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the L-RD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11

[Alex Murphy]

Did you get the “Bacon Explosion” link yet? If not, let me know and I’ll put it up for you.

Oh, I did. I think I gained five pounds, and at least 30 points on my LDL count, just reading it.

[safisoft]

St. Paul appears to have been on your side: "There is no Jew or Greek," ... "neither is circumcision of any value, nor uncircumcision," and so on.

"...neither male nor female... So... men dressing up in women's clothing is OK? Or, is there still some sort of distinction in male and female?

Actually, what it appears that Supercesionists mean when they quote from Galatians 3:28 is that all Jews are supposed to look and act like pagan Gentiles...

[RobRoy]

>>
Actually, what it appears that Supercesionists mean when they quote from Galatians 3:28 is that all Jews are supposed to look and act like pagan Gentiles<<

Actually, the way I would put it is that Christian Jews are supposed to live as Christian Gentiles. And vice-versa.

I don’t know about that “Supercesionist” thing.

>>
“...neither male nor female... So... men dressing up in women’s clothing is OK? Or, is there still some sort of distinction in male and female?<<

Context is your friend. It is critical, actually.

[Diego1618]

But the translators continue to obfuscate the clear teaching of these passages for fear of causing "theological confusion"

Who'd a thunk they'd do sumpin' like dat?

Thanks for your insightful post.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fertile, increase in number, and fill the earth. All the wild animals and all the birds will fear you and be terrified of you. Every creature that crawls on the ground and all the fish in the sea have been put under your control. Everything that lives and moves will be your food. I gave you green plants as food; I now give you everything else. But you are not to eat meat with blood in it. (Blood is life.)” Genesis 9:1-4

And you quoted from 1 Timothy - “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer”

We live this way. Prayer changes everything. We are not under law, rather we are under God’s grace. And what does it mean, when God said to Noah, “Everything that lives and moves will be your food”?

I agree with you, and I also do not trust Mr O. I have listened to a sermon or two of his, and have no desire to listen to more.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***By all means, yes, let’s stone a policeman and fireman to death for cutting a traffic victim out of a burning car to save their life — on the SABBATH!!!****

Last year I had two little children come to my house. They had wandered away from home and got caught in a terrific rainstorm. They were both soaked to the skin. They had stopped to ask for help at five(5) Seventh Day Adventist houses near here and were rebuffed each time.
The SDA people would not get off their dead butts to help these soaked children because it was their Sabbath.

I wrote a hot post on FR but it was pulled after about 30 minutes. I have NO use for SDA self righteousness.

[editor-surveyor]

You don’t believe that trickenosis was a serious threat?

[Judith Anne]

In the center of mine, instead of bacon I chopped and sauteed red and yellow bell pepper, purple onion, garlic, mushrooms, and put the layer of them over the layer of sausage. Then, when I rolled it up and cooked it, it made a colorful pinwheel inside the sausage.

I served it in 1/2 in slices on Grands biscuits. I had also made giant cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, and served all that with those big California navel oranges. I’m telling you, we ate for like an hour.

All of us have had a year of stopping smoking, losing weight, being super healthy, this weekend was just a foodie weekend. I baked like a fiend. German chocolate cake, tollhouse cookies with pecans and choc chips, homemade bread, a plain yellow cake to serve the strawberries and whipped cream over...

The big hit was the bacon explosion, though. There were ten of us eating, and there are leftovers I threw in the freezer because I just can’t bear the thought of any more tempting delicious outstanding beautiful pork....I normally wake early, so I had it in the oven around 6 a.m. and around 8:30 took it out, we ate around 9 a.m. till 10...

[Judith Anne]

ps I hope brie is okay on Fridays, that and those tiny wheat crackers are delectable. Sometimes I serve it with raspberries, but I love plain brie...