QUESTION CORNER by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 10, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 31.

QUESTION CORNER

By Milton C. Wilcox

CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

160 — EATING MEAT

Is it the Adventist belief that we should not eat meat? And is it not just as much harm to use butter, milk, and eggs? When one is sick, it is difficult to get anything that will take the place of broth, and Jesus ate fish. I wish to find out if the laws concerning the clean and the unclean meats were abolished, or is it a burden that some people have taken upon them in the last days? INQUIRER.

First of all, the Lord does not want us to make the matter of diet an unbearable burden. When He called the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, He gave them laws concerning clean and unclean meats. These laws are found in Leviticus 11, and repeated in Deuteronomy 14. The Lord did not at that time make, arbitrarily, certain animals clean and certain animals unclean. This distinction existed all the way through, as we learn in Genesis 7. What He did was to show what animals belonged to the unclean class and what belonged to the clean class. He evidently did this for the good of His people. He wanted them to abjure the unclean meats because these were unwholesome; and science has told us the same ever since.

The swine is still one of the most unwholesome of animals. Unhealthy itself, its meat is unwholesome to humanity. It is one of the first foods forbidden when one is sick. When disease or epidemic gets in among swine, it is more fatal than among other animals—hog cholera, for instance. The very term “scrofula” comes from a Latin word meaning “sow.”

But more than that, science has told us in these days, and experience has demonstrated, that the flesh of all animals is becoming more and more diseased. One of the reasons for this is doubtless the spreading of disease by the mixing of herds, until whole herds are contaminated, which could not take place anciently as in these days; and these in turn contaminate others, until it is almost impossible to find a herd that is not infected.

Some of the very best herds in the United States, kept purely and solely for scientific purposes, have been found to be half or more tubercular. It is for this reason that Seventh-day Adventists and other reformers have felt that it was better to discontinue a meat diet altogether. They do not contend that God’s word expressly enjoins that, but that it does favor it. This is shown in the fact that the original bill of fare contained no meat at all. See Genesis 1. It clearly intimates that men would do better to go back to the original diet of fruits, grains, nuts, and vegetables. And experience has demonstrated that this is true if such foods are properly prepared and man uses them temperately. But the Bible does not forbid in law the use of these things.

Jesus did eat fish. God’s servants did eat meat. We are told expressly that the law which enjoined meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances passed away. But He did give us a rule that is just as binding as any of the rules of the past—found in 1 Cor. 10:31: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

That is the rule that the Christian ought to follow. There may be times when one may be so placed that he must eat things that he naturally would not choose. In such case, let him do it temperately and properly, to the glory of God, believing that the Lord will overrule those things for good. If he is able to select his diet, let him do that, not with the idea of burdening himself, not with the idea of feeling that if he lives on such and such a diet, he is made righteous by it, for “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” So declares the apostle in that wonderful chapter, Romans 14.

The true, intelligent Christian will endeavor to select just those things which are best for him; which will give him the strongest body, the clearest mind, and the most spiritual and responsive affections. Flesh-eating makes one gross. Intemperate eating and drinking of any kind of food, however good, has the same effect. The Christian should aim in all things to render the best and fullest service to His Master.

There is another thing connected with the vegetarian diet, or the diet of fruit, grains, and vegetables: It is less expensive than the meat diet. It does not call for such frequent meals as does a meat diet. The fact has been demonstrated, again and again, that those who live on a vegetarian diet can endure more than those who live on a flesh diet. Everything in science, all the general teaching of the Word, the experience of humanity, and the experience of Christian life, speak for a vegetable diet. It seems to us that the intelligent, faithful Christian will follow the better way, and will take as instruction that which God has Himself clearly revealed in His word, if not always in law, in principles as strong as law.

We would commend our readers to some of the excellent vegetarian cook books, and also to the little tract published by this house, “The Danger of Flesh-Eating,” giving the experience of a doctor and an editor.

161 — SUNDAY IN GERMANY

Some time ago, in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Mr. Hall stated that one publishing house in Europe was so pressed with work that they had to work Sunday, and applied to the German government, and received permission so to do. Is Germany so intolerant that men are not allowed to work on Sunday without special permission? A. K.

It is in Germany as it is in most of the countries of the Old World. All of them have Sunday laws; and of course if work is to be done on Sunday, special permission must be received from the authorities. Of course there ought not to be such a thing as a Sunday law in a Protestant country; but it can be said of Germany, as of other Protestant countries, that they did not come out into the fullness of light so as to separate utterly church and state. Sunday is one of the heritages that was left from the Roman Catholic Church. If Germany and England too, had gone on in their reformation until creeds had been entirely swept away, and the word of God had become dominant, it would have had no such thing as Sunday laws on the statute books of professed Protestant countries.

162 — THE CHANGE OF TIME

Who changed the time in the starting of the day from sundown to twelve o’clock at night? R. P. W.

No one knows just when the day began to be reckoned at midnight. It came through the Egyptians into Rome. That is about all that we know about it. God’s time is just where it always was, and the day begins just where it always did, at sunset,—the natural time of the beginning of the day, the natural time of the ending of the day. We have never as yet seen any record as to when the Egyptians or the Romans began to reckon the beginning of the day at midnight.