Does the fifteenth verse of Mark 7, giving the words of Christ Himself, indicate that Christians are to choose what they eat or drink according to their liking? And as to science, should it enter into this question at all? Should not the Word of God be the guide alone? Your remarks, Mr. Editor, as to eating pork, are that it is unwise. So some tell us as to the use of tea and coffee, that they poison our systems. Now it is well known that thousand of good Christians consume tea and coffee as well as pork. It is hard to understand why pork should be placed as one of the most abominable things when we remember that all that God made was ''very good,'' according to His Word. I can not see what the investigation of slaughter-houses has to do with the eating of pork. Is it not like the Jewish washing of hands, of no vital importance? One Bible scholar takes Bible ground for the drinking of wine—of course not grape juice; another Bible scholar strongly condemns the drinking of fermented wine. Can both men be right? If so, should not the controversy on these questions cease and allow every sensible Christian to be persuaded in his own mind.
SEARCHER.
1. First of all let us say that Mark 7:15 does not refer to distinctions between clean and unclean foods at all. The question that was before the Saviour was not as to what beasts were fit to eat and what were not. It was a mere matter of following Jewish ceremonial laws of their own devising, or paying no attention to them. Let the context itself decide as to the meaning of the text in question.
2. We should not make our likings the guide in our eating and drinking. While our likings should not be ignored, they should certainly not be made primary. The primary thing in our eating and drinking, and all things else, is the glory of God,—"Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." True temperance is not moderation in all things, but moderation in all things good. We would smile even at the fatal result of a man who took prussic acid or potassium cyanide, in fatal doses, if he said before expiring that he took it in moderation! The best definition, as the word is used in the Bible, is self control, having absolute control over the appetite, passions, and physical emotions. Another good definition from our human view-point is, Moderation in all things good; total abstinence from all things evil.
3. As to science. Science means knowledge, and true science is true knowledge; and when the world has, through scientific experiment of six thousand years, demonstrated by science that the use of pork is not wholesome, why not accept it? Science, or knowledge, has demonstrated that a certain size post of a certain kind of timber will bear so much weight safely, and no more. If a builder or architect puts more than that weight upon the timber the building falls, and he is held responsible; not because he put timber in there, but because he did not give heed to knowledge which had been demonstrated. If one is ill of almost any disease, one of the first foods always prohibited by the wise physician is pork. Thousands upon thousands have used it for years to the detriment of their health, and have always been benefited when they gave it up. Is not this experience worth something? The use of pork is a sin if we are transgressing physical law in the use of it. It may be a sin of ignorance which God does not hold against us. It may be to the strong man whose bodily functions readily throw off the poisons in food of no effect, but through his using it, others who are weaker may be led to use it, and so become greatly injured thereby.
4. As to tea and coffee. The only reason in the world that people form the habit of using tea and coffee is for the toxic principle in these drinks. The thein in tea and caffein in coffee are poisons, and as poisons, intoxicating in a degree to all who use them. Used in large quantities they tend to disturb the entire system. There is no argument in their favor, there is every argument against them.
5. True it is that the Lord pronounced everything that He made ''very good,'' but that was before sin entered and perverted His work. He has certainly pronounced evil since that which is made evil because of perversion. It is well to remember that it is God's Word that classes swine's flesh with the abominable. See Lev. 11:7, 8; Isa. 65:4. No, the condition of slaughter-houses would not have any particular bearing as to whether the things handled there were good or bad, except for those who get their food from there.
6. As regards Bible wine. We are certainly told to "look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright." Prov. 23:31. There is other wine in the Bible that is commended. Certainly the ancients knew both fermented and unfermented wine. However, they knew no distilled drinks. Their intoxicating drinks were fermented; their unintoxicating drinks non-fermented. They had also a way of preserving the unfermented wine so that it could be kept. It is very difficult indeed to compare wine of the old Bible times with the wine of the present day. When the Word of God warns us against the drinking of it, when it declares, "Wo unto him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor's lips," when it classes drunkenness among such sins as murder and adultery, it certainly ought to mean something to a Christian. When it declares that it "is neither good to eat flesh nor drink wine, nor do anything else whereby thy brother stumbleth or is made weak," it certainly ought to mean something to a Christian. When thousands upon thousands abstain from these things constantly, and have abstained through all the ages of the past, and have been just as healthy and lived even more happily, this ought to mean something to the Christian. And certainly the progressive man ought to be willing to be instructed; and the agitation of these questions help to instruct. And yet it is true that every Christian, sensible or otherwise, ought to be "persuaded in his own mind" on all that he does. Whether right or wrong, whether to do or not to do, whether commanded of God or not commanded, "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;" but in persuading himself it is well that he take for his guide God's Word, and yield to that motive which is to the glory of God.