Can a Christian eat pork? Can a disciple of Jesus order the bacon cheeseburger without sinning? Some say yes. Others say, “Absolutely not—haven’t you read Leviticus?” So what’s the truth? What does the Bible actually say? Does God tell us what we can and cannot eat?
Someone might reason, “Well, if God created it, then go for it! He wouldn’t create something and then forbid us from eating it.” But actually, the first commandment in the Bible that limited human behavior was a dietary restriction. Before sin ever entered the world, God told Adam what he could and could not eat.
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:15–17
Then after Adam sinned, the consequence even included what would be on the menu for Adam and his family:
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.
Genesis 3:18
So, yes, God has always had something to say about what people eat.
Adam and Eve were given fruit and herbs for food. But what about meat? Actually, we have no record of anyone eating meat with God’s approval until after the flood.
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”
Genesis 9:1–4
As far as we can tell from Scripture, this is the first time meat was permitted to be on the menu. This menu would have included pork, as God told Noah, “every beast of the earth… shall be food for you.” But if you’re familiar with the account, you may be aware that there was a distinction between clean and unclean animals when it came to flood preparation. Genesis 7 tells us that there were two of every kind of unclean animal, and seven of every clean animal that went onto the ark. Wouldn’t that mean that Noah had some understanding of which animals could and couldn’t be eaten before the flood? Not necessarily. Let’s remember that Moses wrote the book of Genesis centuries after Noah to the nation of Israel. Yes, it records what happened in Noah’s life, but it was written originally for the benefit of those who did have the food laws in the Law of Moses. According to Genesis 9, Noah was permitted to eat pork. It wasn’t until hundreds of years later that the Law of Moses explained the distinction between clean and unclean animals.
But what about us living as followers of Jesus (not Moses) in the twenty-first century? I remember one night when I was working at a fast-food restaurant, a Seventh-day Adventist family came in for some dinner. I was already friends with the daughter. As the mother prepared to place her order, I told her that the bacon cheeseburger was on sale. My friend quickly said, “We’re Christians. We don’t eat bacon.” I said, “Well, I’m a Christian too, and I personally find bacon to be delicious. But I’ve never heard someone say Christians can’t eat bacon.” She replied, “Well, if you had read Leviticus 11, you would have seen it for yourself.” Looking back, although I thought I was a Christian, I certainly was not a disciple of Jesus. I had never even heard of the book of Leviticus before that night. But my curiosity was piqued, so I looked it up. There it was in the Bible:
The swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.
Leviticus 11:7–8
There you have it. Pig: it’s unclean. Don’t eat it. And according to the rest of that chapter, plus Deuteronomy 14, some other popular foods are also off the menu: catfish, shrimp, crab, and rabbit. But here’s what we need to remember. As we’ve explored in previous studies, Leviticus and Deuteronomy were part of the Law of Moses. These laws were written to the Israelites specifically. The Law of Moses didn’t apply to anyone prior to Mount Sinai—not Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. And the Law of Moses never applied to anyone outside of the nation of Israel. No Gentiles were included. What’s more is that the Scriptures are clear that the Law of Moses has been made obsolete by the work and death of Jesus Christ.
But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. … In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Hebrews 8:6, 13
If you’d like to study that further, check out these studies.
Do the dietary food laws still apply to us? Before we even address that question, we should challenge the way the question is worded. Do they still apply to us? They never applied to us to begin with! The Law was never given to Gentiles or to anyone on this side of the death of Jesus. The food laws, therefore, never applied to us.
In the early church, there was some tension. Jewish Christians—who had always lived under the Law of Moses—were trying to bind the Law on Gentile Christians living in Antioch. The apostles met together and wrote a letter to the church in Antioch to put an end to this debate.
And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” … Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. They wrote this letter by them:
Acts 15:1, 22–23, 28–29
The apostles, the elders, and the brethren,
To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:
Greetings. … For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.
If the food laws in the Law of Moses reach over to this side of the cross and also apply to Gentiles under the blood of Jesus, then this would have been the perfect place to say so. The Holy Spirit could have repeated Himself: “The swine is unclean to you. Don’t eat it. Don’t even touch it.” But instead, He said that these are the “necessary things”: “that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”
The dietary burden that the Holy Spirit lays on us does not include a prohibition against pork and has nothing to do with the Law of Moses. It actually goes all the way back to what God explained to Noah the first time meat was allowed on the menu:
But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.
Genesis 9:4–6
In Mark 7, the Pharisees condemned Jesus and His disciples for eating without going through a ritual washing. But Jesus pointed out the vanity of their manmade traditions. Afterward, the disciples asked Him to explain.
And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
Mark 7:18–23 NASB
All of Jesus’ lessons go back to His first message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Jesus was preparing His audiences for the coming kingdom. Writing after the fact, Mark explains that Jesus’ authority has “declared all foods clean.” Life in the kingdom isn’t about what we eat (what goes into a person), but what we think, do, and say—what comes out of a person’s heart. Paul explains it like this:
For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.
Romans 14:17–18
To make this point, the Scriptures say that Jesus has cleansed all food. To apply this lesson further, we also have the events of Acts 10. Peter received a vision of all kinds of animals, clean and unclean, and Jesus told him multiple times to rise, kill, and eat. As someone who was raised under the Law of Moses, Peter refused, saying, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean” (Acts 10:14). Jesus replied, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (v. 15). Now, this vision was ultimately meant to show Peter and the rest of the church that Gentiles could now receive the gospel. But the point remains: Jesus has cleansed all food. And what Jesus has cleansed, we must not call unclean.
Has someone claiming to be a follower of Jesus told you that you must refrain from eating pork? Here’s what the Bible says about them:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 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. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:1–5
So, looks like bacon is back on the menu. And anyone who tries to twist Scripture to say otherwise has given “heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.”1 Of course, this doesn’t mean you must eat bacon. There may be personal, hygienic, or medical reasons you’re not interested in eating shrimp, rabbit, or pork. But if you want to, go ahead, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Related to the question about pork, people often ask the question, “What about the Sabbath day?” We’ve got a few studies on that question. It’s time to dive in, beginning with this study.
- The disclaimer here is we are talking about foods that don’t poison you or remove your sobriety. That’s another study for another time. ↩︎