I should like you to enlighten me about vegetarianism from the Bible. I should like to be a non-flesh eater, but I am confused about 1 Timothy 4:3, also John 21:13, Luke 24:41-43, Matthew 15:38, and 1 Corinthians 6:13.
The texts quoted from the Gospels refer to Christ's eating fish and feeding others with the same. The passages in Paul's epistles do not necessarily refer to flesh food at all. The word "meat" simply means food. It is translated "victuals" in Matthew 14:15, and means manna in 1 Corinthians 10:3. We know that there was no flesh food in the "spiritual meat" that Israel ate in the wilderness. The old use survives in the word "sweetmeat," which has no connection with flesh food.
If you will read carefully Paul's words to Timothy, you will see that the seducing spirits will command men to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving. He goes on to say that 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.
Whatever false doctrine is referred to here, either past or future, the words certainly cannot apply to those who practice and teach a return to the diet which was provided for man at his creation, the fruits of the earth. If anything was created to be received with thanksgiving, it was this class of food, which is distinctly sanctified or set apart by the word of God. (Genesis 1:29) You will notice also that these fruits are spoken of at the beginning as man's meat.
On the other hand, it is equally clear that Christ partook of fish and fed others with it. This is no reason why we should turn from a diet of fruits, grains and nuts and live on fish. Christ came to this earth in our flesh. He was made in all things like unto His brethren. He came as near to men as possible. He made himself one with them in eating and drinking and social relations, so far as He could, and yet do His work. He came to save from sin, and He did not permit this work of reform to be obscured by minor questions.
He might perhaps have opened up more of the treasures of knowledge if men had been more ready to receive His message of deliverance from sin. When they stumbled at that, it was no time to talk of minor matters. Christ would not raise any question concerning His own way of living that could draw the mind from thinking of Him as the Saviour from sin.
Here is a lesson for us. If we see that a natural diet is the will of God for man, and adopt each ourselves, we are to take care that our advocacy of such a diet does not in any way hinder the more important work of revealing Christ as a Saviour from sin. If we lack His Spirit, even the reforms we urge will destroy souls. God has given men permission to eat flesh, without the blood. (Genesis 9:3-4) Christ ate it, and whoever says that flesh eating is a sin condemns Christ.
The Spirit of God has given us this instruction: "Let not him that eats despise him that eats not; and let not him which eats not judge him that eats: for God has received him." (Romans 14:3)
Unfortunately for a good cause, many who embrace vegetarianism condemn those that eat flesh food, and thus separate themselves from the Spirit of Christ. Any work of reform that has lost the spirit of love for others is an unprofitable parade of human vanity. "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak." (Romans 14:13,21)
If we realize that:
• the associations of the slaughterhouse and other features connected with the traffic, in flesh food, are detrimental to those engaged in them;
• men are suffering in body and mind as the result of ignorance of proper and natural food;
• many diseases, like cancer and rheumatism, are largely due to the use of flesh foods;
• the use of stimulating flesh foods is a natural cause of the craving for strong drink which is destroying thousands; and that
• the food provided for Adam is available now in sufficient quantity and quality to make animal products almost or altogether unnecessary; then it will be right to throw our own influence and example into the work of diet reform, not in condemning others for what they eat, but in a humble, loving, self-sacrificing effort to remove every stumbling-block from our brother's way.--Present Truth, September 24, 1903.