Do I Have to Violate My Fad Diet Just Because Some Jerk from Church Made Me Dinner?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your hosts Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll seek to answer the age -old question, do

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I have to violate my fad diet just because some jerk from church made me dinner?

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Now it might come as a bit of a shock to some, but the Christian life is actually more than just seeing other people, other

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Christians, your brothers and sisters in Christ, more than just Sunday morning, and Wednesday night too,

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I guess. It's more than seeing your Christian brothers and sisters more than two times a week that typically span about two to three hours max, probably.

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We see it throughout the book of Acts, we see it in Jesus' life, we see it in the early church, and we should be seeing it today as well.

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Brothers and sisters in Christ that come together and spend time with one another, love each other by getting to know one another, and building relationships with one another that go, like I said, just beyond a

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Sunday morning or a Wednesday night class. We should be in each other's lives, and one of the ways that is easy to do this is by sharing meals together.

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Not only do we use meals as a way to get to know each other and be involved in each other's lives, but we also use it, or we should be using it at least, as a way to serve other people when they're in need.

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One of the things that I love so much about the church that Tim and I attend is when people are in need, when people are sick, a lot of people are having babies right now, one of the things that everyone loves to do is come together and say, hey, let's make a list, and let's put a schedule together of who can bring meals to the new parents, or to whoever is sick, so that we can take that burden off of them and serve them in that way and demonstrate our love for one another.

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Meals end up becoming a pretty big part of the Christian life just because they're so universal.

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We all need to eat, so this is just a good way to be involved with one another, serve one another.

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The problem is that it seems like more and more, with the invention of the internet especially, there's cropping up all of these different kinds of diets that you can start.

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I feel like there's a diet for everything. If you want to cosplay as a caveman, there's a caveman diet that you can follow where you just eat raw meat, and that's supposed to be healthy for you.

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There's diets avoiding meat altogether, there's diets that take it beyond just avoiding meat and involve avoiding all animal products whatsoever, gluten -free diets, sugar -free diets, which to be fair, we should probably all be eating a lot less sugar than we actually do, but that's a conversation for a different day.

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There's tons of different kinds of diets out there, and on top of that, it seems like there's more and more people who are being either self -diagnosed or diagnosed by a family doctor or something with various different types of allergies as it relates to food.

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Peanut allergies, nut allergies in general I think is a big one, milk allergies, that's a pretty big one too.

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Gluten seems like the most popular one now. Now that Gwyneth Paltrow invented the gluten allergy, literally everyone has the gluten allergy now.

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Everyone has it now. But there's all these diets coming up, there's all these allergies that people are getting diagnosed with more and more, and that seems to create problems when it comes to other people serving you food.

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It seems to create issues where people start to say, hey, I want to make you a meal.

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Okay, well here's what I can have and what I can't have, and it's like this long, long list of things.

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To be fair, I think there are some allergies that literally are like a, hey, if I eat this,

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I'll die kind of thing. I think those are probably pretty rare, but they are out there.

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And so you have all these problems, and so we wanted to take some time to sit down and talk about what do we do with all this?

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Because we're supposed to serve one another, and food is just such a simple way, it's such a universal way to serve one another and to bring people over, invite them into your homes.

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And so we need to sit down and talk about how do we navigate this? How do we view all these things? So Tim, why don't we just start with, when it comes to my church, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and they say, hey, we want to have you over for dinner.

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And I know I'm on a very strict diet. I'm on the newest fad diet.

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It's the biggest craze right now, and it's going to give me washboard abs.

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I'm going to lose 100 pounds off this diet. But if I break it this time,

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I'm never going to go back. I know I'm never going to go back. So in that scenario, should the person violate their fad diet just because some jerk from the church who has no idea that they're on this diet right now is trying to have them over for dinner?

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Yeah, definitely, man. Violate the fad diet? It's that easy, huh? It's that easy, yeah.

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One of the things that's happened is that, I mean, we obviously, as Americans, we're significantly overweight and obese at this point.

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And so there is a reality that most of us should probably eat less than what we're eating.

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Oh, even the children, man. It's pretty embarrassing. Yeah, we're all fat, okay?

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So, I mean, there's certainly a problem, and I think many people are right to point out that the results speak for themselves, okay?

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So just go to your neighborhood Walmart, and you will see the reality of what we speak of without too much difficulty.

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So a lot of people are overweight, and that's a real problem. And there's obviously a lot of preventable diseases that could be avoided if we would eat healthier, and we're in pretty bad shape.

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We're getting fatter as a country. Yeah, heart disease is one of the leading killers in our country.

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Yeah, I mean, most of the main causes of death are weight -related. So it's a significant problem.

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I saw a picture of a guy, I think it was like a picture of a guy in 1908 or whatever, the fattest man in the world in 1908.

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He just looked like a normal guy at Walmart now. So it's pretty funny. But he was the fattest guy in the world.

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I need to find that picture. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Actually, now that you say it,

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I feel like I have seen that before, because I feel like I have heard someone make the same comment like, hey, this just looks like my neighbor.

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This is my neighbor. So we're overweight, and our diet is one of the most unhealthy diets in the history of the world, for sure.

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I mean, that food pyramid thing was way off. And so I think there's a lot of things that are conspiring to keep us overweight and keep us fat.

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And so there's things to be considered at that point. And a lot of us would do better, like we'd be better stewards of the body that God has given us if we would pay a little bit more attention to the kind of foods that we're eating and the quantities that we're eating.

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I mean, you can think about, I saw a, I think it was a documentary on McDonald's at one point, that the single cheeseburger with a small drink and a small fry, that used to be an adult meal.

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So we're certainly, the portions are getting bigger. We're getting fatter. I mean, a lot of it's the sugar that we're drinking.

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We're drinking a lot of sugar. The easiest way to gain a bunch of weight is just to drink sugar drinks.

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I mean, you can find those in the South, sweet tea. If you go to other parts of the country, they have no idea what you're talking about there.

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But no, I mean, we're addicted to sugar and we have problems and we should try to make changes.

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But then on the other side of things, one of the things that's happened is that you do have very strong expectations in the

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Bible of both giving and receiving hospitality. So God's created the world in such a way that food takes a big place in terms of what we do.

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He's created us in such a way that we need to eat several times a day, three times a day on average is what most people eat.

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There's diets out there that try to get you to eat five times a day, but it's normal to eat three meals a day.

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Life centers around food. If you just try to eat once in the morning, you're going to be hungry pretty soon. I mean, that's part of the way that life works.

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God's made the world in such a way that it does center around food. Food takes a predominant place and part of giving and receiving hospitality in the

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Bible is unavoidably tied to food. That's the way it works. When we meet

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Jesus at the end of history, we're going to be invited to the marriage supper of the

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Lamb where we're going to eat. Jesus talks about he's not going to drink the fruit of the vine again until he drinks it anew with us in his kingdom.

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Food takes a prominent place in this life and the next. As you read through the

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Bible, there's a lot of commands about hospitality. The idea of hospitality in the

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Bible is very food -centric. There's a lot the Bible has to say about giving and receiving hospitality, doing so joyfully.

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It really is centered around food and giving and receiving. As Christians, we need to regain a doctrine of hospitality.

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That's part of the point here. The idea of not accepting food and hospitality from one of your church family members from a biblical point of view is unthinkable.

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It's a gross insult. It's the height of entitlement. It's really bad.

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We're getting to a point right now where we're so unaccustomed to hospitality.

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The world's getting more impersonal. We're so unaccustomed to hospitality in general that we do things that would be unthinkable throughout most of the history of the world.

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I was thinking about this the other day when I was growing up. One of the things that would just happen all the time as a kid is

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I would go to other people's houses and I would knock on their door. Sometimes it was friends' parents who would answer the door or whatever.

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I would just say, hey, do you want to come out and let's play outside? Or hey, is so -and -so home?

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I want to see if they want to do something. That's pretty much an unthinkable thing to do now.

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If someone knocks on someone else's door, it's almost treated like who the heck could be here.

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What is that show, Jerry Seinfeld show with the

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Cars and Comedians or something like that? Cars and Comedians? I have no idea. There's some kind of show

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I saw. I don't watch a whole lot of TV. I can't remember what it's called, but there was an episode on there that I saw a brief bit of it.

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He mentioned the fact that company is one of those words that has been erased from our vocabulary.

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He used to talk about having company over or something like that. He was pointing out that that word no longer exists in our vocabulary.

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We don't even talk like that anymore. We don't say we're having company over. Part of that is because everything's online now.

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We've lost any concept of hospitality. As you read the Bible, one of the things you'll see is the

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Bible is very clear about this. 1 Corinthians 10 .27 says, If an unbeliever invites you to dinner and you're disposed to go, the

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Bible says, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of your conscience. That's talking about if they give you meat offered to idols, you need to eat it.

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The instruction there is you eat whatever is set before you. That used to be a very strong Christian expectation that if someone's going to cook a meal and you're going to go over their house and you know what hospitality means, if they're going to spend their money on that food and make that food for you, if they're going to spend the time to get their house cleaned up, get the groceries, cook the thing, it's an insult.

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It's the height of ingratitude to say no thanks. But then we do that without blinking. Not only do we do that, we give them a list of all of our expectations about the things that we're willing to eat.

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We make it difficult for pure preference issues. We have all these questionable categories of food sensitivities that we bring up to make the process even more difficult.

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To make matters even more complicated, you have all the fad diets that are out there and things like that.

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We've lost this idea of just giving joyfully and receiving hospitality with thanksgiving.

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I think that that used to go even beyond the

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Christian worldview. I was raised that you eat whatever people give you.

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No matter what. And not even you eat it, but you finish it.

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And you say thanks even if you don't like it. It definitely is coming from the

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Bible. It's coming from the Bible, but it's every society throughout the history of the world. Even non -Christians recognize that that is the morally right thing to do to show respect.

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And to show gratitude and to show thankfulness and to not embarrass someone. We just had manners.

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We had simple manners. Right now we're living in a unique time where we've just lost the concept.

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It's not as if we've just gotten more sophisticated as a society. This is a downgrade. We're regressing.

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Even the pagans understand this. This isn't something new. This is one of those things where if you talk about you'll have no shortage of people who get really, really mad at you.

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Just saying this basic thing. The long story short is it is a very real biblical expectation that you joyfully, gratefully receive hospitality even if you're on a diet.

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There's a lot we can say about your fad diets and everything else. The short of it is it's just a real expectation that you need to come up with.

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Do you have any more questions along those lines about the diets? I guess relating to the diet.

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You're saying you need to give up the diet momentarily at least. In some of these cases probably.

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That relates to fad diets. If I'm on my carnivore only diet and someone puts some steaming broccoli on my plate you expect me the

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Bible expects me God expects me to eat what my food eats. Just eat the broccoli.

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There is a very real biblical command. There is biblical precedent for attempting to take care of yourself.

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What's happening is this is just a massive overreaction that people are having as it relates to these concepts.

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We don't have any self -control is part of the problem. We don't have any self -control. If you're going to embark on some sort of diet you treat it like you're some kind of food addict or something like that.

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You're literally addicted to sugar and you're literally addicted to this stuff. What you need is some sort of food purge and food purity.

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Right now a lot of your fad diets are elimination diets in one way or another. It's either a whole foods kind of thing or it's a carnivore diet or there was the

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South Beach diet which was pretty similar to all the paleo stuff. You have the paleo kind of diet.

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Keto diet. You have carnivore diet. Whole 30 diet. All those are elimination diets and then that's where you come into conflict.

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There is a very real expectation that you can't just shut your life off and stop being a

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Christian and neglect all your Christian responsibilities and so people really do have to think about these kind of diets like how they're going to approach them and because if you're going to approach them in such a way that what you don't want to do is

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God's declared all foods clean. There's not like clean foods and unclean foods and everything else.

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There are foods that are better for you and there's foods that are worse for you and some people can get like way out of control here where you know like if you're on a carnivore diet or something like that you look at something like food cooked in you know soybean oil or whatever and you you call it literally poison.

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Right? And so in a lot of these diets they're playing if you eat if you eat soy you're going to boost your estrogen levels or whatever.

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Yeah. And so it's poison and all that. And it's like this is just dramatic overreactions and you know this is not really a healthy way to approach food.

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Like there's no such thing as clean and unclean food. We do have like new food purity kind of laws where you treat certain foods as poison and you know that's just I mean it's just not a healthy way to approach life in general.

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Now if you want to do that you want to say hey I want to you know I want to do you know

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PSMF for you know 30 days or whatever and stick to it generally.

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I mean what you need is what you really need is you need like some kind of concept of faithfulness in your normal life that's mixed with just like some sort of allowance for feasting.

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Right? And so the Bible has a lot to say about feasting and a lot to say about Thanksgiving a lot to say about hospitality so you don't want to adopt some rigid diet that's going to I mean you need a plan if you're going to lose weight if you're going to get in shape if you're going to get healthy you need some sort of plan a lot of these things aren't sustainable anyways but you need some like most diets have built within them some sort of cheat meal kind of thing anyways so you know you if 21 meals a week you eat you know your 19 healthy meals and you eat your two meals that are cheat meals where you eat whatever you want and you really do need to be on the kind of diet where you know it does have some kind of there's a break somewhere there's a break somewhere there's like that you can show to yourself that you're not being a food legalist right?

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that you're not adopting new laws and that you're able you're not going to violate other things the Bible says for the sake of obeying in another area you just want to balance life in general and the more that you stick to these things

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I mean they're not very sustainable anyways and so you know as my wife and I we approach these things I mean what we've always tried to do is just okay we're going to make an intentional effort to lose weight but if anyone invites us over to their home we're going to eat whatever they give us with Thanksgiving and that'll be our cheat meals you know so you have a good like what you need is you need like healthy normal patterns that you establish routines like for your family that are life -giving and then you need to like chill out when people invite you over and just give with it you know give whatever they be willing to eat whatever is set before you because that's not just an optional arbitrary thing that's just part of the

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Christian life now I mean like it could be that you have so many people you know inviting you over one night a week or whatever that you just if you end up you know going to every occasion saying yes to everyone you're never going to have a diet at all you're going to end up like a woolly person or something like that but you know not happy lose the ability to walk lose the no

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I mean most people are not anywhere near like that kind of problem you know if you have a person over once a week

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I mean most people need to shoot to have more hospitality in their life not less hospitality in your life and so you know most people are not anywhere near that and you know

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I think like God's honored when you you're not a food legalist and you haven't adopted new food purity laws and you know if you're going to do like restrictive elimination kind of diets things like that you just need you need to do so not not as a food legalist but as a person who's just making an intentional decision that has room you know to budge so so yeah

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I mean I think that you know some of those things you can do those things for a little bit and lose a little bit of weight make different lifestyle changes but you'll gain it all back if you don't have some way of getting on some kind of healthy scheme long term and you just so basically the point though is just to say that you need to have some sort of allowance for you know

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God's given us all things for us to enjoy about making new food laws and you know having some sort of flexibility built within the system and hospitality is a good chance to build that flexibility within it.

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Okay so that applies to the sort of the person who's saying hey

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I'm making a personal choice you know to like get healthier whatever you know you can obviously there's a lot of different ways to go about doing that and some are more effective than others but with all of those with all of those sorts of diets we're basically talking about someone who is in and of themselves saying hey

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I want to try and sort of reform you know my diet or take back my health probably in some way what about the person who they go to the doctor and the doctor for whatever reason tells them you know hey you've really got to cut back on X or hey you've got to cut this out entirely or you know you're going to face serious health problems down the road or even you know possibly even like hey

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I mean you could there's a very real chance that you could die if you keep eating whatever you know whatever the thing is is that like in a separate category than the person who is in and of themselves just saying hey you know

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I'm a little bit overweight I want to cut back are those different categories in your mind when it comes to the hospitality thing or are they still the same

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I mean this is just a broad spectrum of the kind of things that you could be talking about in general so I mean there are like real food allergies like peanut allergies and you know shellfish allergies

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I mean there's kind of allergies where if you you know consume a you know peanut you could end up in anaphylactic shock and go to the emergency room kind of thing so there's that and then there's just this broad spectrum of food sensitivities that we could be talking about as well and then there's just like things like diabetes and you know those sorts of things where you have you know insulin kind of issues and you know all that so I mean

25:48

I think like it just depends on what we're talking about now I mean like there's been plenty of doctors who've come along and essentially told someone like if you don't start making healthy lifestyle changes they say to the morbidly obese person then you know you're going to end up you know either getting diabetes or you're going to end up you know having significant health problems and what they're doing is they're just pointing to probabilities at that point right and so like that's

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I mean largely what they're doing is pointing to probabilities and so I mean I'm not like they could give you like a really restrictive diet that you're going on and you know doctor's orders right you know here's your new food laws or whatever it's like I mean

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I think you still like you know you still need to have some sort of like place for you're eating your you know 19 healthy meals a week and you have two meals that are cheap meals like you're if you were to stick to those 19 meals you're going to be fine you know in the vast majority of cases now if it's just a real health emergency that's not just like you need like I'm the doctor and I'm you know telling you you need to make changes or else you're going to be in trouble you know in some you know nebulous sense like if there's some real kind of thing then that's different you know so I mean

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I think what the Bible is describing whatever is set before you like what what they're describing right there is just the general expectation for human beings and I mean no one's going to look at the person who you know has a peanut allergy and say well you eat that to the glory of God and go into your emergency room and you know greater love has no man than to die you know for his friends kind of thing so that's not what we're talking about so so I shouldn't

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I shouldn't lay down my life for my friend who's inviting me over to dinner and asking me to eat like a

27:45

Reese's cup or something yeah no the thing is like there's a lot of things though in that category that we're just being really dramatic about you know like we're being really so like there's

27:54

I mean you know sure if there's some kind of life -threatening thing sure you know and there's a lot of stuff that's a lot more questionable and we need to think through what we're even talking about you know

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I I think I was involved in a internet discussion with one of the carnivore guys on the internet last week and they were essentially describing you know cooking with canola oil or whatever as estrogen producing and poison literal poison you know and you you know you're fine to reject literal poison that's just where we've like crossed a line and got

28:30

I mean if you're eating 21 20 healthy meals a week like that's just not sane you know like all food is a gift from God and should be received with Thanksgiving and so like you can have people who are very dramatic on this subject and you know and and part of it is because we all have inner legalists in us that want to add to God's commands and you know there's a lot of people who like really are viewing food like a new religion right now and so it used to be psychology was everything you know and a lot of people are

28:59

I'm surprised at how many people like are tolerating the kind of things we're saying on Twitter as it relates to psychology but food food food food food is the new it's like it yeah it's definitely like a golden calf kind of thing right yeah yeah you know you have go ahead go ahead keep keep going well you just have mothers who think that they can essentially control all of like his behavior with food

29:23

I mean you have people who think like you know that it's sinful to eat certain kinds of food and they just need to wake up and you know like maybe

29:33

God needs to give him a vision of a sheet like he did for Peter you know yeah but I mean they're really they're people who've just really accept these like food laws and and part of it's just because they've realized that a like they don't want to be fat just like everyone else and suffer from all these preventable diseases but you like look man you know you eat your 19 healthy meals a week you're fine you know just establish good pattern of life don't don't turn it into an idol don't turn it into a religion well

29:59

I think into new food laws you know you know I think one of the things I've noticed with this is is really like with especially with these fad diets they're so strange like people get so emotionally invested in them and really at least when it comes to like the keto diet or like this you know carnivore diet

30:20

I know I don't know how many people are familiar with this but there's that liver King guy who you know was

30:27

I mean Matt he's massive he's jacked and he claims it's it's all you know he's totally clean in terms of like steroids and stuff and he's pushing this sort of like I think it's like nine pillars of holistic living or something like that and what you know one of the one of the thing one of the pillars is like eat raw meat you know and he's pushing that as like if you want to be like me if you want to be just absolutely massive you have to eat all of your meat raw and you know of course it comes out like he's on I think like twelve or thirteen thousand dollars worth of steroids every month that and that's why he's so big

31:09

I mean I saw him the first time I was like well yeah of course he's on steroids look at him no one like no one gets that big but then it really does feel like a lot of people have almost sort of glorified like humans of of you know ages past kind of thing where they they're they're rebelling against the whole like processed food sort of culture that we live in but then

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I think they take it so far the other way that they're you know they're like hey the only way to be healthy is to you know eat all your meat raw now it's like okay all right

31:45

I feel like there's got to be a middle ground in there somewhere so what's happening is you have several things that happening so natural path movement is like natural path movement is a religion like it really is a new religion and it's a substitute for psychology so part of it is like when you're having like the caveman kind of diet that kind of thing

32:02

I mean these are diets that are based on evolutionary assumptions yeah and so like so there's there's that but then like with your natural past stuff this is a different religion and that's what people don't understand like it's totally a different religion so like the whole idea of like the natural path religion is that nature and the raw heals right so like you have to give your body what it needs to heal like that's that's the thing and so when you hear like natural path people talking there's this blind like assumption that anything man -made is bad right yeah like you know so all the words are code words that don't really mean what like they're saying it's just like psychology right so with psychology therapy is not therapy medicine's not medicine right like so like therapy's not therapy medicine's not medicine like illness is not illness right like all the words are the same thing is happening with the natural path movement so organic right so I took a chemist organic chemistry in college like organic chemistry is a study of carbon based life forms all foods organic right

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I mean except for you know minerals or whatever but I mean all foods organic like that's what it is it's organic food but what's happening is you hijack a label right and organic means like you know you know not processed but all the food they're talking about is processed you know so all the words just are not real words but then the assumption that undergirds it like here's the point the assumption is that nature and the raw will heal and what they don't have is they don't have a doctrine of like sin entering in the world so the bible says that creation's been subjected to futility because of him who subjected it in hope of you know the deliverance that comes from the sons of god so like the idea is that nature's trying to kill you right so like that's part of the fall you know nature in its raw form it gives you sunburns nature in its raw form has thorns and thistles so it's not as if nature is some goddess mother earth that if you can just you know get all the man made stuff as best you can out of it that then you're going to be healing

34:04

I mean you have fall like we live in a fallen world and you know as part of our job is to do some of the effects of the fall so what we do is we fight nature in a christian world view and in a christian world view nature is like hostile to us and we use like the creation itself to try to limit the effects of the fall and so there's trade -offs there you know there's trade -offs in both directions but all i'm trying to say is nature on its own you know uncultivated nature like our job is to cultivate it and like in your natural path world view there's no place for man in that system right it's just nature in the raw it's whole it's going to heal you and I mean the people who really get caught up in that they believe that basically every disease is a preventable disease and that if you can just get tap into nature in its raw form reject you know almost all technology you know all of mankind's involvement you're going to be fine but that's just that this is a different religion this is a biblical worldview and so a lot of these things like you just have to ask where are they coming from and you know there's like um and this is why you have all these new schemes that are you know being set up and and the word of god you know the grass withers the flower fades the word of god abides forever and you know if the bible says give us this day our daily bread it can't be that bread is just horrible for you you know

35:23

I mean I've done you know a lot of things I lost a lot of weight on that and like but the thing is like you you do feel miserable because you don't have any energy because you're rejecting all the carbs you know so it's not like a great way to live permanently you know so what you need is you need to like use some common sense um use some common sense uh remember like there's no such thing as unclean food you know and then just trust in like some of the things the bible says um so god's given us

35:53

I mean there's you know there's all the you know vegan stuff that basically like a lot of the nutrition science has basically told us for years that meat is so bad for us right yeah it's just like you need to get your protein from animals and plants and there's all the there's all sorts of agendas that are involved in this and now there's a reaction to that with a carnival or stuff but the bible doesn't change you know so uh the things that are in the bible uh don't don't change and god has given us food he's told us what kind of food to eat

36:22

I mean he hasn't given us like a specific plan but like you know whatever if anyone's telling you that meat is unclean well god's given us meat to eat you know there's all these hormonal problems that happen if you don't eat meat anyways and so like all that happens is your nutrition science goes you know back and forth up and down I mean

36:40

I remember when you know low fat was the way to go and everything was low fat and then it turned into now it's you know keto high fat and it just you just you just have to you know trust the bible man and not get caught up in the fats but yep yeah my my impression with all of that especially like the sort of you know the sort those sort of uh like cavemen type diets has always been like do you think that everyone you know before before like I guess you know three or four hundred a .d.

37:13

was just like every guy was just 260 pounds of just pure muscle you know like looked like he could bend bench press a whole building is that what you think they all look like what is the story and judges of the king is egg lawn or whatever we're off Neal stabs him through his gut and you know the blade goes all the way yeah the sword goes all the way through him the hilt is engulfed in the fat yeah yeah clearly everyone wasn't

37:42

I mean maybe he was 260 pounds but it wasn't pure muscle right right but uh yeah that that's

37:50

I always love that because I just I think I think that along with like you know we have a lot of um uh entertainment type things that also kind of normalize like guys being just totally massive like all the superheroes they're just insanely big you know and you know

38:09

I mean you know they're not real they're not real characters but then you know they are real people who are acting those guys out and some of them are just that big

38:17

I you know I don't think it's natural they're that big naturally but I think you know you you spend enough time watching those kinds of things and then you see guys online who are saying hey you know you want to look like that you got to eat this and you got to eat that and you got to stay away from this and stay away from that I think over time that that can really start to make you make you think that it's a lot more normal than than it actually is when when if you look at like those

38:46

BMI calculators they tell a totally different story in terms of what's healthy and what's not healthy but going back to the hospitality you know rejecting food based off of certain diets basically what you're saying is you know pretty much outside of like hey if I eat this

39:06

I'm going to die the answer should be like just eat it basically is that is that what you're saying yeah yeah

39:14

I mean you know I think there's some there's probably some sort of scale but you know like in terms of like what we're talking about in the realm of diets at this point are we talking about the realm of diets are we talking about the realm of like food sensitivities food allergies just any any of it any of it yeah

39:35

I mean in general like it's very clear if you're going to eat this and you're going to die you're going to go to the emergency room then we're just talking about a different category of thing and then there's some sort of scale with the food allergy kind of stuff to where you know

39:47

I've I've heard plenty of people say if I eat this you know I'm going to get gas you know for a few days you know but then when

39:55

I say that and I laugh and it's like you don't know what it's like to have this painful gas that I have it it's like well I mean I know it's like to eat a

40:00

Taco Bell so you know I think I think a lot of this like you can make a lot of it a lot worse than what it actually is and like you know people who are really caught up in it and it becomes an idol for them it really like there is a kind of person who can train themselves to feel icky when they eat certain things because they're looking to food to do things that it's not and so there's obviously a scale you know

40:25

I'm not trying to say that there's no legitimate you know food sensitivities out there

40:30

I would say that a lot of them are being self diagnosed right now and then so there's that and then you know there isn't like I don't think we're dealing like in the land of food sensitivities with settled adults objective science right now either so there's some concerns about the way that these things are even being diagnosed at a professional level but you know

40:53

I mean if there are some legitimate stuff out there and that you're really gonna just you know be curl up in a ball for several days and it's not all in your brain and that kind of stuff and so I just think we have to ask what are we talking about you know and there's a lot of people who say that that's what it is but then they'll selectively eat you know these foods that they're intolerant to you know on their whim when they want to you know and they'll just you know deal with it and I would say that those are the kind of situations where it really does cause you to think you know what's going on here right so I mean

41:28

I think there's some sort of scale there where certain things do affect people a lot more than others and you know by and large

41:38

I think we need to really question a lot of like I don't think we just have a knee jerk response to trust everyone who says any of those kind of things like I think we need to rethink you know why is it that you know one in ten adults one in you know 13 kids has some sort of food allergy now you know what do they do throughout the whole history of the world before these things and you know no one ever died you know for the most part so I mean

42:05

I think as a general rule you really need to have like if you're going to be rejecting food hospitality it doesn't need to be because of some sort of diet you're on you know it really needs because you have a real legitimate medical reason that is not just a you know trivial thing that like it's going to be significant you know now what about on the other end of things so we spent a lot of time talking about the person who is receiving the food what about the person who is offering the food is there room for them to say hey you know look

42:35

I want to you know I not not because of compulsion like I just want to like serve you something that I know you'll like so is there any room to say hey you know what do you like what do you not like what do you typically try and avoid what do you typically try and you know eat and that so so like for the vegetarian person you know

43:03

I don't I don't necessarily think that that's like a good like diet to have especially if your whole reasoning is just I want to save the animals but then if I'm having someone over for dinner do

43:15

I have the freedom to just say like hey I'm just going to make a vegetarian meal just because I want you know that's what

43:21

I want to do because someone is a vegetarian basically yeah what you're saying yeah like hey

43:27

I know you're a vegetarian you know am I like am I free to just like say hey

43:34

I'm just going to make a vegetarian meal it one of the things that's complicated at this point is the fact that there's so many things right now so I could think a lot of it's like a generational thing basically yeah so like meaning like when you're dealing with the older generation these aren't things right like these aren't things like that you're even talking about when you're dealing with older people when you're dealing with younger people right now there's just no like there's no brakes on it it's like totally out of control and so when you're when you're living like in a time where it's just totally out of control and it's like anything and everything can be a reason they'll say no right so whether it's just pure preference like I just don't want to eat that because I've decided

44:20

I don't want to eat that right yeah and or you know if it's like I don't like that you know and like when you when you have like a list of like 20 different demands as it relates to food you know that are just totally arbitrary based on nothing you know whether it's their diet and then when you have like a group of people like that who all have their competing stuff at a certain point you have to figure out well how do we approach this sort of thing you get what

44:49

I'm saying because you can't make I mean you can't you know invite a group of people over and literally make you know 14 different meals to figure out how to get to everyone you know so like your question is should you like like is it okay to try to be somewhat sensitive towards it all well the problem is like there's when it's out of control like what's happening is like we're just like the only answer is

45:15

I guess we just never have anyone over because we're going to violate all their either you know preferences or their you know their diets like is it even possible to have a situation at this point where you feel like you can make the vegetarian meal and it's not under compulsion is that is that kind of what you're getting at what

45:33

I'm trying to say is like okay well I can't make the vegetarian meal if I got a carnivore guy over there you know

45:41

I'm saying so I can make the vegetarian meal for the vegetarian but I'm gonna have to make a vegetarian meal

45:46

I'm gonna have to make a carnivore meal I'm gonna have to make like 10 different meals like and so like the the issue is like at some point trying to be sensitive to all of it like what's going to end up happening is that you're just you're in a like you're in a lose -lose situation if that makes sense so I mean

46:03

I think you know if you're living in more of a sane world like a very sane thing to do in like most situations is just to say hey you know what's your favorite food we're gonna try to make it right yeah like that's a very normal that's like just being hospitable but then when you're like running up against like just list of off -limits taboo that are just like you know it's a diet it's you know self -diagnosed food sensitivity it's a you know it's just pure preference on your part it's just a random decision you made you know that you're sticking to you know at some point

46:42

I think you just have to say hey like we're just have to be normal people and if you don't want to eat it then don't eat it you know kind of thing so I mean

46:50

I think that there's a there's a there's there's obviously a place as a good host for doing exactly what you're saying and but then at the same time if you're living in like crazy world there's also the reality that like man this is out of control and I don't like maybe we need to quit asking so much because we're just cuddling a bunch of weirdness does that make sense yeah so so like maybe in a different time where it's not this ridiculous thing that might be easier to with with a clear conscience accommodate that but then at this point it's it's basically become like a monster almost yeah it really is

47:35

I mean I think if you're inviting old people over to your house and you say hey what's your favorite meal you know we'll make it right yeah like you're you're dealing with a different kind of animal than inviting a bunch of young people over your house and trying to figure out like the more choices you give them like the more you'll realize that you're just in an impossible like no one has the money to do all this you know to figure out how to cook 10 different things for 10 different people that they'll all not only prefer but like and won't violate

48:04

I mean a certain point you're just like all right here's what we're making eat it if you want you know if you don't then we're not gonna be mad at you but you know like it's just at some point you just have to just say hey we're not doing this anymore what about in the situation where it's just like one person coming over though like it's not 10 people coming over it's just one person yeah

48:25

I mean I I'm not trying to say it's sinful to ask them hey what are what are your dietary restrictions you know

48:35

I do I do think if you know that you know people are out of control with this and like a lot of this isn't as biblical as you think one way that you can be speaking truth into their life is not just to enable this kind of self centered narcissistic you know behavior indefinitely so you know

48:59

I think at a certain point you just have to say hey you know maybe the best thing I can do is have a conversation with him about it instead of tiptoeing around it does that make sense yeah yeah and so and and maybe just treating them like I would treat a normal human being that lived throughout the history of the world you know and if they get offended by it and whatever you know like does that does that make sense like it may be a real opportunity to speak into their life instead of just being another person coming along and you know let

49:28

I mean like when people get caught up in this stuff like they're you know they're dramatically making their lives like harder you know for them and for everyone around them you know and it's just not a good way to live and maybe you can be a person come along and trying to help them to grow up a little bit and okay you know so there's that but I don't know okay well with the with the last bit of time we have

49:53

Tim I wanted to ask you about two passages of scripture that are basically talking about the same thing and those are found in 1st

50:04

Corinthians chapter 8 and then Romans chapter 14 both from Paul outlining you know basically like hey eat telling telling the two different audiences hey eat whatever is set before you right with a clear conscience but then but then he also addresses this idea of the weaker brother and so I wanted

50:29

I wanted to ask you about those two things and and how do they how do they work together when it comes well well

50:36

I'm getting ahead of myself before I before I ask you about that I wanted to ask you do those verses actually apply to the situation that we're talking about because in both passages of scripture he he's mentioned it he's talking about it in the context of meat sacrifice to idols right because because obviously that was a common thing back then it's not really that's

51:04

I don't know that that's really a common thing anymore you know to sacrifice your meat to to false gods but then do the things that he is saying translate to this this conversation about dietary restrictions and you know various diets that people are on so does it relate and then if it does relate then what do we what do we get from these passages how do we understand the whole weaker brother thing but let's start with does it apply in general yeah

51:42

I mean they're just talking about a very different kind of situation there so like the the the idea of the weaker brother is the is the brother who's going to be led into sin by following you down certain practices which you're theoretically permissible to do but then they may make certain assumptions about that and lead them into sin so like that's the idea of the weaker brother so the primary discussion that's being had in New Testament times centered around food was not this discussion of you know rejecting hospitality for arbitrary reasons right so like the whole none of it makes sense like none of it makes sense unless you have a robust understanding of hospitality that is present within the discussion itself so like the issue is like there's this assumption in the ancient world if someone invites you over to their house you need to eat what they said before you right or you're going to dishonor them basically you're going to dishonor them you're going to shame them right and you're going to not only you're dishonoring them you're dishonoring yourself right because like you just don't do that and so like you have a real conflict because there's just this immutable expectation of hospitality but then you have allegiances to God too and so then like if you're put in a situation where they're presenting you with food that's been offered to an idol then it feels like your fundamental commitment to God is clashing with your commitment to them right and so Daniel Shadrach Meshach and Abednego were basically in that kind of situation while they're in Babylon you know and this is why they requested to only eat vegetables because they were under the

53:15

Mosaic food laws right so now we're not under the Israelites we're not under the food laws anymore because you know when

53:23

Christ come he declared all foods clean so you don't have the food laws anymore that they're under so there's not a conflict there but there's still this new issue of food being offered to idols and what do they do about that so if I eat this food offered to idols is that a religious act for me is it an act of worship to a pagan god so that's that's the discussion that undergirds all these things and there's a certain kind of Christian who feels like if I eat that food

53:50

I'm defiled does that make sense yeah like I'm defiled like that's an act of false worship and like that's me serving you know this false god

53:58

I can't do it now the logic of the New Testament though is to say that the earth is the

54:03

Lord's and it's fullness thereof and like the idol is nothing right so eat whatever is set before you don't ask any questions for your conscience sake you know you don't have to worry about that kind of thing you can go to the meat market and just because they're selling meat at a discounted price that's been offered to an idol you don't have to worry about it like you don't have to worry about it because like like every all the food is

54:24

God's food these idols these false gods they don't actually exist and so all you have to do is just don't worry about it just eat whatever they give you buy whatever you want to buy at the meat market don't even ask questions like so you don't even have to think about it right because it all belongs to God so like that's the issue that undergirds this kind of discussion is the issue of false worship and so you have individuals who are coming along and the weaker brother thinks like if I eat this that's me serving a false god and they have to realize you don't have to worry about that right like so you don't have to you know but then if they tell you like this has been like you know so offered to a false god are you gonna eat it because because that means you're gonna serve them right then you're allowed to say well no

55:05

I'm not gonna eat it because my religious devotion to God comes first and if you think this is me worshiping this

55:11

God I'm not gonna do it because I don't want you to think that I care more about you than I care about God does that make sense yeah so basically like you're free to eat the meat right right just in a vacuum but then but then you do need to consider like hey how it how it is this going to lead other people my brothers and sisters into into sin just just because they don't have the same you know understanding about all of that like they're just they're new in the faith or whatever you know whatever it is this could lead them into sin themselves and so for for that considering that I'm gonna give this up even though otherwise

55:56

I would be free to do it right yeah basically so I mean your primary concern at that point is is not the lawfulness of eating it yourself like your primary concern at that point is just to say like my allegiance is totally to God like there's nothing objectively wrong with eating this food off of dietals but if it's gonna lead someone to sin

56:15

I need to not do it in that way and so I do want to be concerned about my witness that's the kind of discussion we're having at that point you're not talking about people people who like just some new category of you know self -centered narcissistic you know

56:28

Christians coming along with their you know new dietary food laws that they've come up with or you know their fad diets they've come up with or you know all these things like that's we're just talking about apples and so how does that relate to I'm I'm looking at the passage here and you know and like in Roman let's see this is yeah

56:48

Romans 14 verse 5 you know Paul is saying one person considers one day more sacred than another another considers every day alike each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind whoever regards one day as special does so to the

57:03

Lord whoever eats meat does so to the Lord for they give thanks to God and and whoever abstains does so to the

57:11

Lord and gifts thanks to God for none of us lives for ourselves alone and none of us dies for ourselves alone if we live we live for the

57:19

Lord if we die we die for the Lord so whether we live or die we belong to the Lord for this very reason

57:25

Christ died in return so return to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living and then in verse 10 he transitions to talking about judgment so verse 10 you then why do you judge your brother and sister why do you treat them with contempt for we will stand before God's judgment seat it is written as surely as I live says the

57:49

Lord every knee will bow before me every tongue will acknowledge God so then each of us will give an account of ourselves to God therefore this verse 13 therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another instead make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister in Christ so there it seems to be talking not so not necessarily so much about or maybe it is still the same thing but I wanted to ask you it seems like what's being communicated to us is going a bit beyond what is truly sin and what is truly not sin and it's going into like a more

58:32

I guess maybe almost like a wisdom category where you know hey one person thinks all days are alike right and another person thinks one day is more significant than all the other days and Paul's not necessarily weighing in on hey it's the guy who thinks it's one day or it's the guy that thinks it's every day he's more just saying those two people need to figure out how to live in harmony with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ so is that still is that in your mind still the whole like Paul is saying don't do something that's going to lead your brother to actual sin that's not or is that like a different is that like a slightly different category that's still it's pretty similar but then it's got some different aspects to it what's your thought there yeah

59:35

I mean so what's what's happening is this passage is climaxing to get to Romans 14 23 so whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because he because the eating is not from faith for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin so like the idea is and this is something we try to teach people and like in counseling in general is you don't want to violate your conscience because if you're not confident about it like you can do something that's objectively fine but if you feel like it's like an act that's violating

01:00:05

God's Word then you shouldn't do it so like just to give you an example of something like this like if you have a person who really believes it's sinful to drink alcohol for instance like it's not objectively sinful to drink alcohol the

01:00:19

Bible says don't be drunk with wine but be filled with spirit but if you have a teetotaler you have a person who feels like it's objectively sinful to do it if they were to go ahead and do it right if you were to go ahead and drink the alcohol even though you feel like it's sin what's happening is you sinned but in the act of doing it and the reason why you sin in the act of doing it even though it's not objectively wrong is because like your motive is off does that make sense yeah you're not you're not motivated by faith right you're not motivated by faith so that was an act of rebellion so your conscience is telling you don't do that and you're willing to lay it aside you know because of pressure or whatever else like so what's happening is you have like an act that's not objectively wrong but you have a heart that's wrong does that make sense so what you should never do like we don't we don't tell we tell people like don't violate your conscience right like you don't want to violate your conscience so if your conscience is going off that this is something that's like a problem then like you need to like like you don't just go ahead and do it because like that could be coming from a heart that's like has a lack of faith right like it can't so you don't want to have a defiant heart in that way so like when you're thinking about this discussion of eating meat you know one person may have a weak conscience like so we're talking about the idea of eating food offered to idols you have a person who has a weak conscience who feels like man if I eat that I'm like I'm setting aside my my um fundamental commitment to the

01:01:46

Lord here in doing this does that make sense in the same way that you like a person like if I you know drink if I if they went to bob jones university and they feel like if they drink they like you know you don't drink or smoke or chew or go with the girls who do and so uh but like if you feel like it's a sin to dance or a sin to um you know uh drink alcohol or it all that you know maybe smoke a cigar whatever if you feel like that's wrong like the issue is if you go ahead and do it anyways you're rebelling like in your heart you have a heart a rebellious kind of heart so as Christians we're not supposed to despise people like that or pass judgment on people like that like so you're not supposed to look down on that and just say oh you're so stupid you know whatever and like no

01:02:31

God's died for them that's their master you know they may be misinformed about the lawfulness of this certain thing but like that's between them and God and that that doesn't mean you don't try to inform their conscience right there's a place to try to inform their conscience but what you don't do is you don't pass judgment harshly on them and like because there's there's a there could be a rebellious um motive that you're running rough shot over if you just are basically telling them just man just do it you know it's not a big deal get over yourself you know does that make sense yeah basically it's better it's better to be the person who is you know convinced that one of these sort of tertiary issues is is possibly sinful when it's actually not but then you know their conscience tells them to stick to what they think the

01:03:22

Bible is saying rather than be the person who you know thinks that same way but then violates it and isn't sure what to even think about what they've just done right that's right yeah so what what so basically you just what you're wanting to do with those kind of scenarios is you're not just wanting to thoughtlessly encourage people to do something that feels fundamentally rebellious to them um and you know this is a but I mean what you want to do is patiently try to inform their conscience so their conscience doesn't go off so like our conscience is not a perfect you know warning system it's a warning system that we have it's not a perfect warning system but then when you sear it it stops working anymore yeah so like that's the problem so the more that you just ignore it it'll stop working so you don't want to teach people to do that what you want to do is just slowly patiently try to reason with them about um those sorts of things but the the issue that's at you know live right there is like this is an issue of false worship in their mind they feel like an eating food offered idols they're going to be participating in false worship and and so in that way they'd rather just only eat vegetables and so this has nothing to do with like modern vegetarianism or anything else it's about like that's about their fundamental commitment to God that's being violated not just some kind of you know pagan choice that they're making that's trying to save the animals save the animals standing against everything the

01:04:51

Bible is clearly saying you know about his purpose in that way but you know so like just apples and oranges different discussion basically okay um but then yeah so so it's it's basically just a total like those verses aren't aren't like the proof text for vegetarian lifestyle is what you're saying oh no no

01:05:12

I mean like you know there's nothing more pagan than the idea that you know animals are somehow have some kind of personhood you know

01:05:21

I I think I watched avatar or something when it came out and there's that scene where the animal dies and you know like the lady's having some sort of religious moment of you know but with the you know the animal dying on the ground and yeah

01:05:33

I mean this this is just paganism that's coming out and you know God has given humanity like food to eat and and so you know you have to be people who are speaking against that kind of thing okay yeah well

01:05:46

I think that's a a pretty good place to wrap up and and honestly hopefully the thing that I that I hope people take away the most from this is um first just this idea that we really do have to be a lot more hospitable than we actually are with each other especially as Christians and you know the

01:06:06

Bible the Bible says that the rest of the world will will know that we belong to Christ by the way that we love one another and I think this is just a glaring example of that if we follow through with um you know with a lot of the one another commands if if we're involved in one another's lives and and are loving one another inviting them over to our homes going other to going over to other people's homes providing meals uh in times of need because that just doesn't uh it seems like more and more in our society that's that's kind of fading away and so hopefully people when they um when they listen to this episode one of the things they're really convicted about is hey

01:06:49

I'm not involved enough in the lives of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ um and I think the other the other thing that personally

01:06:58

I'm wanting people to hear through all of this is I think we we really have gotten to a very scary place with a lot of these diets uh and a lot of these these um you know intolerances as it comes to food or however you know allergies however it is obviously there's real ones that that are very life -threatening like we said but then

01:07:19

I don't know that those are um I don't know that I think those are probably relatively rare compared to the amount of people who say they've got some kind of you know gluten thing or lactose intolerant thing or um whatever and and so uh personally for me

01:07:39

I'm hoping that people hear this and and they say to themselves you know I need to be the kind of person who who desires more than anything to honor the people in my life who want to serve me by making me a meal by giving me you know free food um

01:07:54

I want to show them respect and honor and by doing that I know what I'm doing is ultimately

01:08:00

I'm honoring the Lord right because because they're just trying to love me they're trying to um they're trying to follow in Christ's example right and so I don't want to hinder that and I want to be thankful for what they've done for me just like just like Jesus was thankful to you know

01:08:19

God the Father I mean he you know he um when he when he's feeding the five thousand you know what does he do he he gives thanks to the

01:08:27

Father for providing the meal uh he blesses it and then he hands it out to everyone and so in the same way we should be thankful uh towards other people who are providing a meal for us knowing that our our

01:08:39

Father in Heaven ultimately is the one who's feeding us and so if we're not thankful to them then we're certainly not going to be thankful uh to God for his provision and and that goes along with all of the you know the disrespect that you're showing and and ultimately our culture has sort of become uh pretty numb to socially overall but uh anyways with all of that being said uh we want to thank you guys for listening to this episode for taking the time to support us and and hopefully you've heard some things that have been challenging for you that have been uh possibly you know really convicting for you um and that's always our prayer with these types of things is that we're helping equip you guys uh for the works of ministry because that's the whole goal of this podcast but we thank you again we thank you guys and we look forward to having you on the next one.

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This has been another episode of Bible Bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion. We thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible Bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media.

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Please reach out to us with your questions, pushback, and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com

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and consider supporting us through Patreon. If you would like to be Bible Bashed personally, then please know that we also offer free biblical counseling which you can take advantage of by emailing us.

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Now, go boldly and obey God's commandments and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.