In oriental culture, bloods are eaten in their precipitate state. I
lovED eating blood too at one time, one too many times. And I WAS already Christian. I WAS
using ICorinthians chapter 8 as my alibi.
However, eating blood is not a matter of who has stronger conscience, but a matter of theology.
Drinking/Eating Blood, in the old testament, is forbidden.
In
the new testament, Jesus said: John 6:53 Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye
have no life in you. (我實實在在的告訴你們，你們若不吃人子的肉，不喝人子的血，就沒有生命在你們裡面。)
And
that in Acts 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to
lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things...
Since this has been of the Holy Spirit, why would I keep eating blood?
And
since I know that blood is life, and the real life for men is Jesus
Christ, thus His blood, the blood he shed on the cross, how can I think
of His blood sacrifice while eating others' blood? Unless I do not
think of such. But, all things I do, I do to the glory of God,
ICorinthians 10:31. So I must be thinking something else to not have
known this; how can I think of something else if I'm a child of God? I
must seek His countenance always.
However, there are times blood
cannot be avoided in food, such as blood in chicken bones, beef soups,
etc. And there are times where blood is used for medical purposes.
Abstaining from blood in this case would be obtuse(Mat 15:17, 1Cor
8:8). But this is different from deliberately eating blood piece by
piece when you got other choices.
Now,
eating blood and food
sacrificed to idols are not quite the same things. The
Israelites were very easily influenced by idols worshipping neighbors
before their exile to Babylon. One is to be holy, idol worshipping
is obviously not right in the sight of God, and therefore, it is
crucial that their minds were not corrupted and remain holy to God.
Only after their Babylon Exile, was it more clear that all idols are
nothing compared to God. So what 1Corinthians Chapter 8 was saying is
that there are still some, because being used to idols worshipping,
they still believed that those idols are great enough to have some
authority over their food, and therefore they fear that they would
offend the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob.
Hence
it is clear now that these two statements should make sense: We DO EAT
because those sacrificed to idols are just food, and has nothing to do
with the idols for the idols are nothing compared to God. We DO NOT EAT them only because it has something to do
with the idols. Then, it is clear that we do all these, in honor of God.
But
eating blood has nothing to do with idols WHATSOEVER. So it is a rather
different case. Acts 15's ORIGINAL TEXT did not specifically say Not to
EAT food sacrificed to Idols. But rather, implying keeping away from
any thing that are of the idols, worshipping idols, sacrificing to
idols, pollution of idolatry, even to the extend of admiring fantasy
life and worldly riches. However, it did mention about abstaining from
blood, and strangled things. The latter, which I just learned last Sunday, is
related to blood being trapped in a strangled animal.
So now it
should be clear to understand these 2 statements: We DO NOT EAT BLOOD because it is for remembrance of
the blood Christ has shed, the holy communion we have been partaking,
and that we want the eternal life from Christ, not from beasts. We CAN EAT BLOOD because
we have NO CHOICE AND it does not defile us. Therefore, such restriction, I do not believe that it should be considered absolute.
For me, not only abstaining from eating of blood keeps me focus on Christ, it
will also be a great testimony of Christ to gentiles and new christians
alike.
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