Did Jesus nurse from Mary’s breast and learn to trust? Did He then go through a soft food stage because He had no teeth to chew food? Did He eat soft ripe fruit before chewing on His first steak? Maybe Mary chewed some steak for Him or cut it up for Him to introduce meat into His diet. He would have learned not to trust her if she gave Him meat that He would choke on. Or maybe He never ate anything but plants all His life, yet none of the gospel writers thought it worth mentioning. I doubt that anyone who would choke on meat is choosing to read this article. If you are freely facing your fears (founded or unfounded) then may your courage grow along with your true beliefs.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3

CLV ¹ And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshy, as to minors in Christ.” ² Milk I give you to drink, not solid food, for not as yet were you able. Nay, still, not even now are you able, ³ for you are still fleshly. For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man (flesh and blood humanity)? ⁴ For whenever anyone may be saying, “I, indeed, am of Paul, yet another, “I, of Apollos, will he not be fleshly?

The Corinthians are well known for their immaturity. They were divided over their choice of commentators on God’s Word rather than united in God’s Word itself. Adam and Eve followed the advice of a misleading commentator rather than the Word of God itself. They became divided defenders of their own faulty awareness. It is the characteristic of immature Christians to separate over their professed loyalties rather than chew on the meat of the Word of God.

1 Corinthians 1:12

CLV ¹² Now I am saying this, that each of you is saying, “I, indeed, am of Paul, yet “I of Apollos, yet “I of Cephas, yet “I of Christ.”

Paul didn’t just call the Corinthians naked fruit eaters, like Adam and Eve who were still in their immature stage. He calls them babies who can’t chew on anything solid yet. They are still nursing infants. Someone else had to chew all the food for them and turn it into milk. That is why they were claiming loyalty to commentators rather than actually growing in God’s word. They couldn’t chew it for themselves. Being worldly, they were stuck in their infantile concrete stage of development and could not think spiritually, but they surely realized they weren’t really babies drinking milk again. Paul couldn’t give them spiritual meat. He had to baby them with spiritual milk. Paul himself was a commentator, but like Jesus Himself Paul was Holy Spirit led, not worldly led by flesh and blood. His wisdom came down from above. Yet even some of the Hebrews who first received the Holy Spirit were still in need of milk.

Hebrews 5:12-14

ECB ¹²
BECOMING DOCTORS
For at the time you are indebted to be doctors, you again need someone to doctrinate you the beginning elements of the oracles of Elohim; and become such as have need of milk and not of solid nourishment. ¹³ For everyone who partakes of milk is untested in the word of justness – he is a babe: ¹⁴ and solid nourishment is for the completed/shalamed – who through habit exercised their perceptions to discern both good and evil.

Obviously Adam and Eve were not “shalamed” yet since they fell for the advice of a serpent over God’s words of warning. A naked woman was tempted and deceived by a talking snake to eat from the one forbidden fruit tree. The naked man knowingly followed her. They were both in the immature stage of naked fruit eaters unable to discern good from evil on their own. But Adam wasn’t decieved. He did know better, even though neither of them realized they needed clothing yet. Satan was literaturely a snake in the garden. Paul was literaturely sending bottles of milk to the Corinthian church to try to get them to grow past babyhood in their discernment?

Genesis 9:3

MLV ³ Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. As the green herb, I have given you all.

It doesn’t say, “Now I give you meat to eat since creation has become fallen enough for you to enjoy eating animals.” Eating meat isn’t presented as a progressive curse. The Bible speaks of meat as in the human food category along with vegetables and fruit. Fruit isn’t even mentioned here. And both vegetables and animals are given in past tense. The Bible actually presents eating meat as a sign of godly maturity and realization, not fallenness or something to be ashamed of. Meat is for the strong who have their eyes opened in the faith. It is not a curse due to disobedience.

Romans 14:1-2

LITV ¹ And receive the one who is weak in the faith, not to judgments of your thoughts. ² One indeed believes to eat all things, but being weak, another one eats vegetables.

It is the one who is weak in his beliefs who remains stuck on eating certain foods and keeping certain days for their own moral reasons. We are not to knowingly offend the weak one by pushing meat onto his plate. That won’t inspire his trust. It may even cause him to choke and wound his unknowing conscious. A wounded weak conscious may stir up fear or anger rather than trust.

Trust, faith and belief are the same Greek word. The weak one must deal with his own conscious awareness of what he believes, at his own pace. His false belief that certain days must still be kept or certain foods are still unclean can’t be corrected by force. Babies just don’t have the teeth to eat steak. Paul said he wanted to tell the Corinthians more, but he couldn’t because they weren’t ready for it, even though they should be by now.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

YLT ¹ And the Spirit expressly speaketh, that in latter times shall certain fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, ² in hypocrisy speaking lies, being seared in their own conscience, ³ forbidding to marry—to abstain from meats that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those believing and acknowledging the truth, ⁴ because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, with thanksgiving being received, ⁵ for it is sanctified through the word of God and intercession.

In the transition from the old to the new covenant a reversal seems to take place. The seducing spirits were teaching more restrictions, rather than crossing the line by doing something God said not to do. It was the faithful ones who were acknowledging the truth of less restrictions. The requirement to keep the typical feast days and the dietary laws were all going away, but some were actually adding to them. The intrinsically moral laws of God’s character remained, even as the symbolic types were being fulfilled and put to rest.

Daniel 1:12-15

YLT ¹² `Try, I pray thee, thy servants, ten days; and they give to us of the vegetables, and we eat, and water, and we drink; ¹³ and our appearance is seen before thee, and the appearance of the lads who are eating the king’s portion of food, and as thou seest—deal with thy servants.’ ¹⁴ And he hearkeneth to them, to this word, and trieth them ten days: ¹⁵ and at the end of ten days their appearance hath appeared better and fatter in flesh then any of the lads who are eating the king’s portion of food.

I suppose some well intentioned vegetarians may claim this scenario in their effort make new converts. Daniel was somehow offended by the pagan king’s food and asked to be exempt. It was a moral high ground for Daniel to take at the time. It was of course way before the first century when God declared all foods clean. Miraculously, God’s faithful people got fatter and healthier on vegetables and water.

Beliefs still matter, even though God’s people are no longer in the old covenant age under any dietary laws. But even while the old covenant remained, meat offered to an idol was not actually unclean in itself. It was unclean to the one who lacked knowledge of good and evil. Paul said he himself would eat no flesh “to the age” if it caused his brother to stumble. The context of his brother stumbling is by seeing someone eating meat in an idol’s temple. Eateries took advantage of animal sacrifices back then. Places to eat weren’t as plentiful as today. Sometimes only non-kosher food was available. After AD 70, the transition from the old to the new was over. People had to deal with the cessation of animal sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem, which ended the dietary laws completely.

1 Corinthians 8:4-14

YLT ⁴ Concerning the eating then of the things sacrificed to idols, we have known that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God except one; ⁵ for even if there are those called gods, whether in heaven, whether upon earth—as there are gods many and lords many— ⁶ yet to us is one God, the Father, of whom are the all things, and we to Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are the all things, and we through Him; ⁷ but not in all men is the knowledge, and certain with conscience of the idol, till now, as a thing sacrificed to an idol do eat it, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸ But victuals do not commend us to God, for neither if we may eat are we in advance; nor if we may not eat, are we behind; ⁹ but see, lest this privilege of yours may become a stumbling-block to the infirm, ¹⁰ for if any one may see thee that hast knowledge in an idol’s temple reclining at meat—shall not his conscience—he being infirm—be emboldened to eat the things sacrificed to idols, ¹¹ and the brother who is infirm shall perish by thy knowledge, because of whom Christ died? ¹² and thus sinning in regard to the brethren, and smiting their weak conscience—in regard to Christ ye sin; ¹³ wherefore, if victuals cause my brother to stumble, I may eat no flesh—to the age—that my brother I may not cause to stumble.

Would you be willing to eat no flesh from a pagan sacrifice until the old covenant age ends, even if there is no other food available? I think Paul was saying that he would be willing to eat no meat sacrificed to an idol until the old covenant ended and the new covenant completely took it’s place.

Hebrews 8:13

CLV ¹³ In saying “new, He has made the former old. Now that which is growing old and decrepit is near its disappearance.”

The “near it’s disappearance” old covenant was 2000 + years ago. The Hebrews addressed in the above verse completed their move into their new covenant.