The Doorpost: Dietary teaching can be spiritual issue (1 Timothy 4)
By Ray King · Jul 17, 2013
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:4-5
In the passage we looked at last week, God tells us that “the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). But in 1 Timothy 4, He tells us that diet can still be a spiritual issue. This passage says that dietary teaching can come from deceiving spirits and be the teaching of demons. It says people who follow these teachings have abandoned the faith. If it can be that serious, we need to be alert.
How can we tell when dietary advice is contrary to our Christian faith? First Timothy 4 tells us God created food to be received with thanksgiving. “Everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”
What are the good foods God created and gave to man? In Genesis 9:3, God tells Noah, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.” This was the food He provided for man in the post-flood world. There were no dietary restrictions other than not eating meat that had the lifeblood still in it (verse 4). God wouldn’t have done this if it was going to be bad for us.
God instituted some dietary laws for the children of Israel when He gave the Law to Moses. But when Jesus was on earth, He declared an end to these laws (Mark 7:19).
“Everything God created is good … “ When we are told that a food God created is not good, we probably are hearing a teaching that originated from a deceiving spirit. When it is suggested that God has told us we can do something, but He really knows it will harm us, that is the kind of teaching that comes from demons.
This doesn’t mean we must eat a lot of every food. There is a need for dietary restraint. There can be too much of a good thing. The Bible places gluttony in a class with drunkenness (Proverbs 23:21). There are also people who have allergies and must avoid certain foods, even though the foods themselves are good. It is also OK to have preferences in taste.
In addition, many of the foods available to us today have been refined or processed in a way that has removed or destroyed much of the nutrition God put there. When someone tells you that a food that God created is bad for you but that a product man has manufactured is good for you be suspicious.
Dietary advice keeps changing. The things “everyone knows” today frequently turn out to be false. How can we know which advice is true and which is false? The foundation for all truth is God’s Word.
“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”