The Lord Gives the Israelites a Law of Health

Today I read Leviticus 11 where the Lord outlines what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten.  It is very specific and even has rules about if an unclean bird falls out of the sky, dead, and hits someone, what is to be done then.  It is interesting how specific it is.  But then again it had to be, there were very limited options for food preservation and the may, or may not have known best cooking practices when it came to certain types of meat.  Or perhaps there was just more types of sickness and parasites in those days, I'm not sure.

I do know however that God gave them very specific laws on what they could eat and what they could not eat.  And He expected them to keep the laws.  Now, God has said that not at anytime has He given us commandments there were temporal in nature but rather all commandments are spiritual.  It makes me wonder what the spiritual aspect of this law on what to eat and what not to eat is.  I would imagine that, obviously, keeping the commandments of God will qualify you for the Spirit to be with you, but apart from that, especially given the fact that we all eat these animals now, is there anything inherent about eating these types of animals that drives the spirit away?

I personally don't think so, but I could be wrong.  I think it had a lot to do with just following the commandments of God and doing what He asked of us.  It can sometimes be hard for us to follow the commandments, but in such cases, it is important to remember that God only gives us commandments because He wants us to be safe.  Every good earthly parent has given their children rules that don't make much sense to the children.  But if the child breaks the rule the will quickly find out in most cases why it was a bad idea to do the activity.  Touching a hot stove comes readily to mind.  The child does not understand the consequences of touching a hot stove, but the parent does, so a rule is created to protect the child.  The person may not understand the consequences of eating under cooked pork, but God does and so He creates a commandment to safeguard His children and protect them from physical ailment and potentially even death.

The thing I always bear in mind when a commandment doesn't make sense to me, is that God loves me and wants me to be protected.  He is not going to make a commandment willy nilly just to see me run around for His amusement.  Rather He wants to protect me as much as possible and so He creates commandments to keep me safe, even if I don't understand them or appreciate them.  I try and always remember that, especially when I can't understand the plan, which is a lot!  Until tomorrow.