Principles of Healthful Living

Its been snowing and raining today in the Twin Cities. That made the drive home from work worrisome, but not terrible. The new tires held up well.

On an unrelated note, as with many things that Grandpa Alfson left us, is a strange story. Grandpa had a penchant for frugality - if something could be had for nothing, well, then get three! Such is the case with a series of booklets published by the Worldwide Church of God. These innocent-enough sounding booklets account for various of that church's then-peculiar doctrines- I'll get to that in a minute. Titles such as "The Plain Truth About Christmas ", World Peace: How It Will Come , The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, "What is Man?", The Seven Laws of Success, Who was Jesus, The Ten Commandments , and "Principles of Healthful Living."

These all sound of varying degrees of interest, so I gathered them up and scuttled them off to my apartment. Upon reading a few of these titles, I came to wonder what this Worldwide Church of God is? The teachings of not celebrating Christmas due to its pagan roots and the latest volume explaining how the New Testament did not change the law on food between what is clean and unclean food, seem curious to a mainstream protestant mindset. Further investigation of this group finds that there was a division of late, and that the WCG no longer holds some of these exceptional views. Rather, the current head's doctrinal changes to more mainstream views forced several spliter groups to form and that is where the above links will take you. Most of the texts can be found online.

The argument in "Principles of Healthful Living" challenges the view that Peter's vision where God instructed him to kill and eat the unclean animals was literal. Rather, this book maintains that this was a metaphor for the Gentiles as a people. Once they were unclean, but by the grace of Christ at Calvary, even non-Jews can be saved. While I adhere to the view of Gentiles being saved, I also have to balk at the notion of unclean animals not being fit for food. For Jesus himself stated that it is not what enters a man's mouth which makes him unclean, but that which leaves his mouth. (Mark 7:15).

Still, one has to consider the concept. The Israelites were prescribed a diet which did not include certain animals including swine and shellfish. The author here explains a variety of diseases which may come from these animals. Arguing against this point, I would say that the clean animals also pose similar but different health risks.

What can we get out of this? Bacon may be tasty, but it may not be good for you. Let's not throw out the book over the idea of unclean animals, when the admonishments for exercise and sufficient rest and sleep are sound advice.

More to come,
Matt