Hospes:
I don’t see the link between “God's greatest gifts to mankind [being] the porterhouse steak” and the OT law to not consume blood. If the cow is slaughtered in a way that drains the blood, you can consume a porterhouse steak without violating the OT prohibition on consuming blood. If, in contrast, the cow is strangled or otherwise killed in a way that does not drain the blood, then the porterhouse steak (and other cuts) would be prohibited.
Luminous_Rose:
I do not know what you mean by “cook the blood into it/out of it.” In most western countries, including the US, animals are slaughtered in a way that drains the blood from the meat before it reaches you. See this article
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-the-blood-in-steak_n_57fc0219e4b0e655eab6eb36:
“As it turns out, that “blood” in your steak isn’t blood at all.
“It’s myoglobin, the protein that delivers oxygen to an animal’s muscles. This protein turns red when meat is cut, or exposed to air. Heating the protein turns it a darker color. Rare meat isn’t “bloody,” it is just cooked to a lower temperature.”
Who Me:
You wrote, “If you have ever bought a piece of beef you will have seen that blood is in the meat.” Please see my comment to Luminous_Rose above. What you see in your meat is not blood. It is myoglobin.
“If you eat meat, no matter how it is slaughtered you will be eating meat with some good in it.”
I don’t know what you mean by “some good in it.” If you mean blood, then I disagree.
Slaughterhouses in the United States drain blood by hanging animals upside-down and then slitting their throats to allow all of the blood to drain. The process begins with stunning the animal to make the slaughter as painless as possible and then suspending it by a hind limb. They are then typically bled by the insertion of a knife into the thoracic cavity and severance of the carotid artery and jugular vein to allow for the maximum amount of blood removal from the body.
You wrote, “Are Christians required to refrain from eating blood? No. Ritual and ceremonies play no part in our salvation.”
This contradicts Acts 15:20, which requires abstaining “from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.”
JLB:
I am extraordinarily confused. I previously understood that Christians are no longer bound by the Old Testament law. Jesus declared that He was the fulfillment of the law: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Mat 5:17). He was sent by God to fulfill the law by acting as a sacrifice to atone for sin once and for all. In this light, the Apostle Paul wrote that “when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:5-6). Deliverance from the law was achieved by Jesus, who saved us from the bondage of the law, which “was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Gal 3:24-25). I therefore understood that Christians were released from the Old Testament law.
However, Acts 15:28-29 appears to contradict this. It states “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.”
It therefore imposes a set of requirements on Christians and prohibits:
- things offered to idols;
- blood;
- things strangled; and
- sexual immorality.
So it seems we are freed from the law, except for these four specific laws (things offered to idols, blood, things strangled and sexual immorality, according to the list provided by Luke in Acts.
However, the list of prohibitions provided by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is longer:
Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
The list of prohibitions provided by Paul in Gal 5:19-21 is still longer:
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
I'm not sure how to reconcile this.
