James Malm is on a roll today! Your homes are polluted with pigs blood in your plywood floors and carpets! Who knew!
Even
A Malmite writes to James:
Good post. I think that the latter half of Leviticus 11 has been ignored for a long time, and it is proof that we should not be visiting ANY restaurant that serves unclean food at all — verse 35 proves that, and it was nice to see you place extra emphasis on that verse.
Also, thanks for the extra emphasis on touching unclean skins — consider that many shoes have pigskin leather, kangaroo leather sometimes, and more, so it is more than just fur to watch out for.
I don’t know whether the idea of clean/unclean being about “health” came from the Jews or from the COGs, but health is mentioned NOWHERE in Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. Only holiness is mentioned, and TWICE in Leviticus 11:44-45. These are instructions that have to do with us being SEPARATE from the world, HOLY, and these instructions also have to do with NOT MIXING, which is a central theme throughout the vast majority of the Law, such as not mixing cloth, seed, animals, clean and unclean, and so on.
So many people don’t understand the concept of not mixing… entertainment with a “mix” of good and bad is a real prime example of that.
The Chief Pharisee responds:
Our world is totally unclean and we must do the best we can. Our homes are polluted by the plywood and carpets etc which are put together with glue made from proteins in pig’s blood, our markets use the same utensils to cut all types of meats. And most restaurants are unclean.
All we can do is to do the best we can, and to focus on avoiding the spiritual uncleanness of association with sin, at least as much as we are concerned about physical uncleanness.
If we are careful to avoid pork, and we vicariously indulge in the sins of others [which is what spiritual uncleanness is about]; we are still unclean.
That is part of the object lesson: as James wrote James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
2 comments:
That's the reason I hate plywood!
(So much pig, so little Malm.)
Hey, James: How long will I be unclean if a pork-eating gentile blows a silent but deadly one in the elevator and I accidentally whiff it? Would I be required to immediately change my clothes and take a bath according to Pharisaic etiquette?
Also, is it wrong to clean my lawn of the droppings from my neighbors' unclean pets? It reminds me of Nimrod and Semiramis when dogs leave their feces in the shape of an X or T, and it's especially annoying if it happens on the sabbath!
BB
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