January 9, 2023

Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. Without counsel, plans go awry, But in the multitude of counselors they are established. Proverbs 11:14 and 15:22

These two Proverbs presuppose Biblical counsel. As the Bible was written under the direction of the Holy Spirit, we know that the Holy Spirit Himself is the ultimate Counselor. Without His guidance, it is probable that Scripture—especially New Testament writings—will be wrongly interpreted. The New Testament is built upon the foundation of the Old Testament. A failure to establish each precept in one’s understanding, as it is initially presented, can easily result in misunderstanding statements in the New Testament. This is the devil’s specialty.

The disciple Peter, although considered uneducated, had a clear understanding regarding the distinction between “clean” and “unclean” animals. Two facets of application were foremost: the sacrificial system in God’s temple called for clean “spotless” animals, upholding the intended foreshadowing of Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God. The second foreshadowing in this practice is that of our bodies as God’s temple. The Hebrew people may or may not have understood this second facet of doctrine, yet they unquestionably grasped that they were never to consume unclean animals. This explains Peter’s vehement reaction in the vision of unclean animals in Acts 10, and he quoted himself just as adamantly in Acts 11:8. But I said, ‘Not so Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.’

This vision came three times in a row. Its purpose was to bring Peter face to face with the sin of his prejudice against Gentiles. This was the Lord’s way of helping him to overcome this character flaw that would severely cripple his witness. The beautiful lesson here is one that is too readily overlooked by modern Christians who are blinded by their appetite for unclean animals. But the voice answered me again from heaven, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” (v.9)

The great Deceiver would have us to believe this is a pronouncement that suddenly it is A-Okay to eat pork, shrimp, catfish, and a host of other popular scavenger animals. But this cleansing by God is referencing God’s power to save the Gentiles. This is clearly an Old Testament principle (see Isaiah 56:6-7), but one that had been deliberately overlooked by leadership among God’s people. They had even established their own “law” forbidding any and all interaction with non-Jews and referring to them in a cruelly derogatory way of calling them unclean animals:

Then [Peter] said to [the gathering of Gentiles], “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean (10:28b).    to be continued…