Posted by BE on 12/30/2001, 4:48 pm
Message modified by board administrator 4/16/2006, 6:47 am

The taste issue Posted by Bill Engle on 11/13/2001, 5:22 pm , in reply to "Mushrooms unclean?" One important point we always need to keep in mind when we’re interpreting clean and unclean foods is that it was never a matter of how things taste. It never said, “If it tasteth fowl, thou shalt know that it is unclean,” or “If it tasteth good, thou shalt know it is clean.” Besides the fact that spices and flavorings can be used to change the tastes of foods to such a great extent, human taste is such a variable, nebulous thing that it can never be depended on to be used for determining absolutes in the will of God. Even DB made a minor error with that once or twice, I think. In the sermon series on meats that I took with me, at one point when he was mentioning how locusts were listed as clean and could be consumed by the Israelites, he said something to the effect of, “They would never have WANTED to eat them except when the locusts ate all their crops and their crops were inside them and they didn’t have anything else to eat.” That was an assumption on his part, because in the culture he grew up in, no one ate any kind of insects. Maybe the Israelites didn’t like locusts and never would have wanted to eat them or maybe they did. Do we know? (There’s one case though: we do know that John the Baptist ate locusts.) One of the mistakes I saw that DB used to make was that he often used to assume many things in ancient Israel were the same as in the Anglo-Saxon culture he grew up in. Sure, he knew some things were very different, but he often assumed many things were the same that sometimes were not. I remember a sermon from about 1975 where he was reading the part about the Hebrews coming up from Egypt in the desert and lamenting how they didn’t have all the foods to eat that they had had in Egypt (a type of us coming out of the world and lamenting the loss of things we had in the world). When it got to leeks and garlics (two foods he can’t stand) he said something to the effect that the only reason they ate those two (the two he didn’t happen to like) was because they had been living in Egypt for so long. He then said something about missionaries going to some foreign lands and after a while they develop a taste for “all that hot food.” (Scowl and negative tone of voice—watch out, red flag! Sign to some Chapelites to decide what they don’t like.) But it was an assumption on his part, that the Hebrews only began eating them due to the bad influence of Egypt, because in the traditional Anglo-Saxon culture in which he grew up, hot foods were not eaten. So he assumed that God’s people in Bible times wouldn't have either, until they were in Egypt. But there is nothing in that text that says anything to that effect, or that differentiates those two (leeks and garlics) in any way from all the rest of the vegetables that were listed there. The only assumption for us to make is that the Hebrews considered them as normal as all the others. A few years later in another sermon, I remember him reading the same passage again, and when he came to leeks and garlics, he stopped, and with a sighing look on his face he looked up and said, “Some of you can relate to that—I can’t.” And following that, someone in the dorm I was in, once when we were sitting around the table having tacos with hot sauce, commented something to the effect of, “I don’t like those kinds of things. Us people of the higher calling don’t like the things Don Barnett doesn’t like....” (I was surprised to learn that that person isn't attending COA now.) ---------- the subject Posted by lanny on 11/13/2001, 7:17 pm , in reply to "Thanks for the input, Lanny" While it may come up, it is not very high on the priority list of important things. I doubt it would cause much of a problem. People don't seem to make any doctrine much of an issue there. That can have some positive effects. On the other hand many do not have much teaching anyway so they aren't very set in their views. lanny ---------- Now stop, you are making me hungry! Posted by BambiLover on 11/14/2001, 6:13 am , in reply to "...And Gordy" When's the BBQ? I just love venison. -------- Re: When’s the BBQ? ...Too late Posted by Bill Engle on 11/15/2001, 11:30 am , in reply to "Now stop, you are making me hungry!" Sorry to disrupt your space-time continuum, but if you’ll remember, our time traveler went back to Adam and Eve’s day. It took place thousands of years ago. ---------- Eh, you reminded me of my little nephew Posted by Buck Gobblehart on 11/14/2001, 3:46 pm , in reply to "Now stop, you are making me hungry!" Once when he was about three or four, my sister and brother-in-law served him some venison to eat, and when they told him what it was, he started crying and said, "No, I don't WANNA eat Bambi's mother!" None of us were ever vegetarians, but in later years as he continued, they decided if he wants to be vegetarian, that's all right, then they're not going to force him to eat meat. But I think they figured out it was just that he wanted to get out of eating some kinds that he didn't like the taste of. (Little conniver.) --------- Deerburgers (got treffed instead) Posted by I.H. Schuhmoinky on 11/15/2001, 7:43 am , in reply to "Eh, you reminded me of my little nephew" Once I went camping with some friends and one of them had some venison he was barbecuing in the form of hamburger patties, and he was offering them to the people to put in their hamburgers. I said, "Dear meat? Sure, I'll eat that." I put some on my hamburger with cheese and condiments, and ate it. After I was finished, he innocently told me, "Deer meat is crumbly when you have it ground up, so I hold the patties together by taking ground pork and mixing it in with them." (Oh, thanks for telling me before I ate it.) ---------- Crustaceous surprise in my chicken Posted by I. H. Schuhmcrabby on 11/16/2001, 9:10 am , in reply to "Deerburgers (got treffed instead)" A few years ago when my sister and her husband were trying to convert me to Amway, they took me to an Amway dinner in a convention room at a hotel -- and there were vegetarian dinners available to the people who wanted them, but I figured since the meat meal was chicken, I could have that. Turned out the chicken had been cooked with some shredded-up crab stuffed inside it, and somehow they didn't mention that to me until just after I had finished eating the whole thing. Bleh! --------- Posted by Crab Leg Sucker on 11/16/2001, 9:18 pm , in reply to "Crustaceous surprise in my chicken" Sorry, on occasion I enjoy those crusty little guys. Wonder if it'll keep me from the kingdom of heaven? Shrimp, too. Gumbo shrimp, shrimp creole, lemon pepper shrimp, popcorn shrimp..... Catfish is where I draw a line. I mean, they don't call them bottom dwellers for nothing.