1999 Issue 1
Are the Old Testament Dietary Laws Binding on the Christian Today? No.
Does the Bible Advise Christians Today to Use the Dietary Laws in Their Daily Diet? No.
Were the Dietary Laws Given for Hygienic & Nutritional Reasons? No.
For centuries Reformed Christians have not asked these questions because they knew the answer to them before they thought to ask them. Had they asked them they would have answered "No" to all three. Today some Christians have differing answers. To these questions some would answer "Yes" to all three, while others answer "No" to the first but "Yes" to the second and third. Today some Christians desiring to be healthier by eating nutritional foods and avoiding substances harmful to the body hold that the observation of dietary laws of the Old Testament will make one's diet more nutritional, and that God either commands or advises us to keep these dietary laws. While we recognize the importance of good nutrition, must we go along with this modern view toward the Old Testament dietary laws?
The strong and virtuous woman described here is a model for women to strive after and for men to look for. She is not man-made or self-made; rather she is most emphatically God-made - House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD, Proverbs 19:14.
Proverbs 31:10-31 presents the Bible's most complete and beautiful picture of what a good wife should be. She is capable, ambitious, a willing worker: she is kind, wise, trustworthy, cheerful, providing for her household and reaching beyond. She knows her worth. She uses to good purpose her intelligence, her physical strength, her God-fearing character. She makes life abundant for her husband, their children, and for the poor and needy beyond their family circle. A remarkable woman! - Larry Christenson, The Christian Family, p. 34.
The title of my lecture, "The Fossils Don't Speak!" is intended to evoke curiosity from those familiar with creationist literature. It is, of course, a re-working of tile title of a book written by one of our conference speakers, Dr. Duane Gish. The re-working is not intended to contradict the work of Dr. Gish and his colleagues at the Institute of Creation Research and other creationist organizations. Indeed, we would not have invited him to speak if we did not endorse his fine work.
Apart from the teaching of God's word as to God's end in the creation and perpetuation of man, there is no greater mystery than human life. Make pleasure, happiness, self-interest, personal aggrandizement, or present sublunary enjoyment the end of life, and man is an enigma, life a problem incapable of solution, the world a chaos of disordered, wild conflicting elements, and all our reasoning a hopeless paradox. Man is then an atom of an atom world, tossed to and fro by every wind, whirled round by ever eddy, borne along by every current, until he vanishes into the nothingness from which he inexplicably emerged. He is an effect causeless, a beginning without middle or end, a meteor flash brilliant with promised glory, and extinguished in the very effulgence of its course.
