The Bible has shared a message of health for millennia. The ancients did not know the science behind it, but we do today. It can help you live a healthier life. Could the clean and unclean food laws in the Bible have a benefit today?
Today we are going to talk about, once again, how science has verified another aspect of the Bible and it goes back to WWII. Now, American naval aviators who were shot down over the ocean had no choice, but to capture and eat the food that they could catch hold of somehow in the ocean. The Navy said, “We need to be able to tell these men who are shot down, what foods are okay to eat and what foods are not okay.” So, what they did is they hired a Marine Biologist by the name of Bruce Halstead and he was to go out and look at the sea creatures and talk about specifically which ones were safe to eat and which ones were unhealthy and you just want to avoid. What he did is just what you’d imagine. They looked at these. They looked at the level of toxicity and different kinds of things in the animals. What they showed was, basically they made a manual. This manual had all kinds of... you can eat this, don’t eat that, avoid that, eat that, avoid this. Here’s the thing, if you are anything like me, you would look at the manual and it would be fascinating, and then if you jumped into the ocean and you found one of the creatures would you really remember, now come on, if you have a better memory, a photographic memory you could do that, but most of us would be scratching our heads and saying is this a good one or not. I don’t really know. Here’s the thing, so what he said was very fascinating. He said, “If you lose the manual, remember one thing: if it has fins and scales, you can eat it. If it doesn’t have fins and scales- such as crab, lobster, shrimp, oysters, clams- don’t eat it, because they have a high level of toxicity.” It is very interesting because do you know the Bible says the exact same thing thousands of years ago? Notice what it said in the book of Deuteronomy, “These you shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales you shall eat.” Deut 14:9 Now, in the Bible and for God’s people, He had said there was a distinction between healthy animals and unhealthy animals. He called them clean and unclean animals. These terms have become vogue today- “eat clean.” Well, in the Bible it talked about eating clean and clean animals were animals that had, specifically the ones that were in the ocean, were the ones that had fins and scales, meaning if it had fins, but no scales, it was unclean. If it had scales, but no fins it was unclean. It had to have fins and scales and modern science tells us the very same thing- that the animals that have both fins and scales have a lower level of toxicity than those that do not. That is very very interesting. Many Christians say, “Oh, that doesn’t matter, Jesus died on the cross.” The thing is science still shows that if you are going to eat animals, I choose not to, but if you are going to eat animals, you would be better off, the ones that live in the water, only eating those that have fins and scales. Friends, once again, Bible is right.
