The New Testament in Its Own World

“Whether you eat pork or not is a matter of personal conscience. What a pastor eats has nothing to do with leading worship and preaching the word.”

The saying sounds reasonable, yet it rests on a hidden assumption. It takes the church as it looks now, long after the temple fell and the church and the synagogue parted, and lays that picture over the time when the New Testament was written. So before we speak about food, we need to set the New Testament back in its own world.

The Temple Was Still Standing

Yeshua spoke of the temple’s destruction as something still to come:

Matthew 24:1-2 Yeshua came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. And Yeshua said to them: "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down."

Yet no book of the New Testament records that it had happened. Not one of them reports that the temple fell as He had foretold. Hebrews, instead, speaks of the temple service as something going on at the time of writing:

Hebrews 8:4 Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer doron δῶρον do'-ron(offerings, gifts) according to the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law).

Hebrews 9:8-9 By this the hagio(holy) pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) was indicating that the way into the holy places was not yet opened as long as the first tent was still standing — this is a parable for the present kairos καιρός kahee-ros'(appointed-time), in which doron(offerings, gifts) and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper in terms of conscience,

Hebrews 10:11 And every priest stands daily, ministering and offering the same sacrifices repeatedly — sacrifices that can never take away sins.

“There are priests who offer.” “As long as the first tent was still standing.” “A parable for the present kairos(appointed-time), in which doron(offerings, gifts) and sacrifices are offered.” “Every priest stands daily.” In the Greek, each of these speaks of something going on at the time of writing. The writer is looking at a temple still in service.

The book of Acts ends with Paul alive and teaching in Rome:

Acts 28:30-31 And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Yeshua Messiah with all parresia(openness, boldness), unhindered.

Acts says nothing about the death of James in 62, nothing about Nero’s persecution in 64, nothing about Paul’s execution, and nothing about the fall of the temple in 70. Apart from Revelation, whose date is debated, the New Testament was written in a world where the temple stood, where priests offered sacrifices every day, and where Moses was read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath.

If we move those writings into the world of the second or third century and read them there, we start hearing in the text things that were never there.

Who Held the Holy Tasks

In that world, who read the Torah in the synagogue, who served in the temple, and who led the ekklesia ἐκκλησία ek-klay-see'-ah? The New Testament tells us.

Luke 4:16-17 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and entered the synagogue on the day of the sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23) according to His custom, and stood up to read. And the biblion βιβλίον bib-lee'-on(scroll) of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him, and He unrolled the biblion(scroll) and found the place where it was written:

Here is Yeshua, standing in the synagogue on the Sabbath, “according to His custom,” and receiving the scroll.

Acts 6:7 And the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God was growing and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was greatly multiplying, and a large group of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

“A large group of the priests,” men who worked in the temple, handled the sacrifices, and lived under strict rules of purity, were coming to faith.

Acts 10:14 But Peter said, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything koinos κοινός koy-nos'(common, worldly) or akathartos ἀκάθαρτος ak-ath'-ar-tos(impure, unclean)."

Years after the resurrection, the leading apostle tells the Lord in a vision that he has never eaten anything koinos or akathartos, common or unclean. Later he understood that the vision was about people, and that he must not call any person unclean (Acts 10:28). Nothing in the text says that Peter changed what he ate.

Acts 21:26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.

Paul purifies himself before he enters the temple.

Acts 24:14 But this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the nomos(law) and that is written in the Prophets;

Acts 25:8 while Paul said in his own defense, "I have committed no offense either against the nomos(law) of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar."

On trial, Paul says that he believes everything written in the Torah and the Prophets, and that he has committed no offense against the Torah or against the temple.

What Pork Meant

To understand what pork meant to the people of that world, we need to know a certain feast. Yeshua was in the temple for it:

John 10:22-23 At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem; it was winter, and Yeshua was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.

The Feast of Dedication is Hanukkah, and this is what it remembers.

In 167 BC a Greek king, Antiochus IV, who called himself Epiphanes, tried to wipe out the faith of Israel. According to the books of the Maccabees, he set up an idolatrous altar on God’s altar in the temple, ordered that swine be sacrificed, and dedicated the house to Olympian Zeus. Throughout the land his officers forced the people to eat pork. Mothers who had circumcised their sons were put to death along with their babies. An old scribe named Eleazar, ninety years of age, chose to be beaten to death rather than swallow swine’s flesh. A mother watched her seven sons tortured and killed, one after another, for the same refusal.

The people resisted with their lives. A war followed, and the temple was taken back, cleansed, and dedicated again. That is Hanukkah.

Consider what that history does to the meaning of pork. For a people whose forefathers had died rather than eat it, pork could never be a neutral choice on a menu. It would be the sign of forced surrender to a pagan empire and of the defiling of God’s house. And Yeshua stood in the temple at the very feast that remembered it.

Common Sense in That World

This, then, was simple common sense in the first century. No one who ate pork stood up in a synagogue to read the Torah. No one who ate pork served in the temple. No one who ate pork led an ekklesia in its holy work. In that world such a person was unthinkable. You will not find one in the New Testament, because there was no such person to find.

“What a pastor eats has nothing to do with leading worship and preaching the word” is not a sentence from the world of the New Testament. It comes from reading the New Testament as though it had been written later than it was.

But why should food have anything to do with holiness at all? For the answer we must go to the source, the book of Leviticus.