Should Christians eat pork? Do Christians have to follow Old Testament dietary laws?
There are a lot of Christians who will point to some references in the Old Testament and claim that Christians should not eat pork under any circumstances. The truth is, however, that this view comes from a lack of full context—and a proper reading of the Bible provides a very clear answer to this question.
I’ll break it down for you in three steps: What did God say about this, in both the Old and New Testaments? What did Jesus say about it? And what did the apostle Paul say about it?
Should Christians eat pork? What God the Father says
The source of the idea that Christians shouldn’t eat pork comes from the book of Leviticus, where the ceremonial law is laid out in great detail. Specifically, in Leviticus 11 God tells Moses and Aaron:
“Of all the land animals, these are the ones you may use for food. You may eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud. You may not, however, eat the following animals that have split hooves or that chew the cud, but not both. … The pig has evenly split hooves but does not chew the cud, so it is unclean. You may not eat the meat of these animals or even tough their carcasses. They are ceremonially unclean for you.”
That might seem pretty clear, but the problem with taking that passage and applying it to Christians is that it’s made clear in this and other parts of the Bible that the ceremonial law was meant specifically for the nation of Israel, for the purpose of keeping them separate and consecrated from the other nations that they lived among and around.
If you’re not Jewish, that doesn’t apply. Additionally, even if you were Jewish in nationality, as Christians we are not under the Old Testament law—we’re in Christ, who has fulfilled the law, so these dietary restrictions don’t apply to us. I have an entire video on this concept that goes into much more detail.
God also addressed this issue of dietary restrictions in the New Testament. In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter had an encounter with God during which he saw a vision that changed his entire perspective—and ours—on dietary law.
The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.” But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.
After that encounter, Peter went on to have a meeting with a Roman soldier named Cornelius, which led to the gospel being opened up to Gentiles.
What did Jesus say?
Jesus Christ spoke about the issue of food and the spiritual impact it has on a person in Mark 7.
“Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
It doesn’t get any plainer than that: All foods are clean. What goes into your body, pork included, does not defile you.
What did Paul say?
The Apostle Paul actually had to oppose another apostle, Peter, for being hypocritical about whether or not Christians needed to follow Jewish laws. Peter was acting one way around Jews, and another way around Gentiles—so Paul called him out. In Galatians 2:
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
Peter was fine discarding the Jewish law when he was only around Gentiles. But when the Jews came around, he switched up and started following the Jewish law again, which was misleading and damaging to the Gentiles who he had influence over. But the ultimate conclusion is that neither Peter, the Jew, nor Paul, nor the Gentiles need to follow Jewish law for salvation or to be right with God.
To sum this all up in a clear simple answer: Christians are not more or less spiritual based on whether they choose to eat or not eat pork or any other food. It does not have any spiritual value.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t choose to abstain from certain types of food—you absolutely can. And there are at least three reasons you might do so: If your conscience convicts you (Romans 14:1-3), if you have dietary or health issues, or if your eating or drinking something might cause someone else to stumble.
For more helpful biblical Christian content from Allen Parr, visit his YouTube channel The BEAT or browse other topics on the Let’s Equip blog!